No Smoking - in the new Gala Casino Poker Zone

Your be pleased to hear the new poker zone at the new caino, ocean village will be NO SMOKING !!

The new room will also be fully aircon'd, feature 5 plasma TV's showing different live sports events from around the world (including the WSOP), plus a brand new poker managment system!!

No expense has been spared in the design, and the room should seat 70 runners with comfort, with the ability to increase this to 100 - 300 for major events!

We are all ready talking to a number of companies about staging some of europes biggest events !!

listen out for more details in the new year!!

sounds awesome.... Cant wait to play there :)

Any idea on what the new schedule will be??? someone told me you will be doing more "cheap" freezeouts

I hope so, as the rebuys cost too much :(

Don't wish to snipe but the 'no smoking' didn't last long - I like how the smoke knows how to stay away from all the tournament players once the final table is reached!

Anyway, getting fortune points for tourneys is good. Removing rebuys is very bad.

I dont mind smoking, as used to it all family and friends always smoke and used to it in boozers.

But when I am on a poker table and 7 out of 10 poker players are all smoking at once, and im stuck in middle with no fresh air clearing the smoke. Rather it was no smoking.

This is yet another example of the current trend of the casino, whereby the rules are changed according to interest of the Casino at any specific moment, without any concern of what has been publicised or what the poker client wants.

Admin wrote:Your be pleased to hear the new poker zone at the new caino, ocean village will be NO SMOKING !!

The new room will also be fully aircon'd, feature 5 plasma TV's showing different live sports events from around the world (including the WSOP), plus a brand new poker managment system!!

No expense has been spared in the design, and the room should seat 70 runners with comfort, with the ability to increase this to 100 - 300 for major events!

We are all ready talking to a number of companies about staging some of europes biggest events !!

listen out for more details in the new year!!

Yesterday no smoking,,, then half way through tournament... tournament operator changes mind and says yes ok start smoking.

Complete joke... some people have registered knowing that its no smoking and may not really want to play in a tournament with a joke prize structure knowing they will be surrounded by smoke.

Yet to hear many good things about the way the place is getting run

10 seater table last night, 7 players smoking, 3 non smoking.

I need say no more, common sense says what thats like for the 3 non smokers having 7 players are couped around a small table smoking pushing their smoke in the direction of the table.

They get the choice we dont.

Also might be worth taking a look at the first table on left, closest to escaltors, Box number 1. Table is ruined due to ash from two navy lads pissed.


To note, smoking is not allowed in any poker room in las vegas.

1. Fee's - The £5 Fee is here to stay I am afraid, it is needed to make the poker offer (tournaments) commerically viable, as well as put dealers on the table and invest in things like the poker managment system.

We are aware the norm used to be 10% of buy in - but this was just because UK legislation dictated this ( I can assure you it would have been alot higher if law allowed). It has now changed under the UK Gaming Act 2005, which has just been enforced - So if you look around UK card rooms you will find Fees up to 25% on low stake games or minimum £10 Fee (dusk till dawn, the Vic, some Grovensor casino's). Other European operators are quickly following suit! Once you get to higher level buy ins (£100 +) the FEE normal drops to 10%. Online companies dont count, as they can not adopt this strategy due to a number of reasons (mainly high competition).

2. Smoking - This is a difficult one, and we are currently reviewing wether to allow smoking or not. 90% of the worlds card rooms are NON SMOKING - but this is enforced by either EU legislation or local (like Nevada) state bi-laws. Here in Gibraltar the law is "smoker friendly" but as Gibraltar steps up its "no smoking" lobbying, and continues to get pressure form all over, it could be taken out of our hands.

Currently the supervisors have been told to "manage" the situation, but this is clearly not working, so a decision will be made over the coming weeks on no smoking or smoking!. We are (as you know) speaking to as many of our regular & new players as possible about smoking. Please hang fire on this one, we will get it resolved. Either way some of you wont be happy!!!!! -

3. Straddeling??? - Serious ? I think we should open a thread on straddeling for further discussion. But for now, the offical response is

In every poker room, in every location staddeling is a house rule - which means some casinos allow straddles and some don’t. The common rule is you dont change your rules on straddeling ! regardless of what a table wants.

Is straddeling good ? well these days the common answer among experienced players is "dunno - it depends on your game and the ability to get reads from players" HOWEVER the common answer amongst NEW or less experienced players is "NO - NO NOOO "

As we are aiming to encourage new cash players, and develop a "fun" atmosphere, we have sided on the NO STRADDELING route

And our final note, if you allow Straddeling you are effectively "loosening up" the table and encouraging players to get involved in higher stake action then what they may feel comfortable with based on the blinds of the table - AGAIN A BAD THING. After all, we dont want everyone loosing all there hard earned money in half an hour do we?


I hope this answers your questions ?