The casino industry in the Philippines has gone through a major transformation during the last 24 months as the government has encouraged foreign investment and made regulations as easy as possible to enable foreign gambling establishments to set up their operations in the Philippines.

The strategy has worked and a number of international firms are in the process of opening out multi-billion dollar casino-resorts. The Philippines government along with these mega casinos are now looking to bring popular gambling tours into the Philippines so that there is a constant flow of business for the casinos.

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The Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) recently announced that it will come to Manila to launch their 9th season which is scheduled to take place at PokerStars LIVE at City of Dreams Manila. The event is expected to run from the 30th of July to the 9th of August and will be attended by some of the biggest poker players in Asia.

A number of popular poker players from Team PokerStars have also confirmed their presence for the event. Some of these include Kosei Ichinose, Bryan Huang, Aditya Agarwal, Celina Lin and Vivian Im who was the 2010 APPT Cebu winner.

In a statement, Gerardo “Hill” Alim the poker room manager said “With PokerStars LIVE at City of Dreams Manila hosting by far the most ambitious APPT schedule we’ve ever had in the Philippines, we anticipate a truly incredible festival. We look forward to providing players the best live poker experience across this action-packed 11-day festival.”

The APPT Manila tour will feature a number of exciting events during the course of the tournament. Some of those featured events include Warm-up (PHP 3 Million Guarantee) – Day 1A which takes place on the 30th of July and has a buy-in of PHP 10,000; the Last Chance Satellite to Warm-up which takes place on the 31st of July and has a buy-in of PHP 2,000; the PHP 5,000 NLH Freezeout which takes place on the 3rd of August and has a buy-in PHP 5,000 and a 6-max Freezeout [2-day event] which starts on the 4th of August and has a buy-in of PHP 25,000.

The APPT Manila festival will host 14 Official Asia Player of the Year events and the main event which has a buy-in for PHP 50,000 and will take place during the 6th – 9th of August. To find out more information about the schedule of events, please visit the official website of the APPT.