ONE DROP DESIGNATED AS AN OFFICIAL CHARITY OF
THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER®
LAS VEGAS – May 22, 2012 – The World Series of Poker (WSOP) announced today that ONE DROP (
www.onedrop.org) has been selected as an official charity for the World Series of Poker, the most prestigious gaming event in the world, beginning May 27 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
As an official charity, the WSOP will work with ONE DROP to help educate, raise awareness and direct funds towards the organization that helps provide access to clean water around the world.
“ONE DROP is doing important and impactful work and we intend to do what we can to help their efforts,” said Mitch Garber, CEO, Caesars Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (owners of the WSOP). “The water crisis is a worldwide issue and with the WSOP’s global reach, we believe this is a great fit for our company.”
One important step is the creation of the BIG ONE for ONE DROP, an official WSOP bracelet event where 11.11 percent of the entry fee will be designated for charity. This event (Event #55 on the schedule) will take place July 1-3, and be historic in every way. The buy-in will be a never-before-attempted $1,000,000 and 30 players have already confirmed their participation. As such, nearly $3.3 million is earmarked for ONE DROP.
In addition, this year all players who cash in any WSOP event will be asked to go All In for ONE DROP by donating one percent of their winnings to ONE DROP. All monies will be 100 percent tax-deductible. The All In for ONE DROP campaign is designed to raise awareness on water-related issues and encourage the poker community to take action and create a powerful ripple effect.
“I am very grateful to both the World Series of Poker and Caesars Entertainment for choosing ONE DROP and enabling a ripple effect with the poker community,” said Guy Laliberté, ONE DROP’s Chair and Cirque du Soleil® Founder. “They support the work of ONE DROP and are part of the All in For ONE DROP initiatives. With everyone’s help the dream of water for all is achievable.”
During the BIG ONE for ONE DROP, select Caesars Entertainment Las Vegas resorts will be participating in a fundraising and in-room communications campaign to generate awareness for the cause. The campaigns message, “A Drop Saved is a Drop Shared,” is centered on the environmental and social impacts water conservation has. As an industry leader in sustainability, the company focuses on critical issues of water, energy, gas and waste through its aggressive CodeGreen sustainability strategy that engages its employee in programs dedicated to reducing the resorts impacts on the environment.
As part of the WSOP-ONE DROP alliance, several other visible initiatives will be on display during this year’s WSOP, including:
• BIG ONE for ONE DROP poker tournament (July 1-3) with $111,111 per buy-in going to ONE DROP, and waiving of fees to staff and host event with final table to be carried live on ESPN on July 3.
• Awarding of two seats into the BIG ONE for ONE DROP ($2 million commitment from Caesars Entertainment/CIE)
• Hosting a $25,300 Mega Satellite poker tournament on June 30 at Rio to fulfill CIE commitment, with CIE guaranteeing seat
• 1% for ONE DROP – For all players who cash, an opportunity to make a 100% tax-deductible donation
• Providing ONE DROP with a booth at Rio to raise awareness on water-related issues
• Water fact messaging added to water bottle service during tournament to raise awareness and encourage players to purchase a reusable bottle
• Installation of water stations throughout tournament footprint to encourage players to refill their reusable water bottle.
• Signage/branding throughout tournament
The 43rd annual World Series of Poker will take place from May 27th to July 16th at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The Main Event will begin on July 7th, with the Final Table being determined on July 16th. The nine players who advance to the Final Table will return to the Rio in October to determine the champion and winner of poker’s ultimate prize.
ABOUT ONE DROP
ONE DROP—an initiative of Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil®—is an international non-governmental organization established in Canada, in 2007. ONE DROP fights poverty by supporting access to water and raising individual and community awareness of the need to mobilize so that safe water is accessible to all, in sufficient quantity, today and tomorrow. With its uniquely artistic approach, ONE DROP educates and implements site-specific safe water solutions while allocating microfinance loans to help ensure sustainable development. Worldwide, ONE DROP’s ongoing creative projects also raise awareness about water-related issues and encourage smarter water practices. In the U.S., ONE DROP is a public charity that undertakes innovative activities in which water plays a central role as a creative force to generate positive, sustainable change worldwide. To learn more, visit
www.ONEDROP.org
ABOUT THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the largest, richest and most prestigious gaming event in the world awarding millions of dollars in prize money and the prestigious gold bracelet, globally recognized as the sport’s top prize. Featuring a comprehensive slate of tournaments in every major poker variation, the WSOP is poker’s longest running tournament in the world, dating back to 1970. In 2011, the event attracted 75,672 entrants from 105 different countries to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and awarded over $192 million in prize money. To learn more about the World Series of Poker, visit WSOP.com.
ABOUT CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT CORPORATION SUSTAINABILITY
Caesars Entertainment Corporation's resorts are committed to environmental sustainability – investing at a corporate level more than $62 million on conservation projects that have reduced energy usage by more than 170 million kilowatt hours (kWh) and carbon emissions by 110,000 metric tons each year. One such investment is the use of solar and steam co-generation facilities at the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino, Harrah’s Lake Tahoe and Showboat Atlantic City that capture waste heat and steam to create onsite energy, thereby decreasing demand for purchased electricity.
Caesars nearly 70,000 employees drive its sustainability strategy, CodeGreen, through innovative environmentally responsible practices; implementing more than 110 large impact conservation projects resorts to reduce water, energy and waste consumption at a corporate level. More than 200 of the company's employees have completed its Green Meetings & Events Certification training program, the only program of its kind in the industry. During the past eight years, CodeGreen programs have resulted in annual savings of 200 million gallons of water and 640,000 gallons of waste vegetable oil among other waste recycling efforts.
Caesars Entertainment's leadership in environmental stewardship and energy efficiency has earned the company more than 40 environmental awards and multiple Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) honors. Caesars has achieved "industry firsts" in transparency of impacts such as GRI protocol reporting and establishing aggressive carbon reduction goals around environmental and social metrics. For further information on Caesars’ CodeGreen efforts and its sustainability report visit
www.caesars.com/CodeGreen.
