Global Poker Index Partners With Swiss Watchmaker Roger Dubuis

Home » Poker News » Global Poker Index Partners With Swiss Watchmaker Roger Dubuis

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014 | Written by Charles Washington

The Global Poker Index (GPI) has just announced a strategic collaboration deal with its first non-gambling sponsor, the Swiss watchmaker Roger Dubuis, in a move which marks an important step on the way to ‘sportifying’ poker. As part of the landmark deal, Roger Dubuis will design and supply a unique La Monégasque timepiece to each of the winners of the 2014 GPI Player of the Year Awards across America, Europe, and Asia, and commenting on the deal, Roger Dubuis CEO Jean-Marc Pontroué, explained:

“The partnership with GPI will enable us to share our common value for mastering timing, our quest for ultimate precision and our aim for top performance with a global audience. We look forward to support GPI and its ambitions to develop Poker as a sport.”

Global Poker Index Background

The Global Poker Index is a live tournament poker ranking platform which ranks more than 300,000 live tournament poker players worldwide, and uses the data to choose a GPI Player Of the Year (POY), as well as produce a GPI Country Ranking table showing which countries the top players in the world originate from.

Back in July 2013, the GPI subsequently acquired The Hendon Mob database website as it sought to become the prime source for poker tournament results, while the other activities the company is involved in includes the Global Poker League, the Global Poker Masters, which is a kind of World Cup of Poker bringing together the top eight countries in the world, and a number of industry-wide poker awards including the European Poker Awards, and the inaugural American Poker Awards scheduled to take place next year.

Sportifying Poker

The CEO of the GPI, Alexandre Dreyfus, has a grand ambition to “sportify” poker and shine a whole new light and level of publicity on the game. According to the French entrepreneur, poker’s top players and its showcase events are greatly undervalued and are falling short of their true marketing potential. Elaborating on the possibilities presented by his Global Poker League and the Global Poker Masters tournaments, Dreyfus says that if the competitions go well then they could attract the attention of mainstream sports media leading to a huge increase in marketing opportunities. In order for that to happen, however, Dreyfus believes the game has to first move away from its stigma of being a purely money game appealing to professional grinders, which the mainstream media do not care much about. As Dreyfus explains:

“You could turn your team into a brand or get big international companies to sign sponsorship deals that you, as the team’s owner, would definitely benefit from.”

Roger Dubuis Adds Prestige To The GPI

While the poker industry may not be awash with non-gambling sponsors, Swiss watch manufacturers have formed a close relationship with the poker industry over the years, examples of which include the World Poker Tour (WPT) and Hublot, and the European Poker Tour (EPT) and Slyde. Roger Dubuis partnering with the Global Poker Index (GPI) therefore appears a perfect fit, and commenting on its latest deal Alexandre Dreyfus, said:

“It is a privilege to find a partner from the exclusive Fine Watchmaking industry that actually understands the true potential of Poker as a sport and commits in helping us build the legitimacy of our industry by supporting our annual Poker Awards. We aim to Sportify Poker together.”

American Poker Awards In Feb 2015

The GPI has been sponsoring the European Poker Awards for a few years now, and last year the ceremony was held at the Le Casino Barrière in Deauville, France, during the EPT Deauville tournament series. Winners that year included Ole Schemion as the Live Tournament Player of the Year, Toby Lewis as the Online Player of the Year, and Ana Marquez as Europe’s Leading Lady.

The brand-new American Poker Awards (AMA), on the other hand, will make its debut on February 27, 2015, in Los Angeles, and just like its European counterpart will feature awards given across a number of different categories. It is hoped that the ceremony taking place on the sidelines of the Global Poker Conference will help further promote the popularity of the game on a global level, and, as Dreyfus explains “give players, industry thought leaders, poker media, and industry operators a forum to connect and discuss the future of the live poker ecosystem.”