Italian Vegas

Nearly a disaster.  Had resigned myself to a huge loss being over -$2,000 at one point and running $1,000 under ev.   Force to play 3hours more after that i went on a mad run and only ended up about $300 down and amazingly i was $1,000 over ev !   Ridiculous swings and ive gotta be careful im due a big loss any time very soon.  Great escape today, might not be so lucky for the week thats left. 

I have now received my 10 tickets for the WBCOOP 2012 series of events which starts this Thursday.

I have drafted my schedule below although this is possibly subject to a few revisions:


WBCOOP 2012 Tournament Schedule (GMT)

Not long ago I had a chance to read a very interesting collection of poker stories by David A. Curtis titled Queer Luck. The book was published in 1899 with the subtitle “Poker Stories from the New York Sun.”

There isn’t much in the way of specifics about the stories’ origins or even the names of the people who appear in them. I believe all of the stories appeared during the previous couple of years in the New York Sun, one of the three big newspapers in NYC during the late 19th century (along with the Times and Herald).

The 13 tales in the book are presented in literary fashion by Curtis — they really read like short stories — with a number of them introduced as related to Curtis by an unnamed “gray-haired young-looking man” after a fre online game of cards. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about one of the stories for the Epic Poker blog, one titled “For a Senate Seat” in which a party’s senatorial nominee was allegedly determined by a poker virtual game.

All of the stories are engaging and highly readable, but I wanted to share the first one — probably my favorite — titled “Why He Quit the Game,” which neatly introduces the theme suggested by the book’s title. The story also uncannily reminds me of a certain situation involving an online poker site on which a lot of us once played. Let me summarize the story here and I’ll let you decide why it might evoke such a connection.

“Why He Quit the Game” does not feature the narrative frame of the “gray-haired young-looking man.” Rather Curtis just launches into the story of a wild session of five-card draw jacks-or-better that took place at a regular underground fre online game at an uptown club in New York City.

The five players are all referred to generically by their professions — the Editor, the Congressman, the Colonel, the Doctor, and the Lawyer. The online game usually featured a one-dollar ante, but thanks in part to a series of remarkable hands and big pots the stakes on this night had gradually been increased tenfold.

Indeed, a lot of “queer luck” had marked the session. “Fours had been shown several times… and beaten once,” we’re told. “Straight flushes had twice won important money,” too, and players were routinely being dealt “pat fulls and flushes.”

For a while no one remarked on the oddity of so many big hands routinely turning up at showdowns. “It was as if each man feared to break the run by mentioning it,” Curtis explains. At last one does make a reference to what has been happening, jokingly noting that “the devil himself has been playing with his picture books to-night,” and the others agree.

The Congressman then deals a hand, announcing the ante would be doubled to $20 for this one. The Lawyer is dealt a four-flush with two tens, the Doctor gets a pat king-high straight, the Congressman has a pair of queens, the Editor has three deuces, and the Colonel has at least two aces (he doesn’t look at his other three cards).

The Doctor opens for twenty, everyone calls, then comes the draw. Again the Doctor leads with a bet of $20, though with all of the big hands that have been shown he doesn’t feel very confident his straight is going to be best. The Editor didn’t improve on his three deuces, and sharing the same lack of confidence folds to the Doctor’s proportionately small small bet.

Both players were correct to be timid, as we learn the Congressman has improbably drawn three sixes to match his pair of queens (perhaps again evoking the idea that the devil might well be involved). He raises to $40, then the Colonel — who when looking at his remaining cards had found a third ace before he drew — reraises to $90.

The Lawyer, who had pitched one of his tens and kept , calls, and at that point the uncertain Doctor folds his straight. The Congressman then makes it $140 with his full house, to which the Colonel pushes it up a hundred more. Then the Lawyer reraises a hundy on top of that. The Congressman just calls, but when the other two continue to add more to the pot he finally folds his sixes full of queens, giving up the more than $300 he’s contributed to the pot.

The reraises continue unabated, with the Lawyer eventually going into his pocketbook to pull out a stack of hundred dollar bills to add to the pot. Ultimately the pot has been built up to more than $5,000 when the Lawyer finds himself facing yet another reraise from the Colonel for $1,000 more.

