The online casino industry has heeded the call for help and aid in light of the devastating effects of hurricane Katrina that has almost entirely wiped out the city of New Orleans and surrounding states in the US. Online casinos have been using their business savvy and overwhelming pull on players to generate a lot of money that will go towards relief efforts for this catastrophic humanitarian disaster. A large part of the city of New Orleans is alleged to be submerged under and in ruins, and emergency relief aid agencies report the total damages may amount to over 25 billion US dollars. Bodog Online Casino, a leading casino brand on the Net is holding five benefit poker tournaments for the victims of this natural disaster and they have volunteered to donate all the monies earned from the online casino tournaments to relief agencies such as the Red Cross. Calvin Ayre, Founder and CEO of Bodog Online Casino said, "We [Bodog] are deeply saddened to hear of the many victims caught in the devastating path of the hurricane. So many people have been adversely affected by this natural disaster, and our benefit poker tournament is the least we can do to help ease the pain of those who were most affected". The Fortune Lounge Group also did their bit to aid survivors of Hurricane Katrina by running a tournament at their online poker rooms. The Hold'em No Limit Freezeout tournament took place on 6 September 2005 and the prestigious Royal Vegas Poker and 7 Sultans Poker brands were involved. The buy-ins to play in the tournament was $25+$0 and that means both poker rooms were kind enough to match the donations made by players because they did not take in any fees for the tournament. 50% of prize pool went to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund and the other 50% went to the top 20 finishers, based on a percentage prize pool. All in all $10,000 was raised for an extremely relevant cause. The U.S. Gulf Coast was severely destroyed by hurricane Katrina which left more than a million people displaced, without cloths, shelter, food or water. Bodog Online Casino and Fortune Lounge are not the only gambling sites that saw the need to donate proceeds to charity. Many online casinos stepped in to lend a helping hand or contributed to aid to help victims of the devastating Asian tsunami of 26 December 2005 |
