Gossip Column: PokerStars Lines Up Celebs For PSPC, Daniel Negreanu Engaged & More

So the year-end festivities have just ended and it is that time of the year when most people are still trying to get out of their party hangovers. But for gaming mega-giant, PokerStars, the countdown to the PokerStars Players NLHE Championship (PSPC) has just begun. The poker extravaganza is kicking off soon in the Bahamas and PokerStars has revealed some of the big names who are expected to be there.

Team PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu for one, looks all ready to play at the PSPC. And, now that he’s made the move to get married, Negreanu has all the more reason to feel all pepped up for the upcoming tournament. Yes, you heard it right! Negreanu recently proposed to Amanda Leatherman and by the looks of the diamond that’s sitting pretty on her hands, she said “yes!”

Things aren’t so good with YouTube star Jake Paul though. Paul has managed to get himself stuck in the middle to quite the controversy. Paul ran a sponsored video on his YouTube channel where he was seen promoting the ‘Mystery Boxes,” that are a form of loot box-style gambling offered by the Mystery Brand. Other YouTube channels and viewers are breathing fire, charging that many of Paul’s subscribers are underage and his appearance in the video amounts to promoting gambling to these kids.

PokerStars Pulls in Sports & Entertainment Celebs For PSPC

The PokerStars Players NLHE Championship (PSPC) that kicks off in just a few days from now in the Bahamas has kept the poker world tingling with excitement through the past year.

The gaming giant doled out over 320 free Platinum Passes through unusual challenges and contests tailored by and invoking the participation of different Team PokerStars pros. If we saw Daniel Negreanu run the ‘Human Lie Detector’ and another challenge requiring players to submit their charity efforts for a shot at winning a Platinum Pass, then Jamie Staples’ #MyUltimateSweat had the Platinum Pass hopefuls racing to finish unique self-imposed challenges.

Now that we have entered 2019, the anticipation is building up. As expected, the majority of the PokerStars Pro Team including the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Lex Veldhuis, Jason Somerville, Jaime Staples, Chris Moneymaker, Maria Konnivkova, Fintan Hand, Benjamin Spragg, Randy Lew and Aditya Agarwal are all confirmed to be in attendance at the series.

Now if that is a crowd, PokerStars has lined up many celebrities from different walks of life to travel to the Bahamas for the inaugural extravaganza.

Stand-up comedians Norm Macdonald and Clayton Fletcher are among the celebrities expected at the series. Also coming to the Bahamas will be professional basketball player Paul Pierce, announcer Bruce Buffer, skateboarder Tony Hawk and Spanish professional golfer, Sergio Garcia.

The gaming major has promised players that the PSPC will be an experience of a lifetime and looks like PokerStars is going to deliver through on that promise!

Daniel Negreanu Proposes to Amanda Leatherman, Gets “Yes” For An Answer

Its wedding bells all the way in the poker industry. Right after we heard Natalie Kof and Felipe Ramos got hitched at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas, Michael ‘thegrinder’ Mizrachi announced his engagement at a vineyard in Cape Town, South Africa.

It seems like six-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu is also getting married. Negreanu announced his engagement to girlfriend Amanda Leatherman on Twitter.

She said yes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! pic.twitter.com/PXDCYdEwnt

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) January 1, 2019

Now, this does remind us that way back in August, Negreanu had shared his decision to have a child. It sounded quite out of the blue, since Negreanu had split with his long-time girlfriend Marissa Rachelle with the announcement of his breaking in the midst of the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

Back then, Negreanu had admitted that over the past four years he had been vehemently against tying the knot and having children but that had changed now. It sent the pokeratti wondering who the poker superstar was romancing, since he hadn’t really been linked with anyone since his breakup with Rachelle.

So when Negreanu started publicly dating Leatherman, a lot of heads turned and people wondered aloud if Negreanu was heading towards wedding bliss and settling down in sweet matrimony. Now as it turns out, he is!

Negreanu’s announcement on Twitter had a lot of reactions, Joey Ingram one of them.

CONGRATS PAPI

Step 2 is complete

Time for Step 3

Now you’re in, but you need to go ALL IN ?

Don’t forget Step 1 daily

Happy Wife, Happy Life

— Joey “Dr. Exotic” Ingram (@Joeingram1) January 1, 2019

While we don’t know what Negreanu’s fiancée has to say about his earlier announcement on having kids, but this is surely a start!

YouTuber Jake Paul Makes a Controversial Team-up With ‘Mystery Boxes’

Actor and YouTube sensation Jake Paul has sent the controversy bells ringing these past few days. Paul was seen in a video promoting the ‘Mystery Boxes,” that are a form of loot box-style gambling offered by the Mystery Brand.

Now, it’s not just Paul who has been facing the heat for promoting ‘Mystery boxes.’ Another popular YouTuber, Brian ‘RiceGum’ Le has also run sponsored videos promoting the Mystery Brand.

In Paul’s sponsored video, he and Le are seen clicking on a variety of mystery boxes, looking to win top prizes. Like the loot boxes in gaming, the format of Mystery Boxes lets players spend from $12.99 to $100 on boxes and open them to win an unidentified prize.

The video shows Paul spending thousands of dollars on boxes and winning stuff like AirPods, an iPhone XS, sneakers worth $1,000 etc. Le has appeared solo in yet another video promoting the ‘Mystery Boxes.’

Paul’s video itself received 1.4 Million views, 53,000 likes and 18,00 dislikes. However, it was just three days since Paul’s and Le’s video went up that the two started getting call-out videos from Ethan Klein, ‘PewDiePie’ and others who said that promoting the website was a ‘bad idea in general’. Paul’s critics say he is promoting gambling to minors who are part of his vast subscriber base.

Several other YouTube creators including Daniel ‘Keemstar’ Keem said they’d received offers to promote the brand for $100,000 but they had turned them down. Keem said he had turned down the offer because he was concerned that ‘Mystery Boxes’ was all about gambling.

While the ‘Mystery Boxes’ are not really breaking any of the YoutTube rules, a number of Mystery Brand buyers also shared their experience of getting inferior quality products after playing on the ‘Mystery Boxes’. Some have pointed out that the ‘Mystery Brand’ said that they were also giving out ‘unbranded items’ with authentic items but Paul or Le never mentioned this in their videos.

Amidst the uproar, Le reacted, saying that he felt bad and realized that his appearance in the videos was somewhat wrong. Paul, in the meantime, is yet to come out with an official statement on the matter.