Hey guys,

I've been grinding live 1/2 (GBP) in London on and off over the last year and have decided to try Manila for a while.

Are there a lot of people on this forum playing live cash in Manila?

London is great but it's f***ing expensive. It seems as though there's enough action at 50/100 to make for bigger profits once living expenses are factored in. Do you all agree?

Also, I'm well travelled and spend a good amount of time in the developing world but I'm keen to knowing more about a few specifics of the safety of playing live cash games in Manila:

Is it safe getting taxis from casinos back to an apartment in Makita in the middle of the night?

Is it easy to set up a casino account on which to deposit and safely store winnings?

If so, is cashing out at the casino a problem?

Cheers!

worst well intentioned advice you have ever given imo

odds of finding a girl on dating site that could and would competently do that are one in a thousand


used to think it was a good idea and maybe even suggested it in this thread, now after hanging out with enough pinays i dont want them making any significant life decisions for me

I too would like clarification on these points. I've been through a bit of this thread and read about some of the table collusion that takes place in the ring games. I also note a rake of 10% (up to pots of 300 piso).
Is there any other information (particularly re safety) that casino goers should know about?

Is that because the younger generation of Filipino girls have no nous about such practical things? Or that they may collude with outside parties?

Well varies about casinos... In solaire you need id and you can deposid on poker room... REsorts world you can kinda deposid on membership card... but I'm not sure if only way to do it is by putting bills on lot machine and you have to withraw it all at once.
Both casinos have taxi stand in front of security guards and are supposed to give you metered taxis... As said Manila taxis in general are one of the worst in world... But just don't flash your money and get to know your route would help a lot.
Rake in resort world(maybe only one other casino like this in Davao) is only 5% but same caps than rest which have the 10%

Well normally everyone of here wants 'their' share... So can add quite a bit for the actually cost of living

Good thread...

If I may ask OP..

Why Manila and not some city like Bangkok, KL, Jakarta etc. never heard anyone thinking city of Manila is nice...Filipinos are awesome people and huge USA influence of course

Why kind of hotel u getting $150 ($120?)? Ultra-high end like ritz Carlton, shangri-la or more like Sheraton?

I lived in Jakarta fora few mos on biz and loved it

I liked bkk but the language barrier just becomes annoying after a couple of weeks. Can actually have semi decent conversations in manila. Otherwise I probably would choose bkk

Thanks for the info Killah. Good to know there are metered taxis and the casinos have a deposit system.

Does anyone know of any examples of those taxis doing anything worse than taking a long route home for a few extra pasos?

Not sure what you mean by "putting bills on lot machine and you have to withraw it all at once". What is a lot machine? Is effectively the same as depositing money onto a Casino account?

stayed there around 10 months total and never had any problems with taxis except them randomly wanting 50-100 more for a ride. as mentioned dont flash anything unnecessary and you should be fine

edit: obviously dont take any of their massage or private casino offers either

Have I heard examples of taxis doing anything worse? Sure, this was 3 days ago. https://anc.yahoo.com/news/taxi-driv...005239524.html

Anything from trying to get an extra 100 pesos to robbing, raping, and murdering you. But yeah I haven't had any problems with taxis in about a 4 month sample. Just make sure they have a running meter and you are likely to be fine. They are dirt cheap compared to most of the world too.

Good advice!

On another note, are the 50/100 games and 100/200 games with 10% rake soft enough to make a decent hourly rate? If so, what kind of bb/hour range do average regs make?

Where are there 50/100 or 100/200 games going 27/7?
If there aren't any, when and where are 50/100 or 100/200 games usually running? Cheers!

Also you could download the grabtaxi app. http://grabtaxi.com/manila-philippines/

Apparently they will send you photos of your driver, can monitor your location, etc. Maybe 50-75 pesos more on avg., but gotta be safer than picking a random cab off the street.

Pretty nice thread! Iam backpacking and playing through southeast Asia and im looking for somewhere to settle in and play in a more consistently way. I want somewhere beautiful, safe and cheap. Some ppl have told me that philipines is one of the most beautiful places around. What do you guys think ? Between thailand, indonesia and philipines, witch one you guys thinks is the optimal considering budget, natural beauty, people and the culture itself?

You can deposit money into your Resortsworld Manila card by either feeding bills into a slot machine (with your card slotted in) or you can directly approach a cashier to do so.

I do not know if there is any maximum limit that you may deposit, but I've known several people to carry several million on it at a time, so you will likely find that sufficient.

You can withdraw the cash at marked atm machines inside the casino, or you may approach the cashier and cash out with a valid id and your card.

50/100 and 100/200 games are rather soft. A competent player should find no problem in maintaining a reasonable win rate to survive in Manila. Competence is relative however, so you can only really answer this question yourself. Make no mistake, there are some Filipino players that are quite good, so you shouldn't underestimate the players at a random table.

