An investment banker has created a petition on Change.org urging World Series of Poker officials to remove the rake on their $10,000 Main Event, and create revenue sharing models for other tournaments.
In 2012, teenager Trayvon Benjamin Martin was shot and killed by neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Sanford Florida. Zimmerman wasn’t even charged by police as they believed there was no evidence to refute his claim of self-defense. He was later charged with murder after over 2.2 million people signed a petition on Change.org started by Martin’s parents.
Change.org was created in 2007 as an outlet for people to drive the change they would like to see in the world. It allowed Martin’s parents to find a voice, and over the weekend, it has been used to put pressure on the World Series of Poker (WSOP) to end rake in the Main Event.
I’m not quite sure how to translate the sound of a needle dragged across vinyl, so please don’t judge me.
SCREECH!
The site that has become famous for implementing change throughout the criminal justice system, human rights, education, and environmental issues, is now being used to pressurise a gambling company to share some of their spoils with the players.
The petition, called ‘Increase the prize pool at the World Series of Poker; eliminate rake on the Main Event,’ was started by an investment banker called David Bass. The poker enthusiast would like to see the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event become rake free, and also urges Caesars Entertainment to enter into a revenue sharing platform by spooning TV rights, and sponsorship money, back to the players.
Bass points out that poker is the only sport/game (deleted as applicable) where the players pony up the entirety of the prize pool and points to revenue-sharing pacts made by America’s largest sporting organisations, and the newer eSports organisations as a copycat approach the poker community needs to mimic.
What Have You Started Alex?
One wonders if the flames were lit under Bass’s ass after the creation of the Global Poker League (GPL)? Although in its infancy, players drafted into the league are paid to play and are included in a revenue share programme, showing the rest of the poker community that where there’s a will there’s a way.
I’m just not that sure debt-ridden Caesars Entertainment is in the mood to follow suit. Especially, after their annual festival keeps getting bigger and bigger, and nobody, apart from Bass, and the 48 people who have signed the petition, seems to give a damn.
Jack Effel, Ty Stewart, Seth Palansky et al., take a chill pill. In the ten days that followed Jeremy Clarkson’s May 2015 sacking from the British motor program, Top Gear, over a million people signed a petition seeking reinstatement. Chris Evans now has that job.
That’s not to say that these things don’t work. Last summer, Dota 2’s International Championship created a world record $18,004,354 prize pool for an eSport event, after a percentage of sales of in-game purchases were added to the prize pool by the tournament organiser.
If you want to back this idea, then click on this link.
What’s your view?
Do you think the petitioner has a point?
