Jason Somerville
Jason Somerville announced on Wednesday, January 1, that he and PokerStars were parting ways (photo: Run It Up)

Jason Somerville and PokerStars are parting ways. The poker player and content creator extraordinaire announced the news via a video on social media on New Year’s Day 2020.

“I feel a ton of gratitude towards PokerStars for taking a chance on me and Run It Up,” Somerville stated in the video. “I admire many of the hard-working people at the company and I have a lot of love for the many talented ambassadors that are out there creating content on Twitch, YouTube, social media, who are acting as live poker ambassadors building the game that we love. You guys are an inspiration to me. Your friendship means so much, and thank you for the opportunity. I wish you guys well in the future.”

Somerville went on to mention that although his partnership with PokerStars offered a lot of advantages, it also had its disadvantages because it limited his content to exclusivity with PokerStars. Somerville did not mention specifically what’s coming next for him, but he hinted at more involvement in the emerging sports betting space, where he said he’s been getting more and more involved. A transition to have more of a sports betting focus only seems natural for someone as engaging as Somerville, given the current progressive landscape of legalized sports betting in the US.

Somerville joined Team PokerStars in early 2015. Somerville is considered by many to be the godfather of poker streaming, specifically on Twitch, and he is one of the most recognizable faces in the game.

Although his time spent playing poker has lessened over the years, Somerville still has quite the poker résumé. He’s a World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner with more than $3.6 million in live tournament earnings to date. His online results total to more than $2.2 million in tournament winnings.

Throughout his career, Somerville has successfully built his own brand, Run It Up, into one of poker’s most premier entertainment and content offerings. Run It Up began as a poker streaming series and has evolved into much more. Under the Run It Up umbrella, Somerville started hosting live events, built an entire team of streamers, opened a 24/7 Twitch channel dedicated to poker, and recently partnered with the NFL to host Thursday Night Football games through RunItUp.tv. Run It Up is also home to the game’s most loyal communities and Somerville will soon host his 10th Run It Up Reno series at the Peppermill Reno in April.

Somerville’s split with PokerStars comes less than eight months after PokerStars and Daniel Negreanu parted ways. Negreanu recently signed with GGPoker.