The Lawyer is about to reraise again when he suddenly stops himself. “The bills were still in his grasp,” writes Curtis, “and, instead of laying them down, he sat for a moment rigid as a statue, while his face grew white.” Thinking of various poker stories in fiction, one might assume the Lawyer is about to drop dead of a heart attack here, but this apparently true story goes in a different direction.

The Lawyer rechecks his cards — which baffles the others — then merely calls the Colonel’s last raise. The Colonel turns over four aces, but the Lawyer had drawn the to make a winning straight flush. He then rakes the huge pot, though everyone remains tense, still feeling as though “some strange climax was coming, and none could even guess what it could be.”

Indeed, there is more to come here. The Lawyer counts up his winnings, then surprisingly hands $2,000 of it back to the Colonel. Then he delivers a speech.

“I am done with poker,” he begins, going on to explain that while he loves the game online — “To my mind there is no other sport that equals it” — he recognizes that he crossed “the boarder-line of dishonor” when playing the previous hand. And having done so, he now thinks the only appropriate response for him is to quit playing poker.

What was his transgression? Did he cheat? No. He had put money into the pot that was not his, but rather belonged to a client.

“If I had lost,” he explains, “I could not immediately have replaced it.” In the excitement of the hand he’d lost track of what money was his and what was not, and so had mistakenly used some of his client’s money that he had been carrying to continue. The amount he gave back to the Colonel corresponded to the amount the Lawyer had won with money that wasn’t his.

The Lawyer then asks the others if they believe he owes them as well. They recognize the Lawyer’s integrity, and noting how they were friends (having played the online game regularly for over a year), agree that he owes them nothing.

The story ends with the Colonel extending his hand to the Lawyer, who “grasped it nervously. One after another, the three others shook hands with him also, and the free online game was over.”

As I said, I’ll let you work out how or whether this story might recall that online poker site alluded to above having transgressed “the boarder-line of dishonor” in the way it managed its operation. Instead I’ll just recommend the rest of Queer Luck as book containing many more surprisingly suspenseful and thought-provoking poker tales. The book is available online in the Internet Archive (via the University of California) as a .pdf file (about 7 MB) by clicking here.

Negreanu ended up finishing sixth, banking $48,730.

The end of the poker patch?

This is a two part column that appeared in PokerStrategy.com earlier month, about the changing face of poker sponsorship.

Poker is changing dramatically right now – the free online game is getting regulated, social media is finally starting to come into the picture, and every poker room is looking at ways in which to make the poker economy healthier.

We had a fantastic blog this week from our CEO, Dominik Kofert, on his vision for the future of poker, in which he envisions a future where poker is marketed as a hobby and entertainment, rather than a sport or career.

Many poker rooms are introducing initiatives that penalize winning players, or at least, reward recreational players more. Elsewhere, many of the former “heroes” of poker are dramatically falling from grace, in particular, those embroiled in the Full Tilt scandal.

For whatever reason, the high profile professional player is no longer the centre of the poker universe.

Which compels me to ask, what is the point of poker rooms sponsoring players anymore? We are constantly hearing about the profits of poker rooms declining year on year, yet many rooms still insist on investing heavily on sponsoring players to wear their patch for them at tournaments.

What do sponsored players bring to a poker room?

The Hendon Mob were early pioneers of poker sponsorship

In hindsight, using part of your marketing budget to freeroll someone into poker tournaments seemed pretty silly in 99% of the cases. For years it was the knee-jerk reaction of any aspiring new poker room to go out and put a patch on a reasonably successful player – it was just something that people did, without really questioning why.

What actual value is derived from sponsoring someone to play poker? There are a handful of players out there who could, in 2012, possibly influence someone to play on a site by representing it – the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Tony G, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson – and that list is decreasing all the time. Not many other poker players have a genuine fan-base like this, or what we can really call “star power”.

Beyond the players who are regularly on TV and are actually well known by the mainstream audience, what actual value do the vast majority of “I-won-an-EPT-sponsored-players” bring to the table?

They don’t attract new players to the virtual online games, because most of them are complete nobodies outside of poker, so they could be anyone to a non poker player watching them on TV. 

