PokerStars, the biggest online poker website in the world will launch its first ever PokerStars Festival in Manila, Philippines. The PokerStars LIVE festival will take place at the City of Dreams Manila from July 28 to August 7. PokerStars introduced new formats in 2017 with its PokerStars Festivals and PokerStars Championship tournaments that are scheduled to take place all through the year in different locations.
PokerStars Festival South Korea
The first ever PokerStars Festival in Asia is scheduled to take place in Incheon, South Korea from July 14 to 24 at the Paradise City Hotel & Resort and poker players from all over Asia are expected to be in attendance. South Korea’s casinos have witnessed a surge in business during the last 3 years and has benefitted from the collapse of Macau’s gaming industry. The PokerStars South Korea festival will once again provide the industry an influx of patrons as visitors descend from all over the world. South Korea does not allow locals to gamble at its casinos – except for the Kangwon Land casino.
PokerStars Festival Manila
The PokerStars Festival Manila will have a number of exciting events but the ones that will gain the most attention will be the PokerStars Festival High Roller which has a buy-in of PHP 215,000 and takes place on August 2 & 3 and the Main Event which has a buy-in of PHP 55,000 and a PHP 20 million guarantee. The Main Event will take place from August 3 – 7 and have 3 opening days where players with start with 30,000 in chips and have blinds that increase every 45 minutes for 12 different levels.
Some of the other exciting events at the Festival include the PokerStars Open which has a PHP 16,500 buy-in and takes place from July 28-30. The PokerStars Open comes with a PHP 4 million guarantee; the PokerStars Cup has a buy-in of PHP 22,000 and takes place from August 4-7; the PokerStars Super Deep which has a buy-in of PHP 27,500 and is scheduled between July 30-August 2 and the NLH – Single Re-Entry which has a buy-in of PHP 110,000 and is scheduled for August 6.
City of Dreams Manila Will Focus On Security
The City of Dreams Manila will make extensive preparations to host the PokerStars Festival and a lot of that will have to do with its security measures. The casino took a hit in its hotel room occupancy and visitations in June 2017 after the Resorts World Manila incident.
A lone gunman stormed Resorts World Manila in June opening fire with an automatic weapon but did not injure anyone. However he would go on to set fire to gaming tables which caused panic amongst the thousands of patrons, ultimately leading to the death of 37 people who died from smoke inhalation. In the aftermath, a large number of international visitors decided to give the Philippines a miss and the casino industry took a hit for a short while.
Melco Resorts International which is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Lawrence Ho is the operator of the City of Dreams Manila casino. Ho had confirmed after the attack that all of Melco’s properties would heighten their security measures to ensure that their patrons are protected at all times.
City Of Dreams Manila – Business As Usual
Geoff Andres, president of City of Dreams Manila realizes that international visitors have concerns about their security and safety in light of the Resorts World Manila incident. Andres has done his part to dispel those fears and reservations that poker players might have when contemplating playing at the PokerStars Festival at the City of Dreams casino.
In a statement, Geoff Andres, president of City of Dreams Manila tool GGRAsia “Our international visitors are concerned about the recent events, but we are confident that the Philippines will continue to thrive as a world class destination. Given that the police have identified the incident as an isolated case of an attempted robbery, we anticipate it will have minimal business impact”.
Resorts World Manila has also reopened its gaming floor and has put in place a number of new security measures as the casino looks to win back the trust of its patrons.