GGPoker has signed Chilean football icon Arturo Vidal as its first football ambassador, the biggest sports crossover deal in the room's history and a clear statement that it wants a bigger foothold in Latin America.
Vidal is the first professional footballer and the first Chilean to join GGPoker's Team Pro roster, which has historically been built around tournament-tested pros. The signing indicates a deliberate pivot: rather than keep recruiting elite grinders, GGPoker is now chasing mainstream sports audiences who might not already consider themselves poker players.
The football CV backs up the marketing ambition. Vidal has played for Juventus, Bayern Munich, FC Barcelona, and Inter Milan, earned more than 140 caps for Chile, and was a cornerstone of the "golden generation" that won back-to-back Copa America titles in 2015 and 2016. He currently plays for Colo-Colo in the Chilean top flight.
He is also a genuine poker player, not just a celebrity face. In 2019, Vidal final-tabled a €25,000 buy-in European Poker Tour event, finishing fifth alongside former Barcelona teammate Gerard Piqué, who finished runner-up. The duo walked away with close to half a million euros in combined prize money. Vidal has since launched his own gaming brand, "Juego con el King", and has worked with several betting operators.
He is the first professional footballer on our ambassador roster - a calculated step toward the mainstream sports audience.
GGPoker marketing positioning
The commercial logic is obvious. Latin America is the fastest-growing region for online poker, and GGPoker already has a deep regional bench. Felipe Mojave, Peterson Machado, Michael Acevedo, Diego Ventura, Steve Enriquez and Cristian Stival all represent the room across the continent. Adding a crossover figure of Vidal's scale, with a stadium-sized social following, gives that roster a top-of-funnel it did not previously have.
For GGPoker, the real test is whether Vidal's fanbase converts into new registrations and volume, or whether the deal works more like a brand billboard. Either way, it changes the ambassador-signing template: until now, the question at GGPoker was which pro to sign next. The Vidal deal reframes it as which athlete, creator, or cultural figure can move players into the poker ecosystem who would never have arrived through a grinder route.
Read our full GGPoker review for the platform's tournament schedule, WSOP Online bracelet events, and country availability. For the room's wider ambassador roster and recent moves, see the GGPoker room intel page.
