button in Safari'A Game Changer': Main Event Champ Jamie Gold on WSOP's Partnership with Solana
Twenty years ago, Jamie Gold won the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event for $12 million in one of the biggest moments of the Poker Boom. Now, the poker ambassador is spearheading a partnership between the WSOP and Solana that will save players time and money.
Players attending WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas next month will be able to buy into events with crypto using Solana Pay, a way to avoid fees and skip registration lines. It's a cause that is dear to Gold, as the Main Event champion explained in a video interview with Solana.
"My relationship with the World Series of Poker, my new relationship with Solana has given us an opportunity to help other people with a simple, clickable button," Gold told Solana. "The idea that I will never have to carry large amounts or any amount of cash changes my life."
Saving Time and Money
Long before he was a Main Event champion, Gold, who came from a gambling family and whose grandfather was a gin rummy champion, was playing poker for candy with his friends at summer camp.
"By the end of the summer I would have this trunk full of everyone's candy," Gold remembered. "I would just give it back to everybody. It was more about the competitive. I just wanted to win."
Decades later, Gold was inspired to swap pieces of candy for WSOP chips after his dad was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.
"What would make him ultimately happy was for me to do something for myself, to make me happy," Gold said.
Gold was "so convinced" that he would win his first Main Event that he "invited 30 of my closest friends" to watch him play. But that group of 30 that saw Gold win the 2006 Main Event for $12 million didn't include his dad, who couldn't make it out to Las Vegas due to his health condition.
"As we get older, we realize that time is one of our most valuable commodities," Gold said. "Life is about time and how you spend it."
Gold, who hosted a Solana Freeroll with crypto influencers in Las Vegas earlier this year, connected the value of time with the WSOP's new partnership with Solana, which he called "a game changer" that "is giving me time, is saving me and making me money."
"We used to have to wait online for four to six hours just to buy into a tournament," he said. "Now there are no more lines with the WSOP live app. The less time that we waste, the more value that we have in our life."
Gold spoke in depth about his 2006 WSOP Main Event run during an interview on the PokerNews Life Outside Poker podcast at 2024 WSOP Paradise.
Read more about how to skip lines and avoid fees at WSOP Paradise using Solana Pay.