Likewise, what value do they have to existing poker players? The chances are that anyone who has been playing poker for a while has already made their choices where to play, based on software, softness, VIP deals, traffic etc. If, all of a sudden, sponsored player X takes down the next leg of the WPT, I may find that interesting, but it will not in any way influence where I decide to play poker.

As a player, I am much more interested in the things I have mentioned above that concerned me. If I am going to switch poker rooms, or play more on an existing one, it is going to be increased rakeback, bigger guarantees, softer game onlines, better promotions, or improved software that will do it.

The Black Friday effect

Could the FTP sponsorship model ever be sustainable again?

Which brings me onto why I can’t see the traditional poker sponsorship model surviving in 2012. Not only is the community only concerned with the parts of the poker room that affect them, the modern poker player wants to know where their money is going. Black Friday shined a worrying light on what was happening in the back offices of online poker rooms, where our money was, and how it was being used.

We want our rake going back into promotions, software, rakeback, and marketing to bring new players to the table. I feel it was going this way anyway before Black Friday, but the perception of sponsored players by the poker community in the future will probably be “why is that guy playing with our money?” – and after the whole Full Tilt debacle, can you blame us?

I think part of the widespread acceptance of sponsorship in the past was probably down to a flawed sense of deserving. Sponsored players were perceived as being accomplished, talented and hard-working; we didn’t question why they got to play on our dime, because we felt their superior poker abilities meant they deserved to wear the patch.

This just does not wash anymore. The integrity of poker players is being scrutinised more than ever, no longer are they worshipped or idolised. Many former heroes have become villains since Black Friday, especially the ones who are thought to have benefited at the expense of all the players with money stuck on Full Tilt.

Full Tilt’s entire model was built around sponsored players, their hook-line was “play with the pros” after all, and when they went down, there were about 250 sponsored players on their books. When you consider many of the traditional sponsorship deals are worth in the region of $100k a year, is there any wonder the site imploded like it did with figures like that?

In 2012, the only real benefactors from the traditional poker sponsorship model is the sponsored players themselves. I hope that the community would never stand for another sponsorship model like FTP’s again, and instead urged poker rooms to put more of our rake into the things that bring new players to the tables, and our own experience much more enjoyable.

Finally, before I receive a sackful of hate mail and angry tweets from the hundreds of sponsored players out there – I will be following this up with a second part, which will focus on the sponsorship deals that still have value in 2012.

Part 2

Celebrity poker players bring star power to the table

Earlier this week I painted quite a negative picture of player sponsorship in today’s poker climate. I suggested that most player sponsorships were a waste of customer rake, which could be used for much better purposes than to freeroll an already successful player into some tournaments.

Today I would like to focus on some areas of sponsorship that still have value. I still think in some of cases, the money could be better used elsewhere; but these are by no means a waste, or at least, are much better than others.

One of the main reasons for my attack on the current state of player sponsorships was that most of the sponsored players do not actually have the star power to encourage new players to take up the virtual online games, or existing players to play more/switch rooms. The vast majority of well known poker players are still complete nobodies to the rest of the world.

The obvious exception here are the sponsored players who are already celebrities. The rich and famous folks from the world of sports and showbiz, who have achieved the holy grail of poker sponsorship without actually having to back it up with poker ability.

It may suck that a hard working grinder with some real success behind them struggles to find a sponsor, but Boris Becker can just show a slight interest in the virtual game and land a PokerStars deal, but Boris will do so much more for PokerStars than most players ever could.

Ready made fan-bases

Liv Boeree is a sponsor’s dream

Stars like Boris Becker, and 888poker sponsored player Shane Warne, bring with them a ready made fan-base, they actually have a demographic of supporters who are ready to be converted into poker addicts.

Celebrities also make it onto TV, and into newspapers, on a regular basis. Should they make it onto said TV or newspapers wearing a poker logo, that is worth much more than a regular sponsored player taking down a WPT event.

I always pose this question when weighing up the relative worth of a sponsored player. If you were to open a poker room tomorrow, who would you prefer to endorse your room: Phil Laak or Lady Gaga? If your answer is the Unabomber, you hate money.

