Author: vsafronov

In 2018 casino industry in Georgia had been growing fast because of active tourism from neighbouring countries – Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran. New gambling establishments had been opening their doors in Georgian capital Tbilisi and other regions of the country. This tendency was especially strong in Adjara autonomy and it’s central city Batumi.

At the moment I visited that beautiful place on summer 2018, there are around 10 casinos in Batumi, and the most prominent of them was the new project of Eclipse casino. With 37 gaming tables and 163 slots from the very beginning of operation it became the biggest casino not only in Adjara but in whole Georgia as well.

The casino was located just 20 minutes away from Turkish border, so most of the players are from this country, where live gambling is prohibited since 1997. But Eclipse was doing it’s best to attract junket players not only from Turkey, but from Israel, Ukraine, Russia and so on. Excellent service and possibility to make the biggest bets and to gamble for the biggest amounts of money were the things that put Eclipse casino to the top of the gaming industry in the region. The best action in stud poker was also there. Texas Hold’em and Omaha were played more often, and the bets could be really high regarding to the common wealth of the area. Eventually, as on some of my reliable inner sources, the original owner of Eclipse casino lost it playing poker in the Vip room of his own casino during spring time of 2019! That’s how it happens over there.

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I didn’t play at Eclipse on my own, only bought some low value chips for my collection. They were made by Abbiati, what, in my opinion, doesn’t honor that italian brand – I don’t like the chips. Their raw material, logo and quality of “construction” equal to cheap chinese sets for playing poker. I know that Abbiati company produces chic gaming tables and other furniture, but their gaming chips show a regrettable lack of taste. Probably, one day the casino will be won by someone, who is aware of it, and chips from there can become the highlight of my collection, but for now I need to be satisfied with what I have…

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It was 2013 when I visit Davao city – the fruit capital of the Philippines – for the very first time. This big city has it’s own international airport, shopping malls, 5-star hotels and 2 casinos. There also was a card house – Metro Poker Club Davao, located on Quirino Avenue, where some wealthy Filipinos (it obviously takes to be relatively rich to join the game without puting a big part of your money on risk) and plenty of foreigners, living or spending their holidays in Davao, have been gathering for playing poker. I’ve been visiting there often and used to play their daily tournaments as well as cash-games. We even participated “Family tournament” with my friends – poker event for teams. Unfortunately, playing poker in the Philippines has some features which r not very good for spending a lot of time on the tables and earing money in poker. First of all, the commission of the house (rake) equals to devastating 10%, and also some fixed amount from every hand goes to Bad Beat Jackpot (what is bad for professional players because they have no advantage in hitting this Jackpot against weak players?). Secondly, the club opens it’s doors at 4pm and works till the morning, and I prefer to finish all my activities before the sunset (it starts around 5:30pm and at 8pm it’s already completely dark in Davao city).

At third, and it relates to all the countries with mostly warm weather, it just takes a big effort to do anything when there r sea, sun and fruits just a couple of steps away!

In a few years of playing poker in the Philippines, I became a regular visitor in Metro Card Club, met some amazing people and, of course, took different chips for my extensive collection.

I don’t know where those chips were produced – probably somewhere in China. It’s made of cheap plastic with low quality printing but I still evaluate them because of having plenty of cheerful memories associated with this poker club. And there’s a chance that while u r reading this article, my friend, I’m playing poker at Metro Card Club Davao, Philippines. Wish me good luck then!

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Lots of various surprises are waiting for the player which perhaps involve people to visit casino. However, we would like to avoid some surprises. For example I lost as much as I could not even imagine in just ten hours of playing stud poker at the Palms Beach casino in Cannes in 2011.

I visited a lot of casinos within my trip to the south of France. In fact, each little resort town provides its own small casino, intended for Frenchmen, having a vacation. There were several casinos in Cannes, one of which was Palm Beach, controlled by Partouche company, was located on the city’s promenade edge. I remember that day quite well. I was walking along the promenade while admiring the exquisite audience, arrived at the Cannes Film Festival (there was also a casino in the building, where the film festival took place) and reached the Palm Beach casino. The gambling house positioned itself as an elite one.

So, I started playing at Palm Beach Casino at stud poker. I started to bet big – 100 euros per ante. But the game did not stick at all. I lost a lot. Then I lowered my bet, first to 75, then to 50 euros in ante. But I did not lose less! I made an exchange, closed and played croupier cards on my poker combination although before I just threw out the antes. Then I lowered the bet to 25 euros antes after about five hours of playing. I finished playing in ten hours with a loss of 18 000 euros!

