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Poker’s Manila examination

Written by Ben Blaschke

Having recently spent some time in Manila for the inaugural WPT Manila event at Solaire Resort & Casino, the team here at WGM were certainly interested to hear that a new PokerStars LIVE poker room has opened at City of Dreams Manila.

Melco Crown’s latest investment in the Entertainment City precinct of Manila hadn’t opened its door during our trip although it’s collection of cube-shaped gold buildings was certainly hard to miss and we suspect it will do extremely well as Entertainment City continues to take shape. The PokerStars LIVE room, however, faces a more complex set of questions when it comes to its long-term success.

Most pressing is the fact that, unlike Macau where the PokerStars LIVE room at City of Dreams has survived a series of location changes to become the undisputed home of poker, Manila provides far more competition with an established poker room at Resorts World Manila, Solaire signalling its intent with the recent WPT event and a number of popular card rooms scattered in and around the city.

Obviously APPT events in Manila will now all be held in the PokerStars LIVE room but it doesn’t have a stranglehold on tournament poker in the Philippines with Resorts World likely to continue its relationship with the Asian Poker Tour who held three events there in 2014.

On the other hand, there are plenty of advantages the team at PokerStars can look forward to in Manila that Macau didn’t offer when they first set up camp back in 2008. For starters, the Philippines has historically been the strongest poker country in Asia in regards to supporting the game – as evidenced by the number of poker rooms already in operation.

Whereas Macau had no established poker scene in 2008 – and to this day faces the ongoing threat of Macau’s table cap sucking up more and more poker tables – Manila certainly does have a thriving poker scene. And based on what we witnessed during WPT National Philippines in October, the PokerStars LIVE Manila room doesn’t face any real threat from its closest geographical neighbor in Solaire.

As always though, time will tell.