Poker group goes all in with $1-M tourney in RP

MANILA, Philippines—If morality were a poker game, then organizers of the Asian Poker Tour (APT) have just gone “all in” with their chips, whipping up a cash-rich tournament with a total pot of $1 million.

The tournament, which kicks off Tuesday at the Dusit Hotel in Makati City, offers a top prize of $280,000 with a buy-in of $2,500. And while organizers do admit that the tournament is still a form of gambling, they are scrambling to position poker into a particular niche in the sporting world.

“Obviously, poker is made up of 70 percent chance, 30 percent skill,” said Christopher Parker, the director of the Asian Poker Tour (APT).

“But as far as the APT is concerned, we’d like to channel it through sports [and that means] focusing on the 30-percent skill rather than on the gambling aspect, the roll of the dice.”

That the APT chose the Philippines as its kickoff leg for this year’s tour whips up a sense of irony that almost mocks the way the country handles its vice problem.

On one hand, there are Roman Catholic bishops that constantly rail at the creation of new casinos and gambling-themed venues. On the other, there are the government-sanctioned forms of gambling like lotto. And that’s not taking into account the illegal numbers games that proliferate in the provinces.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has consistently spoken against gambling, even when it admitted that the “moral teaching does not prohibit some forms of gambling in certain situations.”

Inquirer Sports

News Added: 27 May, 2008

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