We have worked within the gaming industry for several years and share many of the players' frustration with the way UK casinos sometimes operate. Two years ago we decided to stop promoting events in the UK as we could not convince the casinos to promote poker in a way that would ensure players attended on a regular basis. We understand that they make their revenue from the gaming tables and that poker to many of them is a necessary evil. However, it is our experience that a casino that runs as an entertainment centre providing diverse and interesting events for the general public, will ultimately gain the most in the long term.

We work with many sites and take hundreds of players to the WSOP booking the hotels and pre-registering them for all the events; this year we are busier than ever and many players are approaching us on an individual basis to sort the trip for them, so there are plenty of players with a decent bankroll. We asked them what they think was missing from the UK and researched our Poker in the Pub players as well.

We decided to launch the Masters Experience this year as we felt the change in legislation allowing us to do a roadshow would create a great opportunity to have a weekend of poker where the sites could promote their products; players could learn new skills via an academy and the local casino could put on a series of low stakes events that would fit many player budgets. Despite all of our research and marketing we did not sell enough tickets for the academy, we are also seeing very poor attendance in the casino so far this week for the poker events.

I know times are very tough and budgets are tight but I am amazed at the small turnout in a city like Manchester. We have certainly posted enough on forums, Facebook, Twitter etc and have put posters up and carried out leaflet drops and PR across the city. I know many players might not like some of the structure but this is set by the casino, is this the main reason why players will not attend?  Is it the casino? Lack of funds?  Or is it simply that you will not fill a tournament unless there has been several online qualifiers to create a decent starting number?

For us to continue to look at poker festivals we need to understand whether there are too many events and not enough players to fill them. I am confident that the roadshow will grow in the coming years and working with TIPS and other speakers we will create an educational series of poker academies to go with it. I would like to know what poker tournaments to put alongside these events. I believed that Manchester had a large enough community to fill such a small tournament and this is not proving to be the case. Tournaments are not profitable and so running one outside of a casino is not likely to happen.

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