Boxing icon Floyd Mayweather has partnered with Playtrex and Hero Digital Entertainment to be the face of a new social poker game Wild Poker.
It could have gone one or two ways for Floyd Mayweather. He could have ended up punch-drunk in an old people’s home, false teeth sitting at the bottom of his beer ready to snap at anyone trying to take a sip.
Or.
Well, you know the rest.
The most exciting boxer in modern times retired after taking his professional record to 50-0 after his 10th round TKO against Connor McGregor.
So what do you do when you have a net worth of $340 million and have hung up the gloves?
It seems Mayweather has turned to poker.
The man with 27 KO’s on his CV floored me this morning when I read over my morning smoothie that he was backing the social poker game Wild Poker.
The game, created by Playtrex, and marketed with the help of Hero Digital Entertainment isn’t new. It’s beta release was Sep 2016. But the six-figure signing of ONE Entertainment’s chief asset will see the number of new sign-ups go through the roof.
The Playtrex mission is to take the old favourites and add a new twist designed to increase engagement through a more strategic element and more immersive narrative.
The twist with Wild Poker is the addition of Hearthstone style Power-Ups, in the same way that PokerStars Power Up uses. The difference between the two is PokerStars have turned their esports hybrid into a real money offering whereas, for the time being at least, you can only play Wild Poker for play money (although you can use real money to improve your in-game experience).
Who on earth would do that?
Quite a lot of people.
The online mobile gaming market is worth $37 billion, with a 15% annual growth rate. The social casino business alone is worth $4 billion.
Mayweather is rumoured to be banking a substantial six-figure sum to have his mush splattered on the game alongside the giraffes, lions, and monkeys.
The boxing legend has a strong following of 50 million plus fans, so Playtrex will be getting their moneys worth if the person in control of Mayweather’s social media platform does a decent job.
Playtrex, based in Israel, has Daniel Kashmir at the helm. Kashmir knows how to take the game from play money to real money after spending some time growing the William Hill online business.
Kashmir founded Playtrex in 2015.