You do not have to be world famous to have some sponsorship leverage as a poker player, but you do need to have an additional appeal beyond your ability to play cards. A great example of this is Liv Boeree, who is first and foremost a player, a very good one at that, but has several qualities that can bridge the gap between poker and mainstream appeal.

She is an attractive girl, which not only wins her fans it also gets her mainstream publicity. She has an great back story as an astro-physics student, which makes her interesting to write about. Finally, she is also a talented guitarist and heavy metal fan, which has seen her become something of a celebrity in rock music circles.

Then of course there are the handful of players who can genuinley be considered celebrities just from the world of poker. Players like Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu, and those who are famous in their home countries like ElkY and Joe Hachem. These guys are seen as the faces of poker, and have  enough star power to deserve sponsorship on that reason alone.

Loyalty based sponsorship

Randy Lew is part of the new breed of sponsored players

Finally there is one area where the typical hard working grinder, with no claims to celebrity, can still expect sponsorship and add value at the same time, is the “in-house loyalty pro”.

Many poker rooms have realised that there is much more merit to giving out their sponsorship deals to the guys who have helped fund the marketing budget in the first place. PokerStars, PartyPoker and PKR are all examples of rooms who have rewarded loyalty with sponsorship.

This model has a number of benefits. First of all, it cultivates a sense of loyalty and community at the room itself, the players can feel an affinity with the pro because he is one of us after all.

Secondly, it gives players of all levels something to aspire to, and gives them a reason to play (and rake) more. PokerStars, for example, did not just pick out the biggest profit winners for sponsorship, they also picked out low stakes players like chipstar1 and high raking grinders like nanonoko.

The third benefit is that the players will actively look to promote the poker room for free. I know lots of players who wear PokerStars or PKR patches at tournaments for free, simply because they really want to make it onto the sponsored team, and are working hard to prove they deserve it.

Finally, maybe the best reason to justify the deal in the first place is that they have already paid for part of it with their own activity at the tables. It is much easier to quantify the value of a newly sponsored pro when they have already raked most of what their deal is worth.

Ultimately the key to a valuable sponsorship deal in 2012 is to have a second appeal beyond your ability to play poker itself. Are you famous outside of poker? Are you an attractive woman? Do you appeal to a demographic that poker is trying to attract like women, video free online games, or regions where poker is less popular? Do you have a huge fan base on social media? Are you paying an immense amount of rake already?

There are still plenty of poker sponsorship models that add value to a poker room, there are still reasons why the community should be able to get behind a sponsored player without being bitter that their rake is paying for their free ride. But being sponsored simply because you are good at poker simply does not hold weight anymore in 2012.

by Barry Carter

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Melco interested in $1 bln Manila casino project

(Reuters) – A casino operator run by Australian billionaire James Packer and the son of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho has expressed interest in investing in a $1 billion Manila casino project, the Philippine gambling regulator said on Tuesday.

Macau-based Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd MPEL.0 was “very interested” in the project, Cristino Naguiat, chairman of the state-owned Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp (Pagcor), told Reuters after meeting with Melco officials last week in Manila.

He said Hong Kong-listed Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd (0027.HK) was also interested in a project in the more than 100-hectare Entertainment City near Manila Bay, construction of which is to begin late next year.

Pagcor, the country’s largest casino operator, awarded four licenses in 2008 and 2009 to operate casino resorts in the Manila Bay area. Pagcor expects the resorts to generate annual gambling revenue of as much as $11 billion after five years of operation, overtaking Las Vegas.

Pagcor requires a minimum investment of $1 billion from any firm awarded a gaming license, Naguiat said.

CASINO RESORTS

Naguiat did not know if Melco was looking for local partners, but said Galaxy was in talks with local groups and “could be” in discussions with local property and leisure firm Belle Corp (BEL.PS) for a partnership.

Belle, controlled by the country’s richest man Henry Sy, was looking to lease at least 10 hectares of land from Pagcor for its second casino project in Entertainment City. The project could also cost $1 billion.

Belle is building an integrated entertainment resort complex called Belle Grande Manila Bay, which features a 30,000-square-metre casino, within the Entertainment City.

