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Anticipation has been brewing within the Pokerkaki community with the opening of both Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. We've been falling over ourselves with excitement at the sighting of a fully designated area for Texas Hold'em within the RWS premises, and with rumours of MBS all set to launch a poker room themselves. The question is, especially given that both casinos possess the legal monopoly on Texas Hold'em, why hasn't any of this happened as yet?
As any casino in the world worth their salt would know, there now exists a fairly large demand for the game globally. Even in this little corner of the world, opening poker rooms would facilitate a relatively stable and risk-free form of revenue. In addition, casino executives who've done their research would recognise that a poker room is only the stepping stone towards running large scale poker events, which in turn brings in bucketloads of free-spending enthusiasts from across the globe. And, as any one familiar with the habits of poker players will know, these guys are not shy about splashing out on Vertu for their girlfriend(s), or on opening that 8th bottle of Cristal for no particular reason. It is an established fact that facilitating the conduct of a large scale poker event reaps innumerable economic benefits for both the casino, and the hosting country's tourism dollar. Check with the Dusit Thani in Manila, or with the Grand Lisboa in Macau.
This writer got in touch with both Media Relations departments at RWS and MBS. After spending a good 5 minutes explaining the nature of my inquiry, the kind but poorly-equipped service person told me that she would 'forward my queries to the appropriate department', and that they would contact me in 3 days. This conversation took place 2 weeks ago, and I haven't heard form them since. The Media Relations person at RWS was considerable more helpful. He assured me that RWS did offer Texas Hold'em, and that it was fully operational. After explaining myself more thoroughly, it transpired that he and I were talking about two different games. He did promise to get back to me, and i received an email response on the same day, after he had clarified with the casino staff. There are no plans to open the poker room as yet, until the core table game operations have fully stabilised.
The likelihood is, both casinos simply are not equipped with the expertise to 1) run a poker room, 2) promote that room through the correct target channels, 3) use the room as a springboard to larger tournaments and events. As to when they're likely to commence, we're afraid your guess is still as good as ours. Watch this space for updates.