or at least one of the things that I certainly like, is that it allows you to work and live in some wonderfully exotic ( and some not so exotic ) countries around the world and to really get to know the subtleties of each country in turn. I have enjoyed all of them. After South Africa where I had been promoted to Pit Boss, my new wife and I moved to Holland. We worked in Amsterdam for almost two years before moving to Florida. We spent the next five years working on the ‘nowhere’ cruises and lived in Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Panama City, the last being where our son was born. I had been promoted to my first management position on the ships and after leaving the USA for Hungary, I had my first land based management position to open a new casino in the beautiful city of Budapest. The next port of call was the opening of another new casino in Czechoslovakia in a small but lovely spa town of Piestany. One year later my family and I moved back to Budapest to open the Las Vegas Casino. The shareholder was a movie producer from Hollywood so Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger cut the ribbon at the grand opening.
We stayed in Budapest for nine wonderful years during which time I had been promoted to Casino Director. By the time we left Budapest we were in the new millennium and the next move was to Bucharest in Romania where I opened another casino before moving on to Moscow. I joined the casino management and consulting company, Solna Leisure Holding Ltd and took up the position of General Manager at the Metelitsa Casino, one of the largest and certainly the longest operating casino in Moscow. After President Putin and the Russian government decided to close all the casinos in Russia in 2009, Solna Leisure was tasked with finding alternative operations. This brought us to Tbilisi, Georgia in 2009 after the company purchased Casino Adjara. I’m still in Tbilisi and after all these years, I still enjoy moving to new countries, taking on new projects and challenges.
Can you say a few words about the casino – where it is located and its facilities? How many slots and table games do you have?
Casino Adjara located in Tbilisi, Geogia opened in 1998 and has recently been refurbished. Today it is the largest casino in Eastern Europe and the oldest casino in the Caucasus. There are 45 live gaming tables where customers can play Poker, Blackjack and Roulette. There is a dedicated poker room for Texas Hold’em players where tournaments are held daily. There are over a 150 slot machines featuring multi - level mystery jackpots. Furthermore, we have an
automated roulette system with 80 stations. With the recent addition of Sportland, our sports bar and bookmakers, Casino Adjara has developed into a large entertainment complex spreading over 2,500 square meters, offering clients a wide variety of services. Of course we have several bars and restaurants offering local and international menus and managed by our French F&B director. The complex is open 24 hours.
Who are your normal patrons?
Obviously the majority of our guests are locals but since taking over operations we have completely renovated and upgraded our Salon Prive facilities and we are now seeing the benefits of this with a very positive growth in VIP players. Many of these new VIP’s are from Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey and this is certainly an area in which we will continue to grow. As for tourists, Georgia is one of the few countries in the region that have experienced strong growth in attracting international visitors, even during the worst of the financial crisis. There was 16% growth in 2009 and 38% increase over 2010 and numbers are set to increase this year and we are seeing a similar trend in the number of foreign visitors to the casino.
How do you gauge the types of players you have and make sure you are offering them the right gaming experience?
We have three distinct gaming zones in the casino. The first floor area generally has lower minimums for slots and live gaming, including the poker club. The ground floor is the main casino with higher minimums and then we have the Salon Prive areas. The old adage is “the numbers don’t lie” and by monitoring the performance of each table game or slot machine we make sure that we maximise potential and are as close as possible to providing the right gaming mix at the right levels for each area of the gaming floors.
You state that you have the largest number of auto-roulette positions – can you explain more?
This casino is unique in the region. It is the only Casino operating a multi - terminal electronic roulette system (with 80 playing terminals in total) linked simultaneously to two automated wheels and a live wheel operated by a Casino dealer. The product has been so successful here in Casino Adjara that we have recently incorporated a new progressive jackpot into the roulette system enhancing the product even more. We are currently working with our supplier, a Slovenian company, Gambee (formerly known as ICIT) to
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