Three other groups are pursuing developments in Entertainment City, the biggest being the $2 billion casino-hotel project being built by a unit of Japan’s Universal Entertainment Corp (6425.OS) set for completion in 2014.

The other developers are Bloomsbury Investments and the joint venture between Genting Hong Kong Ltd (0678.HK) and Alliance Global Group (AGI.PS).

Naguiat said Universal Entertainment remained interested in pursuing its Philippine project despite a much-publicised fight between Japanese gaming mogul Kazuo Okada and his former business partner, Las Vegas casino tycoon Steve Wynn.

Okada owns Universal Entertainment and Wynn is chief executive at Wynn Resorts Ltd (WYNN.O). Both claim the other made improper payments to win favour in their respective Macau and Philippines markets.

“I don’t know what’s going on between Mr. Okada and Mr. Wynn. We have to be outside that fight,” Naguiat said. “From the way I look at it, there was nothing wrong with our transactions with Mr. Okada.”

Naguiat said he had discussed the issue with Okada, who promised to pursue his Philippine project. “No change in plans, everything will push through.”

Pagcor grew its total revenues by 16.5 percent to a record 36.7 billion pesos last year. It expects revenues to grow at least 16 percent this year.

The season for auction fever about to set in…

THE commercial auction year in Melbourne will start in earnest when Burgess Rawson offers 10 properties, including shopping centres, service stations, and liquor outlets, next week.

The auction will be on Wednesday, February 29, in the River Room at Crown Online Casino at 11am. Up for sale are a Coles Express at Rye, an office in Cheltenham, a car wash in Springvale, a BP service station in Ballarat and an IGA in Seymour. The interstate properties include a supermarket and warehouse in Queensland, a Woolworths in Launceston and two Dan Murphy’s liquor stores in New South Wales.

In Echuca, Fitzroys and Charles L. King & Co will offer four commercial/residential development sites for auction this Saturday from 1.30pm. The property at 557-561 High Street, one of the last development sites in the Port precinct, is expected to fetch more than $2 million. The other sales prices should be between $1 million-$1.8 million.

In Southbank, Savills Australia is marketing a warehouse with development potential close to Southgate and Crown Online Casino. The property will be auctioned on Thursday, March 8, at 1pm on site, and is expected to fetch more than $950,000. Located at 11-13 Hancock Street, the level warehouse on a 168-square-metre site is zoned Mixed Use (allowing residential and commercial development).

Receivers and managers have been appointed to sell The Avenue, a prominent shopping centre in Sunshine West. Colliers International, under instructions from PPB Advisory, has listed the centre at 136 The Avenue for sale by tender.

The anchor tenant at the shopping centre was a Coles supermarket and was complemented by a strong tenancy mix incorporating a Cellarbrations liquor outlet and other specialty stores.

Knight Frank is to sell an industrial property at Tullamarine. Located at 9 Fellowes Court, the property comprises a clear-span warehouse with a two-level office and loading docks. The expressions of interest campaign closes on March 15 at 5pm. The expected selling price is more than $4 million.

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Star casino has ‘extreme’ party culture…

A former Star employee says the Sydney casino is plagued by a culture of parties, irresponsible gambling and sexual harassment.

The claims come just days after the NSW Gaming Authority announced an inquiry into the casino, following the sacking of its CEO Sid Vaikunta over sexual harassment allegations two weeks ago.
In an interview with Channel 7, former manager Elizabeth Ward said in her 24 years working in casinos she had never witnessed a culture as extreme as that at the Star.

“It’s a permanent party,” she told Seven.

Another employee who wasn’t identified told Seven there was ‘chronic drug abuse’ within senior management.

He also claimed senior managers were encouraged not to report breaches within the casino.
“There’s financial incentives not to report any breaches,” he said.

Ms Ward, who worked at The Star for 16 years, claimed in one incident a senior minister from a foreign government was ejected from the casino for gross and obscene behaviour but was allowed to return after complaining to executive staff.

“No matter what you do or what you report or what you see, nothing gets done,” she said.
The employees claim high-rollers are protected by senior management, and encouraged to stay at tables for up to 48 hours.

Ms Ward said her investigation of a suspected drug scandal involving a high-roller cost her and her husband their jobs.

