PPA praises generosity of players

In America, the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) political advocacy group has commended the generosity of poker players in contributing to support the relief efforts in the earthquake-ravaged nation of Haiti.

The Caribbean country was hit by a magnitude-seven earthquake on January 12 that killed at least 150,000 while destroying several hospitals and damaging major landmarks including the state’s Presidential Palace.

“Like the rest of the world, the poker community is eager to do anything it can to aid Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquake,” said former United States Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Chairman for the PPA.

“I applaud PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com and CakePoker.com for providing poker players across the globe an easy way to make a contribution.”

D’Amato revealed that these online poker sites had established special pages where players can easily donate towards the relief efforts in Haiti. In addition, FullTiltPoker.com and CakePoker.com have run special tournaments with all registration fees being donated to the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF.

In addition, he stated that players on all three sites could quickly and easily transfer money directly from their online accounts to a Haiti fund that will then be given to those organisations with the domains committed to matching every donation.

D’Amato stated that over 50,000 players have donated more than $760,000 so far and predicted that total contributions from the online poker community would top $1.5 million.

“The generosity online poker players are showing makes me even more proud to be part of this community,” said D'Amato.