Taxis from RWM to Makati are usually quite safe as long as you use the taxi stand located at the side of the facility next to the mall parking entrance. Usual safety precautions in any third world country apply.

The reason why many foreigners should not allow Filipina girls to make decisions for them is that your viewpoints and values are generally very different, and unless you are very understanding this can lead to frustrating scenarios.

Starting from a very minor decision to be made, example, buying beef for dinner. Depending on your girl's upbringing, this may be difficult for her. If she is from a poor family (particularly from certain provinces), she may have little beef in her diet, and she would not be able to tell what is the difference between tenderloin, rib eye, flank, etc. She will only see the price. Funny thing is, usually there are two outcomes to this scenario. She will either buy the cheapest beef possible, as if she were using her own money. This results in really poor cuts of beef that you may not want to eat. On the flip side, she may be embarrassed at not knowing what is better, and simply pick the absolute most expensive (Wagyu or Black Angus typically) cut to show you that she knows what she doing, which you may find unbelievably expensive for a home cooked steak.

Multiply this by the many decisions you make during the day, and you can just imagine how frustrating it can be if you don't have the same value system in making your decisions.

On the other hand, if your girl is well to do, then you will likely end up paying the maximum price for everything you do regardless. This may not be ok with you.

YMMV, but not allowing Filipinas to make important life decisions for you is pretty much obvious, as is not allowing anybody to make important life decisions for you. Having somebody make unimportant daily decisions for you is totally +ev though, as long as you keep your cool during the learning process while she figures out your preferences.

not at all that, i wouldnt be scared of any colluding what so ever

not really sure how to put this without making it sound like they are all dumb and lazy cuz i dont think that......... hmm.......... so last week i was doing some online busy work and found something that paid reasonably well where you would go through and look at pictures of tops for girls and quickly answer a few questions about it, like tank top or sweater, vneck or turtle neck, arm length........ i was playing poker at the time as the games were pretty good and decide to ask the girl who works where i stay if she wants to do it..... i waited till the smarter more reliable girl showed up for her day shift as the night shift girl is super ditzy and i didnt trust her with it

so day shift girl shows up i sit out of my games and go up to the front desk where she is watching youtube music vids, tell her ill pay her 1 peso for each one she does (should take a minute for each at the most, great pay for her as she probably makes 250 pesos a day) and she wants to do it she says, we do some practice ones and she is doing it fine

again she should be doing at least one a minute, she does 27 in 3 hours, she could have doubled her days pay but instead doesnt take it seriously and i know not to outsource stuff to her anymore

this was a girl with a degree and a job and one of the ones that i thought would be able to do something like that, i was wrong, and a random dating site girl with time to find an apartment for you is likely to be less qualified


my guess is if you asked a filipina from a dating site to find you a place she would tell you to go to whatever the first place she found was, id bet a lot on that, anythings going to look nice enough to her cuz as salty says its gonna be nicer than what she is used to

probably just gonna be a waste of both of your time, there are very few girls ive met here who i would trust with any semi major life decision

last two times i was in manila, and this is with almost never taking taxis.......

get in taxi at airport meter already reads 280 (maybe 320) i ask him to reset it he drops me off outside the airport says get another taxi

taxi picks up me and a girl says will take us for 200, i know the fair is 100 i say no he says get out

taxi picks up at my hotel after called for him to come, when i pay he says its +50 since i called and im 99% sure thats not true (done it once or twice before and wasnt +50)

girl comes over had to pay tolls, after fair + tolls it comes out to 200, as im adding up the tolls he tells me total 250


thats out of like the last 6 taxi experiences ive had in manila

outsource lol

hopefully she done 27 then found the link to where you got the work and signed up for full pay.

sometimes I wish you did actually have your own thread still so I could ignore your walls of ******ed drivel.

There is such a thing as an ignor function BGS.

But you like most, will read his posts then complain about them and 'wish' you could somehow not 'have' to read them.

no she went back to watching some filipino singing show

ive missed you to billy thanks for the encouraging words

considering all he does here is drunk trolling he would never come back if he put people he didnt like on ignore

it's sweet that you care about him so much

although can you not even allow me a 1 line troll without sticking your beak in?

lolz

the only person I have ever trolled on this forum is you dante....mmm I wonder why that is

that is so not true

remember the dude who shipped a big tournament in manila and started a thread right after he moved and then quit after 2 weeks cuz you (and a couple others) were trolling it?

Ah ha' The old 'I was only trolling' chesnut.


Maybe if your troll lines were at the very least funny, witty or actually trolled him it wouldnt be so bad.

Good effort though mate.

Now you must excuse me I have some very to attend to.

+50 after you call for one is legit.
Everytime I have called for a taxi the operator always says it´s +50 when you ordern one through the phone

+ 50 is very standard in Manila, especially during traffic hours going to Resort World, for instance, or during Christmas time. Yeah, taxis in Manila are a hassle, but as long as the meter doesn't inexplicably speed up or the driver take you to an undesirable destination, + 50 is just variance.