She claimed the high-roller was good friends with three casino executives.

“The more I investigated it the uglier things seemed to be getting for me,” she said.

The employees said they were willing to testify as part of the Free Online Casin, Liquor and Gaming Control Authority inquiry.

Echo Entertainment says the allegations made on Seven News are inconsistent with the findings of the Free Online Casin Liquor Gaming Control Authority’s recent review of The Star casino licence.

The company says The Star’s intolerance of breaches of its Code of Conduct is evidenced by the sacking of its former managing director after allegations were made against him.

It rejected Ms Ward’s claim that the jobs of she and her husband were terminated after they investigated a high-roller over a suspected drug scandal.

“Ms Ward was unable to return to work after an eight-month absence and so her employment was ended,” Echo Entertainment said in a statement.

“Six months before a restructure of table fre online games Ms Ward’s husband asked for a voluntary redundancy and The Star granted his request.”

Echo Entertainment did not deny that reporting breaches was entwined with performance indicators.

It said reporting breaches was taken seriously but that a recent report by Ms Gail Furness SC to the Free Online Casin Liquor & Gaming Licence Authority did recommend a review of performance indicators for senior staff.

“She observed that The Star had already taken action to substitute a more appropriate KPI (Key Performance Indicators) in place of zero breaches,” the company said.

The company also did not deny claims a foreign minister had been readmitted to the casino after being ejected for bad behaviour.

It said: “The Responsible Service of Alcohol is treated seriously and applied uniformly regardless of the status of the client visiting the casino.”

Inquiry launched into sacking of casino boss Sid Vaikunta…

AN inquiry has been launched into the circumstances surrounding the sacking of The Star casino’s CEO, Sid Vaikunta.

The NSW Online Casino, Liquor and Gaming Control Authority said today it was establishing the inquiry, with powers conferred by the Royal Commissions Act.

Mr Vaikunta left the Sydney casino amid allegations of sexual harassment.

The casino’s owner Echo Entertainment Group announced his departure a fortnight ago, citing his behaviour “in a social work setting”.

Barrister Gail Furness SC will run the inquiry.

Melco interested in $1 bln Manila casino project

(Reuters) – A casino operator run by Australian billionaire James Packer and the son of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho has expressed interest in investing in a $1 billion Manila casino project, the Philippine gambling regulator said on Tuesday.

Macau-based Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd MPEL.0 was “very interested” in the project, Cristino Naguiat, chairman of the state-owned Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp (Pagcor), told Reuters after meeting with Melco officials last week in Manila.

He said Hong Kong-listed Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd (0027.HK) was also interested in a project in the more than 100-hectare Entertainment City near Manila Bay, construction of which is to begin late next year.

Pagcor, the country’s largest casino operator, awarded four licenses in 2008 and 2009 to operate casino resorts in the Manila Bay area. Pagcor expects the resorts to generate annual gambling revenue of as much as $11 billion after five years of operation, overtaking Las Vegas.

Pagcor requires a minimum investment of $1 billion from any firm awarded a gaming license, Naguiat said.

CASINO RESORTS

Naguiat did not know if Melco was looking for local partners, but said Galaxy was in talks with local groups and “could be” in discussions with local property and leisure firm Belle Corp (BEL.PS) for a partnership.

Belle, controlled by the country’s richest man Henry Sy, was looking to lease at least 10 hectares of land from Pagcor for its second casino project in Entertainment City. The project could also cost $1 billion.

Belle is building an integrated entertainment resort complex called Belle Grande Manila Bay, which features a 30,000-square-metre casino, within the Entertainment City.

Three other groups are pursuing developments in Entertainment City, the biggest being the $2 billion casino-hotel project being built by a unit of Japan’s Universal Entertainment Corp (6425.OS) set for completion in 2014.

The other developers are Bloomsbury Investments and the joint venture between Genting Hong Kong Ltd (0678.HK) and Alliance Global Group (AGI.PS).

Naguiat said Universal Entertainment remained interested in pursuing its Philippine project despite a much-publicised fight between Japanese gaming mogul Kazuo Okada and his former business partner, Las Vegas casino tycoon Steve Wynn.

