Stake has signed Colombian high roller Farid Jattin as its first dedicated poker player ambassador. The deal was announced on LinkedIn by Jean-Christophe Antoine, who runs poker for Easygo, Stake's parent company, and picked up by the trade press on 27 October 2026.
Stake has had celebrity ambassadors on the books for years, from UFC fighters to streamers, but until now none of them played poker for a living. The deal also landed two days after Stake Poker put a $200,000 guarantee on its flagship Sunday tournament, which is not a coincidence.
Jattin will front both the real-money room on Stake.com and the Stake.us sweepstakes room for US players. He arrives as Colombia's all-time live earnings leader, with more than $10.5 million in cashes on The Hendon Mob and almost three years as a Phenom Poker ambassador behind him.
“Another milestone in the right direction after launching in Mexico a couple of months ago. Step by step Stake Poker is getting there. Welcome to the Team, Farid Jattin!” – Jean-Christophe Antoine, Easygo, on LinkedIn
Who Is Farid Jattin?
From Barranquilla to Miami
Jattin was born in Barranquilla and is based in Miami, where he has spent more than a decade on the US tournament circuit. He played college baseball before poker, built his game in cash games, and moved into live high rollers in the early 2010s.
Nobody who has sat with him would call him a careful player. The PokerGO Tour lists him as Colombia's all-time live earnings leader with three WPT final tables, and his own description of his style, going for the throat, is the one that has stuck.
Five Results That Define His Record
The headline cash is still his seventh-place finish in the inaugural $25,000 PokerStars Players Championship in January 2019, worth $746,000.
The two titles that matter most came a year apart: the A$25,000 Challenge at the 2020 Aussie Millions, chopped heads-up with his coach George Wolff, and the $5,300 Championship at the 2023 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open.
He has twice finished second in a WSOP bracelet event: the $5,000 NLH 8-Max in 2022, after holding a 6:1 heads-up chip lead, and the $5,000 PLO 8-Max in 2024. The PLO result shows his range now covers four-card games as comfortably as hold'em.
| Date | Event | Finish | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2019 | $25,000 PokerStars Players Championship, Bahamas | 7th | $746,000 |
| Jan 2020 | A$25,000 Challenge, Aussie Millions | 1st | $678,716 |
| Aug 2023 | $5,300 Championship, Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open | 1st | $655,000 |
| Jun 2024 | $5,000 PLO 8-Max, WSOP | 2nd | $404,430 |
| Jul 2022 | $5,000 NLH 8-Max, WSOP | 2nd | $334,747 |
What Farid Jattin's Signing Means for Stake Poker
A Poker Room Inside a Casino
Stake only added poker in 2024, and the room still sits inside the casino lobby as a browser client rather than a standalone site. When Stake made the crypto casino's 2024 move into online poker, cash games topped out at $0.50/$1 and tournament fields were thin.
Two years on, the product has filled out. The formats Stake has added since launch are the ones that pull recreational volume rather than regs:
- Next!, Stake's fast-fold format, launched with a $1,000,000 Drops promotion in 2025.
- Five-card and six-card PLO tables, added to the standard four-card games.
- All-In or Fold tables for players who want push-fold action without the full hand.
- A $1,000,000 Bad Beat Jackpot across hold'em and Omaha cash games.
Showdown Guarantee Hits $200,000
The tournament side tells the same story. The Stake Showdown is the room's $1,000 buy-in Sunday major, and it has been growing fast. Stake put a $200,000 guarantee on the 25 October edition, up from $125,000 only weeks earlier.
Jattin is the first poker professional on the roster, but not the first Stake ambassador to sell the poker product. UFC champion Alex Pereira, signed by Stake in March 2024, fronted the commercial for the PLO5 and PLO6 launch in 2025.
A fighter can put the poker tab in front of millions of people. He cannot tell a regular whether the games are worth playing, and that is the gap Jattin is being paid to fill.
Pro or celebrity? Stake already has more reach than any poker room could use. What it has never had is someone the grinders recognise from the tables, and those are the players who decide where the volume goes. That is what this signing is for.
Stake's Push Into Licensed Markets
Mexico First, Then Alberta
The ambassador deal arrives in the middle of Stake's move from offshore crypto operator to locally licensed brand. Stake's May 2026 launch in Mexico ran under a SEGOB permit through local licence holder Uno Capali, and the casino and sportsbook went live on 4 May 2026.
Poker followed in July 2026, making Mexico the first locally licensed market where Stake Poker operates. That is the launch Antoine refers to in his announcement, and Stake also holds licences in Colombia, Peru and Argentina.
Canada is the next step. Stake Canada received its AGLC licence in Alberta on 6 October with a 12 October launch target for casino and sports betting, while poker was left out of the initial offering. An Ontario application is still pending, with a 2026 launch stated by the company.
Why poker trails the casino: a regulated room in Alberta or Ontario would be ring-fenced to a provincial player pool, a fraction of the global pool the Showdown guarantee relies on. Poker has come after the casino in every licensed launch so far, and there is no sign of that changing.
New Zealand Licence Race
Further afield, Stake New Zealand Limited is one of 11 entities that won the right to apply in New Zealand's 15-licence auction, run by the Department of Internal Affairs, which closed at NZ$15 million per licence on 13 October. Licences are expected from early 2027.
Operators that did not bid must leave the market by 1 December 2026, and nothing in the licence terms guarantees that poker arrives with the casino.
| Market | Status | Date | Poker live? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico | Live, SEGOB permit via Uno Capali | 4 May 2026 (casino); July 2026 (poker) | Yes |
| Alberta | AGLC licence, 12 October launch target | 6 October 2026 | No |
| Ontario | Application pending | 2026 launch planned | No (not launched) |
| New Zealand | Right to apply for one of 15 licences | 13 October 2026 | Not yet licensed |
An Ambassador Market That Keeps Moving
From Phenom to Stake
Jattin's previous shirt was Phenom Poker, the player-owned crypto room he joined as an ambassador on 29 January 2024, nine months before its October 2024 launch. Announcing it himself on X, he said the role was about representing the Colombian and wider Latin American poker community.
The Stake announcement does not address his Phenom status. A move from a small mixed-game room to a brand of Stake's size is a different scale of partnership, whatever the terms.
Who Else Has Changed Shirts
Stake is late to a trend that has run through 2026. The year opened with Ren Lin's contested arrival at WPT Global and the fallout that followed, and by March it had cost GGPoker a headline name through Fedor Holz declining to renew with GGPoker.
| Month | Player | Room | Move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2026 | Ren Lin | WPT Global | Joined as ambassador |
| Mar 2026 | Fedor Holz | GGPoker | Left the roster |
| Apr 2026 | Arturo Vidal | GGPoker | Joined as ambassador |
| Oct 2026 | Farid Jattin | Stake Poker | Joined as first poker pro |
The rooms competing with Stake for the same players have gone the other way. GGPoker's Arturo Vidal signing for Latin America targeted the Spanish-speaking audience Jattin already speaks to, while the crypto side of the market saw GirafGanger7 joining CoinPoker as an ambassador.
What Happens Next
Expect to see Jattin in Stake branding at the 2027 WSOP and on the Florida circuit he grinds, and expect the Showdown guarantee to move again now the room has a face to put on it. Whether Phenom Poker says anything about losing him is worth watching too.
The bigger question is where he gets to play. Colombia and Alberta both carry Stake licences and neither has Stake Poker yet, so the signing only really pays off if the poker room starts following the casino into regulated markets.
For now it reads as a crypto-first poker room that wants the people who play for a living to take it seriously. Follow the latest online poker news for the next move in the ambassador market.
