Cambodian casino resort Star Vegas Resort and Club inaugurated a new poker room branded as Poker King Club last week. Star Vegas is located at Poipeta city on the border with Thailand and is the biggest of the casinos in the region.
Casinos on the border areas primarily cater to Thai customers since gambling is banned in Thailand.
The property is owned by boutique casino development firm Donaco International Ltd which had purchased it back in 2015 for $360 million.
The launch of the poker room is an outcome of Donaco’s three-year deal with Kings Consulting Ltd which owns the Poker King Club brand. Kings Consulting is a unit of one of the biggest Macau junket group investors called the Suncity Group.
The poker room’s unveiling was held alongside the launch of an Asian Poker Tour (APT) event. The five-day APT Southeast Asia is being held at Star Vegas until July 7 and features several events. The organizers have called it a deep structured No Limit Hold’em tournament. Japanese poker pro Tetsuya Tsuchikawa won the NLH welcome event based on a statement made by the company.
The headlining main event which had a $1,100 buy-in kicked off on Jul 3 with a satellite event.The final day for the event is slated to be held on July 7. The tournament’s schedule has a range of other options including a High Rollers event, a charity event called Ante Up for Charity, Deep Stack Turbo games and 6 Handed Turbo .
The opening ceremony for the launch of the poker room and the APT Southeast Asia featured former players of the popular English football club Manchester United. The players in attendance included were Philip Neville, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes.
Donaco entered into an agreement with Manchester United in 2016 for a three year sponsorship deal. The football club is popular across the region but particularly in Thailand which is a key market for Donaco. Under the terms of the agreement, Star Vegas has been designated as the exclusive casino resort partner for the team in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and South Korea.
The company said that it hopes to leverage the club’s popularity to raise awareness for its casino properties and to bring about more visitations. Donaco has been rolling out several measures in recent months to heighten the profile of its casino. It recently signed up with an international casino marketing firm Vivo Tower Ltd for bringing in junkets and VIP customers.
