Sands China Hosts a Poker Tournament in Macau after Six Years

After the great losses the Macau casino industry experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly because of the measures that restricted traveling, which disabled foreign tourists and the ones from Mainland China and Hong Kong from visiting the city, the industry seems to be recovering. The revenue is growing again, and tournament poker is back, so the players have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming period. 

New tournament after six years:

Sands China will host the tournament, and the potential players will be able to compete at The Venetian Macao.

This is the first time in six years that Macau has hosted a poker tournament. An event, called Macao Masters, will last for four days. The buy-in is HK$3,000 (US$384). A buy-in includes three Day 1 flights, along with unlimited rebuys that can be redeemed during the whole registration period.

After the flights, the top 30 chip stacks will get a chance to compete during the final day, which will be held on Thursday, March 14, as the officials announced.

At the moment, Sands China offers cash game poker in Macau. The company is one of three in total that offer this service in the city, along with Wynn Macau and MGM China. However, despite its popularity, poker tournaments were almost forgotten, since the last one in this gaming heaven was held in 2018. 

Back then, the PokerStars Live room was held at City of Dreams. The venue also hosted a large-scale event, the 2018 Macau Millions, in the same year, and back then 2,499 players participated in the main event.

As Inside Asian Gaming reports, Andy Kobel, a Senior Vice President of Casino Operations at Sands China, is positive that this tournament will help the company to improve the gambling experience for its loyal customers and at the same time help in growing this key Asian market. He said that the local market had “responded well to [The Venetian’s] poker offering.”

WPT in Macau:

Sands China runs this major event by itself, and Kobel hopes that it will be a precursor for other such events that will be held in the city in the future. He was asked about that and responded: “We’re always looking at new opportunities, and tournaments of different scale and frequency are certainly some of those opportunities.”

What does that mean for the poker industry in the city? According to the industry news, a lot is going to happen in Macau. One of the biggest poker tournaments in the world, The World Poker Tour (WPT) recently announced that they would love to host the tournament in Macau, and CEO Adam Pliska confirmed the claims.

Back in December, he said: “There are some structural issues in Macau that make it difficult, particularly with dealers, but we are dedicated. We will get to Macau. We will work with the government and we’ll work with anyone else to make sure we get a good event.”

However, Kobel didn’t want to comment on any claims about Sands China’s negotiations with the WPT.