Home / Poker News February 2013 / The Poker Grapevine - Alex Rodriguez's Poker Charity
The Poker Grapevine - Alex Rodriguez's Poker Charity
Posted by: Randy Williams - Wed, 2013-02-27 10:39
Baseball player Alex Rodriguez is known as quite a poker buff, and he has been involved in several poker related charity events over the years. In 2006, he hosted a charity
poker tournament which drew quite an illustrious crowd of celebrities indeed. Lenny Kravitz was among those who played together with actor Vin Diesel and Michael Jordan. Phil Hellmuth was invited to act as an MC and to provide tips for the players. The bottom line: the over 300 players took part in the event contributed more than $400,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of Miami, money which ended up in the coffers of Rodriguez's family charity, the A-Rod Family Foundation. As it is often the case with such charities however, almost none of the money found its way to its intended target. Rodriguez’s foundation only donated about 1% of it, including a $5,000 donation to the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund and a $90 one which ended up at a Little League team.
Not only has the destination of the rest of the money not been uncovered, Rodriguez’s foundation has since stopped fulfilling its fiscal obligations towards the state as well.
In other news: Zynga have lately been sidelined in the battle for
online poker market share in various jurisdictions where the game has been legalized world over. That doesn't mean however that the social gaming company is down for the count. According to CEO Mark Pincus, Zynga are looking to launch real money gambling games in the near future. Zynga's focus will not be on attracting the hard-core real money crowd, instead the company will try to expand the social aspect of gambling, giving the games an entirely new dimension, and going after the casual gamers in the process.
