Soulja Boy Thought Online Gaming Deal was worth $400m

After g a deal to represent World Poker Fund Holdings (WPFH), DeAndre Cortez Way (a.k.a. Soulja Boy) announced that the sponsorship was worth $400 million. Obviously this sounds like too much money – even for a guy with 2.8 million Instagram followers – so the social media world began discussing the matter.

As it turns out, Soulja Boy won’t be earning anywhere near $400 million yet. According to WPFH chairman Matthew Bird, the rapper tweeted before having all his facts straight.

“He really kind of jumped the gun by using the $400 million figure,” Bird explained. “The deal is capped at $400 million, and it’s based on a forward-thinking valuation of the company. He’s young, he’s 25 years old. He got really excited, and he tweeted something he probably shouldn’t have tweeted. He was getting a lot of pressure from within the entertainment community, so he wanted to put a statement out.”

Bird added, “Obviously, the company’s market cap is at $51.8 million. There’s no way they could cut a $400 million deal. Endorsement deals are calculated on a lot of different factors. This is not a fully cash transaction.”

As reported by Forbes, Soulja Boy’s job is to “mobilize his network” and promote CelebrityWorld.com, a celebrity owned gaming site that’s part of the WPFH network.

The company will use an in-flight gaming system that Bird values at $570 million and work with the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma. The tribe recently won a court decision that allows them to offer iGaming through a .gov extention, even though online gaming isn’t regulated in many US states.

“(The deal is) based on some legislation that happened over in Oklahoma three weeks ago,” said Bird. “They issued a gaming license unlike any other gaming license in the United States, which allows [the tribe] to operate through a .gov portal. That .gov portal allows them to be unrestricted worldwide. Countries can’t block government-based sites. Hence, it gives them an opportunity to do in-flight gaming, which Party Poker and other casinos have never been able to do.”

Working with the Iowa Tribe has given WPFH a jump-start in the US online gaming market, which is currently restricted to Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada.

Many companies have been waiting for the government to legalize online gaming across the US. This unfortunately hasn’t happened, so the Iowa Tribe/WPFH will have a big advantage over any US-based iGaming company for the time being.

Going back to Soulja Boy, if he promotes WPFH enough and the company takes off, then he could start nearing that $400 million figure he reported.