Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | July 2012 4 Cover Story T hey’ll be flying in to Hong Kong International, hopping commuter flights directly into Macau International, bobbing across the Pearl River estuary on crowded ferries—300 of the world’s best poker players, all heading for the Ballroom on the eighth floor of Galaxy Entertainment Group’s StarWorld Hotel & Casino at the end of this month for the Asia Poker Tour Macau. The event returns to Macau after a one-year hiatus—28 events over seven days, topped by a HK$25,000 buy-in No Limit Hold ’em Main Event. So far this year, the tour has drawn more than 1,000 participants to sponsored tournaments in the Philippines, at the Waterfront Hotel & Casino in Cebu City and at Resorts World Manila, at Casino Royale in Goa and at the MGM Hotel Sanya City in Hainan, home of the 2012 China Poker Carnival, the biggest Hold ’em tournament ever held on the Mainland. Event buy-ins have ranged fromUS$900 to $2,700.Winners have hailed from as far away as South Africa and Sweden, if that’s any gauge of the global interest these big-money games attract. In August, the APT heads to Ti Vegas Casino in Grand Bay for eight days for the €900 buy-in Asian Series Mauritius. Then it’s back to Resorts World Manila in September for a seven-day tournament with a US$1,200 buy-in Main Event. On 14th November, the US$1,100 “Asian Series Cambodia” kicks off at the Las Vegas Sun Hotel & Casino in Svay Rieng. InDecember, it’s back toCasinoRoyale Goa for the 140,000-rupee APT India. Early next year, the tour arrives in South Korea for the first time for the APT Asian Series Jeju. Yes, poker is big business in this part of the world, and that may come as a surprise to some, what with all the media attention lavished on the casino boom in Macau, where a thinking man’s game with no advantage for the house is bound to be overshadowed, like everything else, by the insane VIP baccarat numbers that have been burning up analysts’ calculators for nearly a decade now. “Macau has every opportunity to become home to one of the biggest live events in the world. One day, an event in Macau will rival the WSOP in numbers and prize money.” Playing a Winning Hand Poker is hard-pressed to compete with baccarat for floor space, but China’s love affair with the game is just beginning to flower