Some things I've been thinking about lately, given a spate of things I've been witnessing and hearing around town. Here are the things I'd like to talk about:
1. The new cycle of major tournaments kicking off
2. The buzz emanating from the growing community of card room employees
3. The tension between legal and not-so-legal operations
Major TournamentsThere are a number of folks producing tournaments, tournament series, and their attendant satellite series. Many hold out the promise of large pots, sweet guarantees, pathways to fame and fortune. Now the bulk of tourneys held around town are pretty straightforward: there is a published buy-in and fee, and in the case of a guaranteed pool, the amount of the guarantee. Examples of ethically questionable practices I've seen in the past are:
a) Major tournaments publicizing a guaranteed pot but not breaking fees out from the buy, and not rolling buy-in money into the pot when the guarantee has been crossed - this is a tough situation for players. They deserve to be treated fairly with respect to the prize pool, and thus are entitled to the fundamental info about how much of their buy-in is destined for the prize pool and how much is finding its way into the organizer's bank account. As I've said above, I've seen this happen twice, and I'd urge you to demand this basic information when it is missing or obscured.
b) Major tournaments publicizing a large prize pool amount (e.g. P2,000,000) and not delivering that amount when fewer that the target seats are sold. The way i see it, when you put a number up in big, bold letters, you better have that number in the bank. If you don't deliver it, that could be construed as false advertising, illegal in industries that watch out for that sort of thing. Check with your friendly pool-guarantors and ensure the number is indeed the number.
Card room EmployeesThe growth of the Philippine Poker industry has made the need for qualified card room staff, from dealers to floors, to brushes, a very stark need indeed. PAGCOR and the underground community simply cannot supply everyone operators need. So some of us took the bull by the horns and trained up quite a few applicants, and put most of them in regular rotation. What I'm starting to hear is these employees, particularly the dealers - the backbone of the card room - complaining of shabby treatment, including: late pay, tip boxes being raked by management, etc.
In our operations, we pay our staff fairly (I've heard that we have the best monthly base salaries in the country) and on time. They also keep all of their tokes. This is to identify the very best and develop them further.
It's my humble view that a fairly compensated and fairly treated staff member is a happy one, and being fair to him or her avoids downstream labor issues.
Legal and IllegalEven the government will admit that the underground card room scene is nowhere near eradicated. I'd extend this to say that it's necessary for the development of the overall market. Friends bringing friends to a familiar place managed by friends takes the intimidation factor away from the game, which when new to someone, can be intimidating indeed. When we received authority to operate Card rooms both within and outside the casino environment, a few folks urged me and my partners to have the illegals investigated and "raided". We flat out refused for two reasons 1) The benefits I stated above, and 2) we simply don't want to win that way, the rat's way.
People ask me how to beat the undergrounds. One answer: be better.
My two cents for the moment. My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my business partners - in fact they rarely ever do :)
