More bad news for POKG and SNIO...Large Groups Leery
But some large children's organizations have decided that poker tournaments do not fit with their missions.
When a new for-profit partnership approached Save the Children, in Westport, Conn., and the U.S. Fund for Unicef, in New York, about becoming beneficiaries of an online tournament to aid children harmed by the tsunamis in South Asia, they declined. Even though the partnership -- called the Pokerbook Gaming Corporation and run by Senticore, a holding company in Hollywood, Fla., and E.G. Associates, a consulting company in San Diego -- promises to deliver 90 percent of the money collected from the tournament, minus prizes, to charities, the two organizations decided not to get involved.
The U.S. Fund for Unicef was intrigued by the Pokerbook corporation's idea, but it didn't fit in with the organization's mission -- improving the lives of children, says Lisa G. Szarkowski, the charity's spokeswoman.
"We don't do work with companies that do gambling as part of their business," she says. (The Pokerbook Gaming Corporation's main business involves selling gambling software.) "It was more of a general consideration for us. We also don't become involved with businesses that deal in alcohol, tobacco, or weapons."
Gary Erickson, a principal at E.G. Associates, says that after making the first few inquiries for Pokerbook, it appears it will be more difficult for the new venture to garner big-name beneficiaries than it had anticipated.
"I'm afraid that one of the things we'll see is that some charities will be restricted by their bylaws as to what they can become involved with," Mr. Erickson says.
So far, Pokerbook has enlisted Feed the Children, in Oklahoma City, as a charity beneficiary for the event.
Charities' Shares Vary
Although Pokerbook promises to return the vast majority of the money it raises to charities, a lack of national or state standards on how much third-party event holders can take in fees and expenses is troubling to some who monitor the activities of fund raisers.
Ms. Maehara says that charities need to be vigilant about how much profit they are willing to allow for-profit companies to take.
"You want the event to clearly be for charity and not for someone else's benefit," she says.
The New Hampshire legislature recently introduced a bill that would require poker-event holders to give charities at least 80 percent of the proceeds from tournaments that take in $1,000 or more.
Ms. Tinkham, of On the Road to Recovery, says she has no problem with the idea, though the company with which her organization splits proceeds down the middle has done nothing to make her think they aren't worth what they make.
"There's no way I could do it without these people," she says.
Her organization's mission doesn't preclude it from making money from gambling, she says. "In our field, gambling is potentially addictive, so there is a conflict if we're creating addicts," says Ms. Tinkham, who has been known to post Gamblers Anonymous signs on the walls of the bingo halls that hold the organization's poker tournaments. "But the bottom line is we needed more money just to keep going. We weighed the small risk of addiction against that and decided to hold these tournaments."
Without the proceeds from the 10 poker nights On the Road to Recovery holds each year, she would have to cut several training programs as well as services that aim to help mentally ill people find homes and jobs in local neighborhoods.
But Ms. Maehara and others worry that charities may be selling themselves short. Major nonprofit groups steer clear of hiring for-profit companies because of possible conflicts and high costs, Ms. Maehara says.
"Smaller charities are drawn to these events because they don't have to pay for all of the costs usually associated with starting up a fund-raising event," adds Ms. Maehara. "But often, they're not getting a good return on their investment."
For her part, Ms. Tinkham is pleased that New Hampshire's government is stepping up its oversight of charity poker events, which now compete with each other for players. She worries that opportunists may be trying to cash in.
"We need more regulation of this," she says. "There are people who are taking advantage. We need to find out who's a charity and who isn't."
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