Dan Smith is a poker professional the poker community has heard a lot of over the past several years due to his terrific performance on the live circuit. However, word should also be spread about his good heart.
As a new year is unfolding, Smith announced that a donation project he initiated last November has raised the admirable amount of $1.7 million. The money will go to several charities, including the highly effective GiveDirectly non-profit organization and the Against Malaria Foundation.
The player said in a January 3 post on his blog that as many as 134 people had contributed funds for his donation drive over a month and a half. Daily fantasy sports players Martin and Tom Crowley, better known as ‘papagates’ and ‘ChipotleAddict’ in the DFS community, were named among the biggest contributors to Smith’s initiative.
The poker player’s donation drive began in mid-November 2016 with the initial amount of $175,000 to be matched. Additional funds raised the matching bar to $300,000. It was at that point when Martin Crowley joined, matching and donating extra funds for the ceiling to be raised to $525,000. His brother, Tom Crowley, donated the total amount of $500,000 to show his support for Smith’s campaign.
As mentioned above, the donation drive eventually raised $1,700,818 for different good causes. A full list of the charities and organizations that are to be funded by the initiative could be found below and on Smith’s blog.
350.org $8,556
Against Malaria Foundation $287,535
Give Directly $115,173
Just City $9,750
Liberation Prison Yoga $12,868
Lineage Project $4,000
MAPS $31,100
Zendo $0
Massachusetts Bail Fund $10,325
SCI $13,131
GiveWell Unspecified $7,670
Subtotal $500,408
Dan’s Match $175,000
Martin’s Match + Extra $525,000
Tom’s Donation $500,000
Total $1,700,818
This has not been the first time when Dan Smith has engaged in serious charity work. In 2015, he and his fellow high stakes player Dan Colman launched a matching challenge that resulted in more than $200,000 being raised for the Deworm the World, Against Malaria Foundation, Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and Massachusetts Bail Fund charities.
Looking back at his poker career, Smith closed a very successful and profitable year. The player won more than $5 million in live tournament earnings in 2016, the greater portion of which came from his second-place finish in the WSOP $111,111 High Roller for ONE DROP. Finishing runner-up to Fedor Holz, the player scooped a payout of $3,078,974.
