After a relatively quiet holiday season, 2018 has gotten off to a fast start in terms of poker news coming off the press. This week’s poker news highlights a huge tournament that starts on Thursday, a poker-boxing partnership and a well-known player becoming an ambassador for one of the biggest brands in the game.
Jacobson Becomes Latest 888Poker Brand Ambassador
Martin Jacobson is a familiar name and face to poker players and they’re going to be seeing a lot more of him in partnership with the 888Poker brand. That’s because the two have joined forces as Jacobson will be one of their new brand ambassadors.
Jacobson, who hails from Sweden, is best known for winning the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2014. This year, he finished sixth at the High Roller for One Drop event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, taking home over $640,000.
This isn’t the first time that the two sides have worked together as Jacobson led Team Sweden in a promo for 888Poker. In terms of why Jacobson was comfortable signing on with the brand, he has been impressed with the company because of what it wants to do in regard to charity work. He himself has donated over $250,000 to charities that involve animals and he appreciates working with brands that give back as well.
Jacobson joins the likes of Dominik Nitsche and Chris Moorman under the 888Poker umbrella.
World Poker Fund Holdings Makes Deal With De La Hoya
The World Poker Fund Holdings, which is one of the leading developers of online and event-based social gaming, has announced a licensing partnership with former boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions. The company provides games in 400 land-based casinos in the United States as well as 90 owned by Indian tribes. Now they’ll be able to use De La Hoya and other boxers from Golden Boy Promotions on the various games.
This comes on the heels of Floyd Mayweather’s deal with Wild Poker just last month. It’s interesting to see that two poker brands have now reached out to boxers for partnerships. In many ways, boxing is associated with gaming and casinos, so this is a partnership that could make sense.
Series Expected To Shatter Record Guaranteed Prize Pool
The Beau Rivage Casino, which is located on the south coast of Mississippi, will be the home of the 2018 Million Dollar Heater Poker Series. By all accounts, the guaranteed prize pool is expected to be bigger than ever before.
The first event of the series will have a guaranteed prize pool of $600,000 while the main event will offer $300,000. The buy-in for the main event is $2,500. Players will also be able to earn a seat at the main event via satellites from January 7 to January 13.
All of the action gets underway on January 4 and ends on January 15.