Okada owns Universal Entertainment and Wynn is chief executive at Wynn Resorts Ltd (WYNN.O). Both claim the other made improper payments to win favour in their respective Macau and Philippines markets.

“I don’t know what’s going on between Mr. Okada and Mr. Wynn. We have to be outside that fight,” Naguiat said. “From the way I look at it, there was nothing wrong with our transactions with Mr. Okada.”

Naguiat said he had discussed the issue with Okada, who promised to pursue his Philippine project. “No change in plans, everything will push through.”

Pagcor grew its total revenues by 16.5 percent to a record 36.7 billion pesos last year. It expects revenues to grow at least 16 percent this year.

The season for auction fever about to set in…

THE commercial auction year in Melbourne will start in earnest when Burgess Rawson offers 10 properties, including shopping centres, service stations, and liquor outlets, next week.

The auction will be on Wednesday, February 29, in the River Room at Crown Online Casino at 11am. Up for sale are a Coles Express at Rye, an office in Cheltenham, a car wash in Springvale, a BP service station in Ballarat and an IGA in Seymour. The interstate properties include a supermarket and warehouse in Queensland, a Woolworths in Launceston and two Dan Murphy’s liquor stores in New South Wales.

In Echuca, Fitzroys and Charles L. King & Co will offer four commercial/residential development sites for auction this Saturday from 1.30pm. The property at 557-561 High Street, one of the last development sites in the Port precinct, is expected to fetch more than $2 million. The other sales prices should be between $1 million-$1.8 million.

In Southbank, Savills Australia is marketing a warehouse with development potential close to Southgate and Crown Free Online Casin. The property will be auctioned on Thursday, March 8, at 1pm on site, and is expected to fetch more than $950,000. Located at 11-13 Hancock Street, the level warehouse on a 168-square-metre site is zoned Mixed Use (allowing residential and commercial development).

Receivers and managers have been appointed to sell The Avenue, a prominent shopping centre in Sunshine West. Colliers International, under instructions from PPB Advisory, has listed the centre at 136 The Avenue for sale by tender.

The anchor tenant at the shopping centre was a Coles supermarket and was complemented by a strong tenancy mix incorporating a Cellarbrations liquor outlet and other specialty stores.

Knight Frank is to sell an industrial property at Tullamarine. Located at 9 Fellowes Court, the property comprises a clear-span warehouse with a two-level office and loading docks. The expressions of interest campaign closes on March 15 at 5pm. The expected selling price is more than $4 million.

Adelaide Free Online Casin earns $19m in first half – 16th February 2012…

SkyCity Entertainment Group is continuing talks with the State Government on the redevelopment of the Adelaide casino.

New Zealand-based SkyCity has casinos in Auckland, Hamilton, Queenstown, Adelaide and Darwin.

Adelaide Free Online Casin was the group’s best performing Australian asset, lifting earnings 13 per cent to $19.1 million in the six months to December 31 on a 7 per cent rise in revenue of $82.6 million.

SkyCity on Wednesday reported a 17.4 per cent increase in net profit for the first half of the 2011/12 financial year to a record $NZ78.8 million ($A61.81 million).

The group said that since December SkyCity had been working closely with the South Australian casino taskforce regarding the future regulatory framework for the Adelaide casino.

“The outcome of these discussions will allow us to determine whether to proceed or not with progressing our plans for the transformation of the Adelaide casino,” SkyCity said.

“While we are excited about the outstanding growth opportunity this transformational project potentially represents for SkyCity, shareholders should be assured that this project will only proceed if we can be confident of achieving an acceptable return on the potential investment.”

SkyCity says it could transform the Adelaide casino into a world-class entertainment facility, featuring a five-star hotel, expanded gaming facilities, restaurants and bars, a spa and a roof-top pool lounge.

SkyCity said that since 2010, the Darwin casino had experienced some challenging times caused by a soft tourism market, the high Australian dollar and the ban on live cattle exports.

However, gaming revenues were now returning to growth.

Construction of SkyCity’s new Lagoon Resort in Darwin was on budget and scheduled to open in July.

The Lagoon Resort would include special facilities for international gamblers, enabling SkyCity’s Darwin property to compete in the international VIP market.

