The Poker Scene in Macau – Guest Post by VegasDWP

(Longtime reader VegasDWP sent me this report on his first visit to Macau to play some poker, and I'm thrilled to present this guest post.  Thanks, and take it away, VegasDWP....)


Hello everyone – first of all, many thanks to Rob for allowing me to guest blog.  I’ve been reading Rob’s blog for quite some time, and I’m a big fan.  I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting Rob once, in Las Vegas, and although it was a great pleasure to meet him, we did not get the chance to play together.  I believe I met him on his ill-fated trip when he was having so many Internet connection problems in the place he was staying.

Anyway, a bit about me before I get started (if you couldn’t give a toss, feel free to skip to the poker content).  I’m originally from California, grew up in Silicon Valley and lived in San Francisco for many years.  In my early 30’s, I wanted a change of pace and moved to Sydney, Australia – was there for 8 years.  After I got bored there, I moved to London – I’ve been living in London for about 9 years and am currently in the process of permanently relocating to Hong Kong.  I essentially live there now, but in a temporary serviced apartment – I’ll get my own place at the end of the year, and then my wife will come out to join me.  I’m a Marketing Director for an international technology company (we develop mobile apps) and I run marketing in Asia for the company.  I also own a condo in Vegas, and get out there as much as humanly possible.

So after being in Hong Kong for about a month, and after reading a particularly good edition of Rob’s blog, I was missing some live poker so thought I’d check out the scene in Macau.  I spent last weekend there, and following is a blow-by-blow account of my trip.

Woke up early on Saturday morning, packed a small overnight bag, and took the MTR from Wan Chai (where I’m living) to Sheung Wan (a quick 3 stops) to catch the Cotai WaterJet across to Macau.  I should have bought tickets in advance online, but I only had to wait in a short line to pay my HK$344 (about US$45) round-trip ticket.  The WaterJet only takes 60 minutes to travel across, and it was quite a pleasant trip.

Upon arrival at the Taipa pier, there was a Venetian coach waiting to whisk passengers directly off to the Venetian where I had booked a room.  And what an amazing room it was – it was only a standard, basic room (e.g., the cheapest one) but was 3x the size of the place I’m living in Hong Kong.  I almost didn’t want to leave.

But eager as I was to play poker, I dropped my bag and headed straight down to the poker room.  Or at least I tried to … wandering all over the casino, looking for the damn place … nobody knew where to direct me … then finally (totally by accident) came across this:

Pay-dirt!  After following the arrow, through the High Limit gaming area, I finally arrive at the poker room.  It’s nothing like the poker room in the Vegas Venetian … although the REST of the Venetian Macau is virtually a carbon-copy of the one in Vegas.  There were only a few tables, the lowest limit was HK$25/50 NLHE (equivalent to about $3/6) … but the wait was an hour!  There were a whole bunch of people sitting around waiting to play – but the 3 or 4 empty tables remained empty.  Poker is not a big priority in Macau (more on this later).

OK, so I told the kids running the room (they looked about 20) I was going for lunch and I’d be back in 45 minutes – they put my name on the list, and off I went to find some lunch.  About 40 minutes later, I come back … and don’t see my name on the list.  I ask one of the kids … he says, “Oh, maybe your name has been called…” and I reminded him that he told me ONE HOUR and I’d only been gone 40 minutes.  After some time, my name magically appeared back on the list: “See, your name still here … no problem!”  OK, right – whatever.  So I sit down in one of the comfy sofas at the front of the poker room and start waiting …. and waiting … and waiting.  One hour goes by.  I ask the kid if I’m still on the list. “Oh, yes … still on list!”  Two hours go by … I ask again.  Same answer.  After 2 ½ hours I’m about to totally lose my shit … so I ask again.  I’m number 14 on the list.  You gotta be shittin’ me.

At this point I’m tired, pissed off, and in no mood to play.  So I figure a couple hours in the spa, a nice hot stone massage, and I’ll be feeling better.  Maybe I’ll play tonight.  So after the spa, I’m in the mood for some dinner – Pete P. Peters style.  So I find a nice restaurant in the casino, and settle in to a Bombay Sapphire martini (straight up, 2 olives) … an appetizer of grilled lobster sausage with roasted artichokes (very nice … who knew you could make sausage with lobster?) … prime 12-oz NY strip steak (Tuscan style), topped off with a New Zealand Marlborough pinot noir.