It was quite simple to lose 18 000 euros while betting just 1 000 or even 100. But I lost over 450 bets at a time that day. Subsequent calculations confirmed that such an event probability is less than one hundredth percent. I.e. it was almost impossible to lose so much money in poker in such a short time. But nevertheless, I lost. So, I did not tempt fate further. I decided to go to Nice to play blackjack, leaving Cannes. Maybe I’ll come back there later (although Palm Beach casino seems to be closed) …

Here are the chips it was quite hard to get at Palm Beach casino in Cannes:

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I first visited the Caribbean in 2009. I arrived to the five-star Bavaro Princess Hotel in the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic. There I first realized how is it living on «all inclusive» basis, when all dishes types for breakfast, lunch and dinner are served for free (i.e. included in the price). Despite it’s quite strange, but I fully refused from drinking alcohol in Punta Cana, once having drunk the last thimble of «Mama Juana» (national drink in Dominican Republic). Mostly I ate fresh fruit, sunbathed and played ping pong. Besides I played in the Tower Casino as well.

In general, every big resort in the Dominican Republic provides own casino, but all of them are intended for their guests only. It was quite hard to get into such casinos without any recommendations. I wandered along the endless Punta Cana beaches to enter the casino from the sea while searching for good luck and new chips. But mostly I spent my evenings at Tower Casino – it was located near of Bavaro Princess while being available to all tourists, striving to play.

Tower Casino was quite large casino, but the main action took place at the slot machines. As for me, I played blackjack. There I first became acquainted with the American blackjack version, when the dealer puts two cards at once – one opened while the second was holy card. It’s common in both Europe and Russia when the dealer takes just one card. This contributes to blackjack strategy change. I can’t say that I was lucky at Tower Casino, but the casino impressions remained positive largely due to beautiful chips from Paulson, which I took to complete my collection.

I was also impressed by the promotion table with blackjack, located in the Bavaro Princess lobby. I haven’t met with such a marketing move before. Tower Casino croupiers dealt cards directly at the hotel and it was possible playing for free in the evenings. Just a few tourists used that tourist trap, but preferred playing free blackjack and took training chips from Bavaro Tower Casino.

I spent a wonderful three weeks in the Dominican Republic and fell in love with the Caribbean. I am going to visit all Caribbean countries and collect chips from all the current region’s casinos.

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I guess my friends will never play in any casino again after visiting Thansur Casino in Cambodia…

The mountain resort of Bokor (Preah Monivong National Park, Cambodia) for centuries has been the only place for the Khmer and foreign colonialists to survive from the unbearable heat. Here, at an altitude of only 1000 meters above the sea, even on the hottest days, you feel fresh and coolness. And it was right here at the beginning of the twentieth century where the French had built Catholic church, the hotel, and the casino. And at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the modern entertainment complex Thansur Bokor Highland Resort (later renamed Sokha Hotel) has been opened in Bokor.

In 2014, traveling in Cambodia with my friends, we stopped at Bokor to enjoy the flavour of this place. At the same time, I was going to visit the casino Thansur and take chips for my collection.

Most of the time, someone getting inside the casino with a company of the person who already know the basics of roulette and blackjack. My friends have been there for the first time and I volunteered to show and tell them everything. As soon as we have got enough of Bokor, saw all its sights and the views of Cambodia from the mountain, we went to the casino. I remember it was a beautiful sunny day, on such days people rarely sit at casino tables, and that is why we were the only guests at Thansur Casino. I exchanged 100 USD and sat down at the blackjack table. “Well, now I will show you how to play!” I told my friends. And so I done…

I bet $ 5 and lost. Put another one and lost again. And the next one, and the next one too. In just three minutes I lost all my chips one by one, not even winning a single bet! I lost 15 bets in a row. I have changed the remaining chips into small denomination ones and kept them for my collection. “This is approximately the way to play in the casino”, I told my friends, offering to get way for walk. They could not move, they were completely shocked! All of them have heard about my luck and thought I would beat the casino, but in fact I just proof – YOU CAN NOT BEAT A CASINO AT ALL! And even I have tried to give them some reasonable explanation of what happened, they have not believed, they seen everything in front of them!By the way, that was the first time for many years of playing blackjack when I have lost so many hands in the row 🙂 But chips at Thansur Casino were pretty good.

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In 2010, I had a chance to stay for a long time in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. Authentic and ancient; noisy and cheerful; poor and rich; selling everything, with entertainment for any taste. Along the great Nile you find the best hotels & skyscrapers, with casinos in the higher-end locations.

One of the most notable buildings was the Sofitel hotel, located on the island of Gezirah right in the middle of the Nile. Every day I walked there from the old center of Cairo on the ancient bridge Qasr El Nil Bridge, guarded on both sides by stone lions. I had played at the El Gezirah casino, the local name for the casino operated by the French Barriere Casinos group. I remember I had lost a lot the first time I played there. I was unlucky. However, over time, spending long nights there (the casino was open only at night), I had managed to get all my money back and even won good money on top of that. Actually, the reason I remember this casino is that I had won a decent amount – more than 20 thousand dollars in just one night!

