For most of his adult life, Mark Morton has had a full head of hair. That will change this weekend when Morton gets clipped for a good cause.
On Saturday, September 14, Morton, Marker Trax and Koin’s senior vice president of sales, will join other gaming executives, including Seminole Gaming Vice President of Gaming Operations Dan Ingster and Aristocrat Gaming Senior Account Executive Steve Castine, in getting his head shaved at McMullan’s Irish Pub in Las Vegas. The event will raise funds for the St. Baldrick’s Childhood Cancer Foundation, a cause that is dear to Morton.
“My wife five years ago got breast cancer,” Morton says during an interview with CDC Gaming. “Thank God, she made it through and is doing fantastic. So, any cancer, any opportunity to help out, I’d never say no to the opportunity.”
The St. Baldrick’s Childhood Cancer Foundation was founded in 2000 at a St. Patrick’s Day party in Manhattan when Tim Kenny sought to raise funds to benefit kids with cancer. That first event raised $104,000, with 19 participants shaving their heads. Since then, the charity has raised $352 million through head-shaving parties across the country.
Past participants at events in Las Vegas, according to Morton, include Matt Wilson, the CEO of Light & Wonder, Konami Gaming Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Jingoli, and Casey Whalen, CEO of Bluberi Gaming.
Morton credits Ingster, who has personally raised $200,000 over the last 14 years, for encouraging gaming executives to participate.
“Dan’s a very likeable guy and very talented,” Morton says. “He has a lot of friends in the industry, and along with Mike McKiski and Landon Jones (both of Maxbet Media) were able to start getting the gaming community involved.”
Morton already has an idea of what he’ll look like when his hair is shaved – his daughter photoshopped an image of him without his locks. But he’s more concerned with how he’s going to look when his hair grows back.
“They say I’m going to look like Dr. Evil, and I don’t want to have that look, right?” he laughs. “My real concern is that I’m 63, and I’m not really gray yet. I’ve got some gray in the temples, but I don’t know what color it will be when it comes back. So, I guess this is an experiment – what happens to Mark when he shaves his head?”
But if Morton has any doubts about his look after Saturday’s shaving, he’s not hesitating at all. His wife survived six rounds of chemotherapy and nine weeks of radiation treatments.
He’ll be just fine, no matter how he looks.
“When I saw her go through her battle, she was a lot stronger than I was,” says Morton. “We were blessed with the fact, through a lot of prayers and the support of our friends and family, she got through that and she’s cancer free. Anything I can do to support that cause, I’ll do. For me to shave my head, this is nothing.”
