Poker: “Today we have a phenomenon installed in Latin American casinos”

To introduce the issue, De Luca talked about the importance that poker is having worldwide, by which not only every time more people considers it a sport, but they try to impose it as an olympic game, as it happened with the brigde. “Today we have a phenomenon installed in Latin American casinos, which is very important for  operators,” said the specialist.

He made a review and commented that the first televised tournament of Latin America was organized by Casino Iguazú, boosted by the popularity acquired by gaming, which leads to these numbers: there are millions of players worldwide, a million players in Latin America, 300,000 Argentinians play online poker and more than a thousand do it live.

Besides, De Luca assured that “the TV phenomenon is already installed” and confirmed that the six worldwide chains do poker broadcasts, and there are also several specialized publications and Internet pages. “These is also the phenomenon of professionals, that have more than us$ 10,000,000 in winnings, and casinos incentivate these in order to attract future players.”

Zubiri said that the vision of the poker plater has changed: “Some time ago, it was embarassing to say that one was a professional poker player. Now, at least in US, it has come to be an acknowledged activity, and it is slowly starting to happen in Argentina”. Then, he spoke about his experience in Las Vegas casinos, where it is reflected the quality of the attention towards the poker player.

Then, Alem talked about the poker tournaments it organizes: “Santa Fe Poker Tour is a brand that started last January, with Inverama people, that are venue of the EPT Barcelona. They pushed to create a tournament together with Casino Melincué”. “There are 23 stages, and it is played monthly –once in Santa Fe and another in Melincué- and there will be a great final that will take place in December in Melincué”, he explained.

He commented the growth of the tournament in just one year: “In January we started with 60 participants. It was complicated; we searched for the way to reach players with massive media. In February, the stages were growing and we were searching for more specialized media, and advertised in ESPN, we achieved to have Bwin as a sponsor. Santa Fe Poker Tour had 200 people suscribed in its latest stage and the winner obtained around us$ 35,000.”

De Luca brought advise on the implementation of poker tournament in casinos: “It is necessary to have a good number of public and a proper marketing to invite players to play poker, which is a social event. It is up to each operator to make it massive, to do strategies and search for the way to insert poker in the gambling venues.”

“For the introduction of the Playstation generation, which are youngsters that play via Internet and are smart players, the casino will have to find the necessary strategies to take this generation to the gambling venues,” concluded De Luca.