New Zealand’s Waikato Times recently highlighted the need for more regular, regulated, live, cash-prize poker tournaments, with calls for entertainment epicentre SkyCity Hamilton to provide the games.
According to the report, in Waikato, players can play poker tournaments in pubs but the prizes on offer are meal vouchers and promotional merchandise. If players want to play for cash elsewhere, regulations are extremely strict, and the prize pool must be kept to a maximum of $500.
This has led to underground poker games where it has been claimed you can find professionals in the hunt for amateur players. The call for more regular live games in the local casino comes just after the Internal Affairs Department raided a pub in Hamilton in the search for illegal poker games. It is hoped that with the setting up of such events, illegal games will become a problem of the past.
