this seems like pretty big news to me

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2008/0...rst-poker.html

http://www.pokerstarsmacau.com/

this has exciting implications

Full Tilt should follow

Are they using dealers or is it electronic poker tables?

Instead of the casino operators buying out the online rooms - which they can no longer attempt, since they're dramatically overleveraged and losing revenues - it might end up being the other way round. Online rooms filling the gap where the casinos downsize and pull away from half-assed poor business propositions, or where they were too short-sighted to get into in the first place. Sexy thought indeed.

Lets go

wow, makes you wonder if and when this will ever happen in vegas.

While this does have exciting implications, there are two potentially crippling problems:

1. If PokerStars charges prevailing Asian rakes, which are unbelievably high, this will simply be another house game.

2. This is especially true if the majority of players are PokerStars/TwoPlusTwo types. The prospect of beating each other up while paying over $10 US per hand in rake somehow does not sound appealing.

sweet

My god time to move there. Imagine how bad the games will be. Poker is like new overthere.

i wonder if they will have all White dealers

LOL, awesome.

the only people playing poker over here are foreigners, theres no moneymaker equivalent etc

BRING ON THE ASIANS!!

wow sick. time to get a roll on stars.

what would the AP or UB poker room look like ?

discuss

I'd imagine there will be at least one person per table with this resemblance:

I wonder if they'll allow people to withdraw and deposit money into Stars accounts at the casino.

With the exception of the Philippines, poker cannot air on TV almost anywhere else in Asia unless the tournament organizer 1) does a deal with the local gambling monopoly and 2) hands over a big chunk of the buy-in as a tax to the local gambling monopoly.

For now, poker cannot air legally on TV in Hong Kong (where the Hong Kong Jockey Club has a 100% monopoly), mainland China (where government-owned lottery administrations in each province or province-level city has 100% monopoly within each province or province-level city), or Taiwan (where the Ministry of Finance has a 100% monopoly on gambling).

How PokerStars.net is able to break the poker TV "blockade" in Greater China is the big question right now. The effort will take time, persistence, and lots of money...

Step 1.

Great News..... Vegas should sit back and think why they making less $ now.

This would be amazing.

I wouldn't call it unbelievably high. up until now the biggest poker room at the Grand Lisboa was your standard 5% of the pot, only diff was no cap. Also tipping is not common

And longterm, I don't mind a high rake right now as this makes poker rooms more attractive to the rest of Macau (which is getting pretty massive). Hopefully it saturates Macau, then rake comes down to US amounts from competition (wait Portugese-communism free market wat??)

Only bad news is Grand Waldo is kinda of a shatty casino compared to the newest ones and slightly off the main strip.

Swe-et, yea Stars for getting it done! I'm sure there's a number of expats in Hong Kong that are stoked at this news too - nice to be able to go find a live game if you want one.

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