During the time I had played at the Casino Barriere El Gezirah, I remembered the names of the dealers and other employees who talked with me. Managers were not very sociable in this casino but they closely watched my game. I played “black” (the common color of $100 chips) and that was a bet above average. 

One afternoon my friends and I had decided to visit the Giza Pyramids once again (for the fourth time). I was pretty tired after sightseeing but I still decided to play in the Casino El Gezirah Barriere. Just an hour later, a guy by the name Amir had given me four tens in poker with a $200 ante and a $10,000 payout. That was nice. I kept playing and just a couple hours later a girl by the name of Rasha (I had noticed  earlier her name was in tune with the name of my country – Russia) gave me a second four of a kind – four fours. I got another $10,000. Sometimes you play poker for weeks and never see four of a kind, but that day I had been given them twice and paid both times. It was a really lucky day (or rather night) and maybe the spirit of the Egyptian pyramids had helped me 🙂

I ended up with a good win. There is nothing special about the look of the chips from this casino, nor their design, but they are one of the favorites in my collection!

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I have got interesting experience when for the first time visiting the legendary principality of Monaco and its famous casino Monte Carlo in summer 2010. One sunny day, I flew there by helicopter to enjoy a stunning view from above, and only afterwards walked along neatly paved city streets to the casino building. In which, however, I was not able to play…

Casino Monte Carlo is the set of the buildings where several hotels, boutiques, cafes, restaurants, even an opera and, of course, casino halls are operated. The main building is a pathos palace in Eclecticism style. That is the one you can see on photos and paintings, when mentioned casino Monte Carlo. It all looks very attractive not just outside but inside as well – spacious halls, huge chandeliers and columns. Back in the mid of 19th century, when the casino was just opened, the project was huge in scale, designed to save the Principality of Monaco from financial problems.

Since the casino was opened, it has faced a lot of problems associated with the fact that every smart mind was trying to break the bank. I guess the casino Monte Carlo has been subjected to various frauds as often as no other casino in the world. As a result sort of reflex has been developed in the generations of casino employees, a fear of everything that can even be remotely and theoretically dangerous. And it had not has to be a cheating. So, there was the engineer, William Jaggers, who beat the Monte Carlo casino by looking for roulette wheels with mechanical problems and making bets on the most frequently dropped numbers. The team of brilliant students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as they say, got to Monte Carlo as well to count cards in blackjack, had cashed out millions at the end. The casino had to close the entrance to all players like that. And in advance, not to tempt destiny, completely different people have been put on the “black list” in the casino Monte Carlo… I can imagine how big that list is now! And no wonder that I got on it…

On that beautiful sunny day I entered the Monte Carlo casino, the girl at the reception desk asked me for entree fee of 10 Euros and ID. I gave my passport. She entered data to the computer and it had blinked red – the color of the alarm. The girl became nervous and asked me to wait and called the manager. He checked the information, phoned someone. In about five minutes, two men approached me, casino manager and police officer.

The manager said the casino refused to play with me because a year ago I somehow behaved badly. To my reasonable objection that I came to Monte Carlo for the first time, the manager only shrugged, redirected me to the policeman and quickly disappeared behind his back. The man of the law, a 50-year-old man, politely invited me to follow him. He led me through the huge casino hall (so I can still say that I have been at the Monte Carlo casino, and even saved 10 Euros at the entrance) and then took me to his office. We sat down and he filled the papers, stamped it and gave it to me. That was the official casino Monte Carlo blacklist in Monaco. “How come? I’ve never been in your casino before” – I asked again. He did not answer, but only looked at me sadly. I read in his eyes something like “Well, how do I know? The casino is afraid of you.., you are not the first and not the last.” We do not like to play luck “… Well, let God of Gamblers judge them – I just wanted to put couple bets on roulette and take few chips for my collection.

However, I still have something to brag about when it comes to chips from the casino “Monte Carlo.” In the main building of Salon De Jeux (the one I had the pleasure to walk, folowing to the policeman office) used mother-of-pearl chips produced by Bourgogne et Grasset. Usually, Russian players brought these chips as souvenirs, and I had such a chip long before I visited the Principality of Monaco myself:

In the American salon (democratic casino floor) plastic chips have been used, well known by Russian players. That was the casino where a real game has been played, there were those who has wanted to play, but not to admire the luxury and pathos of the casino. Here is a chip from Jeux Americains:

Earlier in the American salon these chips have been played:

Casino chips of high denominations, which are not in use, were for sale in the official souvenir shop of Monte Carlo. The inscription on the special certificate issued together with the chips said: “It is guaranteed this chip was used in the Monte Carlo casino in the 70s of the 20th century.” Or something like that. I bought myself a chip of 1000 francs:

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