Casinos pitch in for Katrina Relief

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