Inside Asian Gaming

October 2016 inside asian gaming 23 Industry profile also attended by two successful Hong Kong businessmen who I had known previously. In short, they were the major shareholders in a gaming company, AsianLogic, headquartered in Manila; they intended to list the company on the London Stock Exchange; would I like to join the team? I distinctly remember agreeing to a short term contract of three or four months and no more … come 15 March 2017 I will have been with the Group for 10 years! So much for a short term contract, but it speaks volumes about AsianLogic as a company. BB: Can you tell us a bit about AsianLogic and also your role there? JM: AsianLogic Group is a major international player in both the online and land-based gaming industry. When I started with them in 2007 there were less than 60 staff. Today that figure is over 2,000 employees. My initial role was to head up group marketing and corporate affairs. I am now involved only with our land-based operations. In 2010 I was appointed CEO of the Asian Poker Tour and earlier this “I started my own PR Company in Hong Kong with a secretary and one client only. Fast forward another 20-plus years and that company had grown to 160 employees operating out of six Asian cities and was at the time the largest independent PR firm in Asia.” year given the addition responsibility for our land-based sports betting operation MegaSportsWorld (MSW) which is now market leader in the Philippines. BB: Having been heavily involved in the poker industry myself, I remember following the APT closely during those early years. What are your memories of that time? JM: When I took over, the APT only had two events per year – one in Manila and the other in Macau – so the initial goal was to run more events in more places. Today we have at least 10 major events per year, each running for between seven and nine days and offering up to 20 separate poker tournaments – truly festivals of poker. In some respects APT has been a pioneer: we were the first to take truly international poker events to India, Cambodia and Vietnam and I am very proud of the fact that at any APT event now we will have at least 20 nationalities represented in the player line-up. But Asia is a difficult market to grow in terms of poker because of Jeff Mann celebrating the APT’s seventh year, and 18th major poker event, at Resorts World Manila (RWM) with APT models and RWM’s Hakan Dagtas.