Hey, Poker Playas!
Poker is once again growing in the Philippines. But it is not coming from Manila.
It is the South!
But who is the South? The Philippines is composed of 3 main geographical divisions. Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Metro Manila is the central capital city of the Philippines which is located in Luzon.
Meanwhile, the south is the Visayan and Mindanao regions.
Like all other countries, the central city will always grow the fastest. There are actually more poker rooms in Manila than in both Visayas and Mindanao combined.
But slowly that has changed.
2023 – the emergence of Dragons
The pandemic hurt the industry. for almost 2 years there were no live poker events. It was like every poker room had to start from zero.
The poker rooms needed to reach out to the players that live tournaments are back.
It was a slow start for everyone including the South. Manila actually had a good head start, they were the first to be able to hold a tournament while the south was only able to hold it around June.
Although it was slow for the south and like before (pre-pandemic) it needed Manila players to come and play.
But it’s 2023, and things have changed, The Kalilangan festival which was held last month had only less than 5% of players who came from Manila and were up against a big tournament in Manila. The Araw ng Dabaw also had a small number of players coming from Manila and was unfortunate to have the same problem. They were competing against Manila and yet there was no overlay and both exceeded the guarantee.
The Voyager Poker Club in Cebu is up against another tournament in Manila but so far the numbers are looking great.
The South is growing and less dependent on the players from Manila. That is what the Data is saying.
What makes the difference
The biggest difference is actually in management and marketing. As both Cebu and Davao were known for their hospitality and all rooms in the south are still small compared to Manila.
The south never allowed their limitations to be their handicap.
Having a smaller room means limited tables for cash games. All tables are utilized when they have a tournament. Yet when a table becomes available when the tournament registration is closed. The time it takes for them to run a table most of the time takes less than 5 minutes. The chips are on the table, the players are on their seats and the game is running in less than 5 minutes.
There is also the factor of how the rooms are more customer-oriented in the south while the Manila operators want to run it as cheaply as possible.
For example, Most of the big tournaments of Cebu will have a feast for players complete with Lechons, Yes there is an S. They go all the way to make sure players are not hungry.
While compare to Manila operators. One poker room served small bits of snacks and made sure there was a photo-op for it.
The poker operators that have been known for serving good snacks in Manila? It is probably gone as a new head is in its place and signs of he wants to run it as cheaply as possible were evident in their last tour in Manila.
One operator in Manila has changed their buy-ins to be more expensive. Sometimes most of their side events were even higher than the Main Event.
Snowflakes
With the recent success of the Kalilangan Festival and Araw the Dabaw. We are almost sure that the operators in Manila will complain.
Even we too are curious how Pagcor will react.
But the truth is, Manila had a headstart. But the south just treated its customer better.