So, NOW I’m ready for the pokerz!!  But after my experience with the Our Gang kids running the Venetian poker room, I’m in no mood for any more bullshit so I figure I’ll jump in a taxi and head over to the Wynn to play instead.  I arrive, find the poker room quite easily (there were actually SIGNS directing me there!) and find it’s only a 1-hour wait.  The lowest game they had going, though, was HK$50/100 (roughly US$5/10) … that’s higher than I usually play, but I figured what the hell.

So I get into a game, and the first thing I notice is that poker in Macau is the No Fun League.  No table chatter, no polite conversations … virtually no one spoke at all.  Not even any discussion about boobs!  And forget about a slut parade … nothing doing.  The play was pretty tight, and I was card dead the whole night.  Hand after hand …. 2-4 offsuit;  7-4 suited;  A-2 offsuit; on and on and on.  When I finally did get a playable hand, I missed the flop completely.  As far as poker sessions go, it was awful. I kept waiting for things to turn around, but they never did.  At about 2am, I was pretty tired and decided to call it a night after being stuck HK$4,000 (about $500) – so I headed back to the Venetian and my luxurious room for a night of rest.

The next morning (Sunday) I planned a virtually all-day poker session before heading back to Hong Kong on the 7pm sailing.  But, NO … work had other plans.  I woke up to an email that said I had to be at an important client meeting on Monday morning in Taipei, and give them a brand presentation that I hadn’t even STARTED working on yet.  Shit.

So I spent all morning, and part of the early afternoon working in my room to get it finished.  By the time I was done, it was lunchtime so I headed off to find something to eat.  After lunch, I only had a few hours before I had to catch my ferry back to Hong Kong … and given the waiting times for a game in Macau, I decided to go shopping instead.  The shopping in Macau is awesome … it was SO GOOD, that I found the perfect outfit for Rob in the Versace boutique:

Quite the perfect ensemble for a night of poker, or an afternoon BBQ at Alysia Chang’s.  (I bought it for you, Rob … hope I got the right size … you can pay me later.) 

I wandered around the casino for a bit, looking for a BlackJack table … which is like looking for a bar in Riyadh.  The Chinese prefer Baccarat, and other weird games I’ve never seen in a casino.  While looking for a BlackJack table, though, I found THIS and thought of TBC:

Don’t ask me if it was one of ‘dem good machines, though … everything was in Chinese.  And it was Baccarat, not BlackJack.  I did finally find a BlackJack table, and won back ½ of what I lost the previous night playing poker.

So at this point, I have maybe 90 minutes to kill so I thought I’d head across the street to check out City of Dreams which houses the PokerStars facility.  When I got there, there was a big tournament in progress – I later realized I was in town during the Asia Championship of Poker (part of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour) being held right here in Macau … so I decided to rail it for a little while:

It didn’t take me long to realize that I should have come here in the first place!!  Even during the tournament, there were several cash games going, and the waiting lists were only 5 or 6 deep.  From my experience, this is the place to play in Macau (unless you like waiting 2 or 3 hours for a game).

So after hanging around here for a couple of hours, it was time to head over to the ferry pier and catch the WaterJet back to Hong Kong.  It was an interesting trip, and the first time I’d been in Macau since 1997.  I learned a few very important lessons for the next trip:

• Macau is a serious gambling destination, and the vibe is so different than Vegas.  Vegas is lots of fun, and Macau is … well … very Chinese.

• The place is MOBBED … so many mainland Chinese are coming here, that China actually had to limit the number of times they allow their citizens to travel to Macau.  Gaming revenue in Macau is now 10x of Vegas.  Unreal.

•  I don’t play many pit games, but the table minimums in Macau are high.  It’s tough to find a table with a minimum bet of less than US$100.

• There are very few places to play poker in Macau.  The only places I know of are Venetian, Wynn, and PokerStars at City of Dreams.  Next time I’ll stay at the Hard Rock and play in the PokerStars room.

• Everything I ate in Macau was excellent – the restaurants rival the best that Vegas can offer.  Prices were very reasonable (compared to Vegas).

• Oh, and TBC would love this:  NO TIPPING!  Not even the poker dealers – it’s not allowed.

That’s it!  Thanks again to Rob for letting me guest blog, and I hope your readers found at least some of this interesting.  Any questions – hit me up in the comments.

Oh, Rob:  please send me your address to I can post your new Versace outfit.  I know you’ll be wanting to wear that on your next Vegas trip.