“This, together with the recently announced business class flights direct from Singapore, Darwin’s proximity to Asia and the recently announced $32 billion Inpex Ichthys LNG project, gives us confidence that our Darwin property has a very bright future,” SkyCity said.

Overall, the group said strong first half earnings were driven by the revitalised flagship Auckland casino and hotel complex, the Rugby World Cup finals in New Zealand in October, and continued success in attracting more international gamblers.

SkyCity chief executive Nigel Morrison said the group had enjoyed strong momentum in the six months to December 31, and it had continued into January and February 2012.

SkyCity expected its normalised net profit for the full year to be at the top end of its previous guidance range in the high $NZ140 millions, up from $NZ130.9 million ($A102.68 million) last year.

SkyCity spent $NZ50 million ($A39.22 million) rejuvenating its Auckland operations, including new VIP gaming facilities.

SkyCity said talks were continuing with the New Zealand government over the construction of an international convention centre, which could result in the SkyCity investing $NZ350 million ($A274.54 million) in the project.

Shares in SkyCity were two cents lower at $2.78 on Wednesday.

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Finished early.  One of best days profit this year (assuming i dnt go back on stars and lose some later).  So why did i pretty much hate it all day ?    Just bored and sick of it now, sooooooooooo need a day off but committed and have to push on through.  Was in the hole for £700 at one point today but hit a golden session and i think i made it to +£1,000 before dropping some back.  +£853 on day,

There were a number of poker-related headlines late last week containing the above figure. Those headlines appeared over stories reporting on the swift, unceremonious end to the brief hope that an online poker bill would be attached to a $150 billion package covering the extension of the employee payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, and Medicare-related items.

Initial reports surfaced about a week ago suggesting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was going to attach the online poker legislation to the bill. Then, just a couple of days later, Reid squashed such thoughts in a comment to a reporter saying there’d be no such attachment.

Word filtered around subsequently indicating that to attach the online poker legislation would threaten the bill (which Reid supported). Julio Rodriguez reported for Card Player that Reid’s “last ditch effort” to include the online poker legislation “fell short when it became apparent that it could put the entire legislation in jeopardy.” Perhaps it did, or perhaps it didn’t. Apparently Reid tried to attach other provisions to the bill, too, but those were all rejected by fellow legislators and not included either.

To finish the story, the bill was voted upon on Friday without any sort of ideas about regulating and licensing online poker in the U.S. attached, and just over two-thirds of the House voted in favor (across party lines). It also passed the Senate 60-36, where the Democrats were mostly for and Republicans against.

Thus came the headlines, most of which dovetailed upon Howard Stutz’ report for the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Online Poker seen folding its hand until 2013.” In addition to reporting on the non-inclusion of online poker in the federal bill, Stutz also alludes to Nevada having passed its own legislation last year and state regulators having further finalized regulations to ready the state to offer its own online gaming licenses. Stutz says 13 companies have applied for licenses thus far.

The “2013” Stutz included in his headline and lead paragraph — and subsequently repeated every else you read the story being summarized (because, after all, we’re in an extensive echo chamber here) — represents a gaming analyst’s speculation that no federal online poker bill will be brought up again during this election year, although the truth is that possibility remains only slightly less likely at present than it had been before. (In other words, still about the same long shot.)

There are other bills to which online poker legislation could get attached, but in truth few really know if or when such might be attempted. And as was the case last week when this talk suddenly arose for a couple of days before just as suddenly dying down, I don’t think there will be a lot of lead time if something along these lines were to occur.

In other words, “2013” is really not much more than a number here to represent a vague, calculated guess, because there’s a little less “2012” today than there was last week, and “2014” seems too far off to focus upon as a legitimate target for predictions.

All of which is to say I’m convinced no one is really sure of much of anything of substance when it comes to predicting what is going to happen on a federal level with regard to online gambling. Not with any real certainty, anyway.

What is easier to predict is that absent any real knowledge or information, we’ll keep repeating these numbers to each other.

29 days in Feb and its the 20th today. That leaves me 10 days to complete my fight back. Im against the ropes but swinging hard…. a bit the David Haye and Dereck Chisora in their shameful brawl on Sat.

I’m pulling it back little by little: