Tag Archives: year
Macaus Poker Scene Looking Vibrant after Successful 2009
With the new year just beginning, Macau is already gearing up for even more poker tournaments and events to build on a successful 2009.
Last year, Asias gaming capital was the site of record-setting poker events from the biggest poker tours in the region. It also saw the opening of several new poker rooms, signifying that local players were steadily becoming more interested in the game.
In mid-August, the Asian Poker Tour (APT) held its 2009 Macau event at the StarWorld Hotel and Casino and experienced a large surge in player participation. Its twelve-day festival of poker featured fifteen side events in addition to the main event, which set a new APT record with a field of 326 runners. The winner was Frances Adrien Allain, who won HK $3,035,000 for his first-place finish.
Over at PokerStars Macau at the Grand Lisboa Hotel, the third season of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau event saw Irish player Dermont Blain win HK $4,194,000 in its main event. Blain was just one of the APPT Macau record 429 players who played in the main event, contributing to the prize pool of HK $16,130,400.
The PokerStars Macau poker room also held its own series of tournaments throughout the year, culminating in a grand finale in December. The poker rooms Macau Poker Cup held four Red Dragon main events in 2009, with each one getting more players than the last.
The first Red Dragon main event, which was held in March, saw its HK $500,000 guaranteed prize pool broken as 112 players entered for a total prize pool of HK $1,052,800. Due to the large turnout, the subsequent Red Dragon events offered a guarantee of HK $1,000,000. It didnt matter, as player numbers kept increasing, including a field of 247 runners in October.
PokerStars Macau then held its grand finale in December with the Macau Poker Cup Championship (MPCC). Held from December 12-20, the MPCC featured a HK $20,000 main event with HK $2,000,000 guaranteed. The winner was Devin Tang, who defeated Taipeis Michael Chang to win the HK $727,600 first prize.
2009 also saw two new poker rooms open in Macau. Sun Citys Poker King Club, named after the movie released earlier in the year, opened on October 31 at the StarWorld Casino. Over on the other side of town, The Venetian opened its own poker room in late November, adding to the hotels multitude of gaming and shopping attractions.
With more poker rooms and bigger tournaments, 2009 definitely showed just how much poker is capable of growing in Macau and the region as a whole. Already established as the go-to place for poker in Asia, it wont be long before it becomes one of the biggest poker hotspots in the world.
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Ontario Lottery to Launch Online Gaming Site
Ontario Lottery to Launch Online Gaming Site
A second Canadian Provincial lottery may enter the internet gambling industry. Earlier in the year the British Columbia Lottery Corporation launched an online gaming website. Ste stated purpose was to provide BC residents with a safe alternative to unlicensed and unregulated offshore gambling sites. Some reporters were cynical about the move online because earlier the BC government condemned online gambling as a destructive addicting vice. The launch of the website was not without problems. The site crashed shortly after it was launched due to heavy traffic from curious BC punters. Actually the site’s crash shows heavy demand for safe online gambling. Early opposition was fierce from both political parties but the lure of the $100 million dollars spent annually by BC gamblers at offshore websites was too great for the BC government to pass up. The BC lottery is the first North American jurisdiction to offer online gambling. Unfortunately participation is limited to BC residents.
Recently The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation announced that it will launch its own online gambling site sometime in 2012. Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan pointed out that Ontario punters spend an estimated $400 million dollars a year at offshore gaming sites. Duncan stated, “Globally, Internet gaming has become a prominent trend.” Duncan said that the province has asked the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to build a “socially responsible and secure” gambling website that would include consumer protections and “encourages responsible gaming.”
The move could help the Ontario Lottery increase flagging sales. The Ontario lottery generates revenues of about $1.7 billion dollars a year but recently the numbers have been declining. A government spokesman estimated that within five years the website could generate an additional $100 million dollars a year. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario is trying to figure out how to regulate cyber gambling to prevent abuses and compulsive gambling. Critics voiced the usual complaints and concerns, underage gambling, gambling ‘addiction’ and one politician made the astounding claim that all internet gamblers are ‘addicted.’
Despite objections the project is expected to go forward on schedule. Since the technology is already in place the Ontario lottery can learn from the mistakes made by the BC lottery when they launched their website. Hopefully at some point Americans will be able to join in the fun!