GENTING POKER SERIES
Genting Poker continues to
It’s one of the standout successes on the British poker scene; Casino International caught up with Genting’s Poker Operations Manager Kevin Proctor to talk about the GPS.
G
enting Poker Series goes from strength to strength each year – we asked Kevin Proctor, Poker Operations Manager at Genting UK, why and what he does to ensure it runs smoothly for both Genting casinos and player.
Casino International: What does your role entail?
Kevin Proctor: My role is to organise and manage Genting Poker Series [GPS] Main and most of the Mini-tournaments while also providing support functions to all of the card rooms. If they have any problems I help with them, and I look at card room performance and advise the club general manager. I’m a support function as opposed to a lead. Genting UK believe that a local room should cater to a local player. Therefore, the direction should not come from central office, it should come from the staff on the ground floor at Genting UK casinos, who know their players likes and dislikes and can therefore deliver a better product.
CI: Tell us about the Genting Poker Series…
KP: Genting Poker Series is a set of events run across the Genting casino estate. Initially, it was created in collaboration with Genting Poker Online about eight years ago. Our thinking was that it would help us market the live operation and promote the online element of poker to our players. We ran a series of online qualifiers and satellite tournaments online at that time, while also running satellite tournaments in clubs. It was something we started from scratch and had no background or experience. Eight years on, we have 16 events in 2019 across numerous clubs in the estate.
CI: If a club wanted to host an event, do they just come to you and say, ‘we believe we have the interest in our club in a satellite event’ and that’s enough, or is there criteria to be met?
KP: The issue with Genting is that some of our rooms are not that big. The biggest room at the moment is at Resorts Worlds Birmingham, which has 16 tables, while the smallest, at Genting Casino Plymouth, has just four or five tables. The available space dictates which venue we can use and that’s the starting criteria for the main events. That said, we do run a Main Event in Luton which has 10 tables that we can increase to 12 – and that is probably our busiest leg because of its proximity to London. We can get 320-360 runners in those events.
36 AUGUST 2019
CI: In terms of organisation, how does the process work for the whole series then?
KP: In August of the preceding year, I will start looking at venues for the following season. Then I’ll start looking at historical dates for when we have had events, and also look at competitor dates to make sure we don’t clash. Then I visit sites and we discuss dates and events for that site. We then talk to the regional directors and managers, agree the dates and locations. Then I talk to the Marketing department and let them know the venues and number of events we are looking at for the year, before asking what my marketing budget will be so I can plan spend. About eight weeks before an event I will go to the host location. If we have an event in Blackpool, for example, I will sit with the General Manager and the Card Room Manager and work through a landing document, which consists of; a team brief to go to the reception team so they can answer any customer queries, as well as a team brief for the cash desk and the hospitality team, so we can see what we’re going to offer and the staffing requirements for that. I’ll also look at the numbers we might expect from revisiting historical data and the venue’s staffing requirements based on this. Then I’ll bring the trophy and the chips down a couple of weeks before the event, with some point-of-sale materials to help increase player awareness of the event in the venue. We also start social media competitions for players to win free seats. On the day of the event, everyone is aware of what is going on and communication has been good in the past. We execute the event, it’s run very much by the local card room
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