Twenty-two year-old Eddie Sabat from the US, recent winner of Asia Pacific Poker Tour main event held in Macau last September, went home with a cool US$3.5 million

The game of poker has been around for centuries, and until relatively recently evoked associations with smoky saloons in the Wild West or Mississippi steamboats. Nowadays the game is enjoying a comeback of sorts, in a way that the gunslingers and riverboat ramblers couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams. Some of the momentum came from the widely publicised World Series of Poker win where a previously unknown accountant named, appropriately, Chris Moneymaker (yes, that’s his real name) bagged a cool US$2.5 million.  In the meantime, online sites sprang up that let would-be millionaires compete with live players all over the world at any time of day or night.

Not to be left behind where any sort of gaming is concerned, Macau has finally jumped on the bandwagon, and at least one poker hall has been enjoying a brisk business at the Grand Waldo on Taipa Island since last May. Pokerstars Macau operates Texas Hold’em Poker games in rooms off the casino’s main gaming floor at the Waldo, and holds tournaments in conjunction with Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), which it sponsors along with tours in Europe and Latin America. Billing itself as the world's largest online card room, with over nine million members and 10 billion poker hands dealt, PokerStars hosts regular qualifying tournaments to live APPT events, like the Macau Poker Cup in October, where high roller Dinh Le took home the US$222,640 pot.

APPT president Jeffrey Haas has gotten in on poker’s ground floor in Macau. Before he and his company could even offer these public poker games in conjunction with PokerStars, much less operate APPT tournaments here, they had to lobby for new legislation covering the regulation of the game. Previously, it wasn’t even legal for poker to be played in commercial venues. He started planting the seeds in late 2006, when he came to Macau and met with local gaming authorities and media. “Every country has its own regulatory framework.  Because we’re the first to do poker, we have to define the regulations and work within the regulations for that,” Haas explains.

Macau casinos just didn’t offer it among their other card games like baccarat, not only because poker isn’t a traditionally popular game in Asia, but because, as a game where skill counts as much as luck, the house doesn’t stand to make money on it. At PokerStars Macau, players play against each other, not the house, as in other casino card games.

While poker isn’t as popular yet in Asia as in the West, Haas thinks widespread TV coverage will change all that. He is an old hand in this field, with more than a decade in media work and four years building online poker businesses, and knows his stuff.  By tying in with
PokerStars, which also sponsor of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour, the European Poker Tour and Latin American Poker Tour, not to mention running the world's largest online card room with over nine million members, PokerStars hosts the qualifying tournaments for APPT events.

“Organising events in Europe Started with the idea for a tour, so a big part was sponsorship,” Haas says. “PokerStars started in 2001 as an online site. Today, it’s got the best software, best customer support base, and has grown faster than its competitors.”

APPT Senior Manager, Business Development Asia David Jung weighs in on the poker phenomenon worldwide: “It was inevitable.  Poker has been growing dramatically on a global level.  It hasn’t yet taken off in Asia, but the potential is there.”

The Grand Waldo, where the first APPT tournament was held in 2007, serves not just as a venue for the regular games and the tournaments, but also as APPT’s marketing partner. According to Haas, it’s a “symbiotic relationship.  They send us customers and we bring business to their casinos and hotels.”

APPT, which has a core staff of 12 and brings in support staff for the events, promotes actively in Hong Kong as well, by sponsoring the Hong Kong poker league, a series of free pub poker games where people learn to play the game. “Players can then go on to use the website and can win a package to come and play in the tournaments. Every Tuesday at Mint in Lan Kwai Fong, Wednesday at Voler and Thursday at the Poker House on Hollywood Road,” Haas explains. 

The company has three lines of business: poker operation, business development and events development. Haas and Jung agree that poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance, and good players need to use math and psychology. Tournament poker is a sport, they say, allowing players to continuously advance to games requiring a higher skill level.  Since here in Asia there aren’t enough domestic players, APPT tours bring in winners from previous events.

The potentially enormous China market obviously has allure for the company. At the moment, though, Haas observes, "There is no poker culture in China," but he aims to raise awareness of poker as a skill-based game among Chinese. "We think Macau, as the gaming capital of Asia, is the perfect place to get it going," he says.

The games and tournaments themselves are not moneymaking ventures, Haas and Jung agree, explaining that money is made is through sponsorships and TV rights. Right now APPT is looking for more partners and sponsors for live events.

The company is concentrating on building “relationship capital” by putting together deals, and generating short-term cash flow. “David and I fly into a destination, sit down with people over lunch and tell them why poker is really a game of skill,” Haas says. They offer a benefit for the destination: “We’re not selling gaming. We’re selling tourism,” he explains. “We rely on international tourism. We really are diversifying the market. We bring in people who come for the week.” This is good news for Macau especially, where diversification and increasing visitors’ stays are stated goals of the government tourism officials.

What the gaming does is bring in the customers.  “It’s an organic process,” Jung says. “Poker is very big mainstream culture now, and expats [especially] know this.  In the finance industry, these guys love to play poker.”  Haas interjects: “It’s very much like trading stocks.”  Or, as Jung puts it, it’s like “game theory or trading stocks, with a clear case of legitimacy.”

As for those finance industry players, Haas and Jung aren’t sure how the global economic slowdown will affect business, but Jung offers one caveat: “I wouldn’t encourage anyone to become a career player.”