In late November 2010, Peter Eastgate auctioned off his 2008 World Series of Poker(WSOP) Main Event bracelet, raising over $140,000 for charity. The identity of the buyer was not made public at the time and for the most part, that was the last anyone heard of it. Until now. Our friends over at PokerNews.com had a chance meeting with the auction winner,William Haughey, at the Aussie Millions and were able to sit down with him for an interview.
Haughey, who hails from Scotland, is the founder and Chairman of City Refrigeration, a company with turnover of £400 million. His great success in business has allowed him to spend significant time and money on charitable endeavors, including the establishment of the City Charitable Trust. According to Haughey’s website, the Trust has donated over £5 million to various charities since its creation, including over £1.3 million in 2010. Most of the charities the Trust supports are local to Glasgow and Scotland, but Haughey helped organizations and people worldwide. For example, Haughey had his company’s engineers actually travel to West Africa to build water wells for a charity, rather than simply cut a check. The wells have helped supply 47,000 people with fresh water.
In his interview with PokerNews, Haughey said that the charity aspect of Peter Eastgate’s WSOP bracelet sale was the reason he bid. “That was the only reason why I bought the bracelet,” Haughey said. “I paid $150,000 for the bracelet, but if the money wasn’t going to charity I wouldn’t have even paid $50,000 for it. Some of the younger players said that the integrity of the bracelet was lost, and there was no respect, but the kids in Africa will be cheering Peter Eastgate today and not worrying about what the poker blogs are saying.”
Now, however, Haughey wants to give the bracelet back. Not to Eastgate, necessarily, but to the poker community in general. In a sense, he would like to resell the bracelet for charity. But rather than simply put it up for bids again, he would like the WSOP to possibly have a special tournament with Eastgate’s bracelet as the prize and proceeds going to charity. He is open to the idea of an online event, as well.
Part of Haughey’s inspiration, he said, was the One Drop $1 million buy-in charity eventscheduled for the 2012 WSOP. “I would say I will make a special offer: If the WSOP can come up with a good idea about how we can potentially raise $1,000,000 for charity, I will match it. Whatever they raise, if they have a bracelet event, I will match [the buy-in] up to $1,000,000. Half of the money can go to a WSOP charity, and the other half will go a cancer hospital that’s going to be built in the U.K.,” he told PokerNews.
$142,915.50 from Peter Eastgate’s auction went to UNICEF, while the remaining $4,587.50, or 3%, was taken by MissionFish, eBay’s non-profit beneficiary. When questioned as to why he would sell an award that most poker players would consider priceless, Eastgate said, “Of course, I still have great pride in my title, but I will never use the bracelet. I thought they (UNICEF) could better benefit from the bracelet. Hopefully it will do a lot of people good.”
William Haughey has also given to UNICEF directly, donating 100,000 to the organization a year ago to aid children affected by flooding in Pakistan.
