Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming January 2016 16 Industry profile IAG: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell us a little of your life before gaming – you have a very varied background! Rami Obeid: I was born in St Petersburg after my mother, who is Russian, met my father, who is Lebanese, when both were studying dentistry at university there. We moved to Lebanon when I was three. My education finished at the Al-Kafaat School of Hotel Management in Beirut. It’s the best hotel school locally and I served internships at five star hotels and restaurants in the city. But I didn’t think that was enough, so I studied for another three years in Switzerland at the Hotel Institute Montreux, to graduate in 2000. IAG: And how was it that you came to be involved in gaming? RO: In 2004 I was winding up a job setting up F&B at the new Chedi resort in Muscat, Oman. A friend told me there was a vacancy managing F&B for the Paiza Club for high rollers at Sands Macao, which was then still being built. IAG: Any memorable stories from the early days of Macau? We understand you were private butler to Mr Sheldon Adelson for a time? RO: We had guests who lost millions and then ordered me to serve them a US$4,000 bottle of wine. I learnt quickly not to object if they wanted to drink without decanting, add ice or knock it back in one gulp. When Mr Adelson stayed I had to attend to him constantly, from when he rose at 5am to when he stopped work at 11pm. He was very demanding and there were countless details to remember on how he wanted things done. I remember one time he decided he wanted lunch right where he had just finished a meeting, even though we had prepared it in a room at the other end of the casino. I told him we would only need 10 minutes and walked calmly out of the door, before shouting at every other member of staff to start running. Rami Rami Obeid first joined the gaming industry when he opened Sands Macao in 2004 as Paiza Club Manager and was then promoted to Butler Manager. A former personal butler to none other than Sheldon Adelson, Rami now handles the food and beverage operations of enormous gaming venues, sometimes catering to over 15,000 combined guests and staff covers daily. He talks to IAG about his colorful career history, and the challenges of keeping thousands of gamblers fed and watered.