Jamie Gold and rapper, Soulja Boy, are Building a Casino

In a world obsessed with celebrities, it was only a matter of time before the poker and casino world saw a social gaming platform owned by and aimed at that market – and one of the men behind it is former WSOP Main Event champion Jamie Gold.

The much-maligned Gold has been making a comeback of late, and has now joined forces with the likes of rapper, producer, and actor SouljaBoy to launch CelebrityWorld.com which will be available for beta-gameplay on April 15th.

The announcement comes on the back of a $1.2Million investment by 1800pr into World Poker Fund Holdings Inc, which has offices in LA, New York, Las Vegas, and Dallas. WPFH are also behind plans to produce two reality TV poker shows, “Poker Boss” and ‘America Loves Poker’.

Although the CelebrityWiorld.com site is not currently up and running, it claims to offer gamers the chance to “Meet, play games, and hang out with your favourite celebs”. As well as Gold and Soulja Boy, other famous names behind the site are Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver De Anthoney Thomas and actor, rapper and magician Kyle Massey.

“This is going to be the biggest thing since online gaming started,” said 25-year old Soulja Boy, whose debut single back in 2007, ‘Crank That’ reached number 1 in the US billboard top 100.

One year prior to that release, Jamie Gold had scooped the largest Main Event prize ever when he took down $12million in 2006, his reign as champion beset almost immediately by serious financial and legal problems.

The new site seems set to offer a mix of play money gambling and celebrity socialising, with players able to choose from ‘dozens of games like poker, blackjack and slots’ according to the site.

It is expected that Gold will host the poker rooms and the site will also feature “party rooms where you can spend time with new people, Fantasy Suites that allow you to partake in a spot of clubbing, and a great shopping experience that will include clothing lines from some of the celebrities that have money invested in the site”, according to calvinayre.com who have been following WPFH’s plans for almost a year now.

1800pr are a “leading global PR and content marketing firm and #3 ranked most influential social impact media and communications firm” who plan to use their “resources and chief strategists” to “launch a full content marketing campaign and leverage the firm media relations capabilities within the social gaming and event arena.”

Continuing with business-speak gobbledygook, WPFH brand ambassador Gold stated of the investment: "1800pr's expertise in both increasing our audience reach and delivering highly targeted communications will greatly support our premier gaming brands and enhance visibility for our events.”

"Directly connecting active social gamers with an abundance of live and celebrity driven experiential content is the next level in the online social gaming industry," he stated, adding: “In short, the 1-800-PublicRelations partnership provides us the ability to drive market awareness much faster and further, reaching our target audiences with innovative and exciting celebrity gaming product at the right time.”

Quite what all this means for the average gambler or poker enthusiast remains to be seen, but 1800pr President Matthew Bird has spoken of preparing to “weaponise” the company and turning WQPFH into a “publicity machine”. In the world of celebrity, this could literally mean almost anything!

Should it actually amount to anything which our PokerTube fans are likely to find of interest, we’ll be sure to keep you updated once it launches for real on May 1st – hopefully minus the business gobbledygook!