Hollywood Poker Re-Launches As Free-Play Site

Back in June, gambling website Hollywood Poker suddenly closed its doors after eight years of operation with its customers and accounts then transferred over to RedKings.com.
A few months on and now Hollywood Poker is back, this time owned by social games company PLAOR, and launched as a  free-to-play site accessible on Facebook. The aim of Hollywood Poker, once more, is to give people the opportunity to sit down and play online poker with celebrities, both A-list and otherwise, except this time with a great deal of the proceeds going to favourite charities. As PLAOR CEO Mark Caldwell explains: “Now we’re moving into social entertainment where we want to help connect users to celebrities by using poker and tournaments and other ways to drive revenue for charities.”
Hollywood Poker certainly appears to have lost none of its sheen with over 160 celebrities already signed up to the site, including original Hollywood Poker star James Woods, Dennis Quaid, Kelly Hu, Scott Baio and Peter Facinelli. Another celebrity adding his support to the site is actor and comedian Kevin Pollak, who also made a deep run at this year’s WSOP Main Event, eventually finishing 134th out of 6,598 players for $52,718. Lamenting a lack of acknowledgement by twitter for all the attention celebrities brings the company, Pollak explains:
“I’m trying to help them [Hollywood Poker] also make that huge connection in the real-time communication between fans and so-called celebrities, as well as having the potential of being the largest distribution route for charitable funds on Facebook.”
Having launched recently, traffic at Hollywood Poker is currently low at just 8,000 users, but expected to grow steadily over the coming weeks. Early joiners will also be entitled to a range of promotional offers, including discounts and special table display items.