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Female poker pro Victoria Coren-Mitchell has announced she is leaving Team PokerStars. Her reason: They are adding an online casino and that goes against her beliefs.
“PokerStars.com announced that it will be rolling out online casino gaming alongside its internet poker,” Coren-Mitchell wrote on her blog. “As a result, on Saturday morning, I terminated my endorsement contract with them.
“(But) I cannot professionally and publicly endorse it, even passively by silence with my name still over the shop. Poker is the game I love, poker is what I signed up to promote. The question I’m probably asked most often in interviews is about the danger of addiction, going skint and so on. I’m always careful to explain the difference between the essentially fair nature of poker, where we all take each other on with the same basic chance, and those casino games at unfavourable odds which can be (especially online) so dangerous for the vulnerable or desperate.
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“Although PokerStars assured me I would not have to actively promote the casino arm, I know in my heart that continuing in my current role could risk helping to send people to a place where they would encounter something I think is dangerous. That’s not the way I want to make a living.”
In recent months, PokerStars has let go a number of its top pros. There was no indication that the world’s biggest poker site planned to let Coren, a two-time European Poker Tour champion, go.
Coren did leave the door open for future cooperation with Stars.
“I will watch from the outside to see what the new site looks like, how safe and responsible it seems, how the advertising feels and the direction the company takes. Maybe in the future I will be able to work with PokerStars again on something which is pure poker. I don’t know, but certainly there are no hard feelings between me and that company which has done so much for the beautiful game over the last decade.”
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
