The New Casino - The Good, The Bad and the improvements needed.

1st of all the New Casino is an amazing place. Perfect place to go for a little gamble on the slots, casino tables and even on sporting events in the Sportsbook. Many people go for just a drink with friends but my main focus is the Poker side.

The new Poker room is like my new home, im playing all the time against new and old people which is great however problems are occuring and if its not sorted out soon then people are going to turn away and not come back. I personally do not want to see that happening but from what i have heard on the tables then its possible.

I think the lighting is perfect for a Poker atmosphere and the TV's to keep us enjoying other sports while playing is great and i love the Poker Manager system.

The 1st Tournament didnt go too well as many people complained about the blind structure. In a big tournament as the 200+20 buy in nobody expected blinds to double and pay anti's after 1 hour. It was like playing a turbo game which is wrong.

Next thing is the lack of service from Waiters. Many people have had to wait over 1 hour for food and asking for drinks seems to be a problem.

Rules of Poker seems to be changing a lot and people dont know whats wrong and whats right. I was told when the Casino opened that if somebody showed their hand during the game then that hand is folded straight away. I pulled somebody up for that and told him his hand is dead. We then asked for the Manager for a decision and the rules had changed. I now made a fool of myself.

More problems occured with the New person in charge Steve. He is the wrong person to put in charge as he has no idea on the game of Poker, he is rude to the players and does not observe the tables. I have also heard he turns people away from Tournaments which is bad to hear. On odd occasions we have had Laurence in charge of the Poker room. Now Laurence compared to Steve is the complete opposite. Laurence will watch all the tables in play. Any problems he is straight there and will go through the rules. Any abuse on the tables Laurence will move the person away from the table and give out warnings if needed. Basically we feel more comfortable in the Poker Room when Laurence is in charge and that comes from most of the players not just myself.

Dealers are another problem. We are paying 5% rake in Cash Games which nobody minds however we want dealers who actually know what they are doing. Bringing a new dealer to a table where a lot of money is at stake is a bad idea. That dealer could lose somebody a lot of money like what happened to me when the dealer folded my pocket aces before i made a decision. The dealers fault cost me winning 480 pounds. In other situations i have witnessed dealers telling people what to do, showing cards and slowing tournaments down not aware that we are on a clock.

Basically i would like to propose that a few of the Poker players who are playing mostly every night get together and go through the rules so if any problem does occur we are fully aware of that ruling and can control the table. Also we are all happy to give out any ideas in promoting the Poker side as we would like to see more people getting involved in the game.

I wholeheartedly share Little Pauls views on the new casino. It will be a pity if the investment Gala have made on the excellent poker facilities is laid to waste due to lack/bad manegement. If Gala really want to make the poker room work they should listen to the numerous criticisms that are curretly being banded out.

cant be assed reading all that smellie

players pay a rake in a gcash game for two things....

A dealer and a supervisor who monitors and assists the dealers/players and makes sure that all rules are kept and nothing happens unnoticed.

The cash games are never monitored and errors always happen that cost people money.

The poker room should have specialised poker dealers who spend more time than other dealers, so they have more experience to make sure the games are speeded up and dont easily get distracted in things going on off the table that only slow the game down.

Well what we experienced last night i found was very unacceptable behaviour from new Manager Damien.
2 Cash games were in action and people were buying drinks and food. The Casino was raking in at least 5 pounds a hand as the pots were big.
We were told that the Poker room would be closing at 4:30 to which we all asked why.
In the past we were able to self deal if no dealers were available but for some reason last night this was not possible. We wanted to ask the Manager in person. A message came back to us with....

If they are not happy with the decision they can all go elsewhere.

We were not very happy with this responce so we asked him to come down in person and explain himself.
He came down with security and didnt explain in a proper manner but argued his case.
All we wanted to know is why it says on the Website that Poker is 24 hours, and they were closing at half 4.
Instead we were all insulted, he told 1 person that if he had anymore complaints he would be thrown out and we all said if he goes then we all go. His reply to that was fine off you go.

It came to 4:30 and we were told 1 more hand, then entered 2 Security Men incase any problems were caused.

The thing is we all spend lots of money on drinks and food. We tip the dealers and we pay 5% rake every hand and to talk to us in that manner last night i found was terrible and im sure has turned a lot of players away.

Last night, 20 people wanted to continue playing poker and using the service provided by the casino.

We were told at 4.30 there was not enough dealers and were told no self dealing, i spoke to two seperate dealers and asked them if they would work overtime if it was offered. They both said yes.

I told damien that one was willing to do it would the casino offer overtime, baring in mind we would continue playing, the casino would continue to take a rake from the pots, at the time average pot was around 150 quid so at least a 5a. The rake would cover the dealers overtime pay and make a profit for the casino, aswell as keeping 20 customers happy and providing a good service.

I thought this would be a good solution to the problem, keeping 20 customers happy and making a profit.

Damiens response "Poker shuts at 4.30, end of"

Just another poor service in general. Pissed off alot of geninue loyal customers last night.

(On another note other things were said such as, its because they dont want anything going missing, i offered to put a deposit down on things like cards etc to solve that problem, ignored)

I understand that the casino has problems covering all areas of casino such as poker, due to short staffed and rota problems. But that is no excuse to provide a poor service to the customers. Last night could have easily been resolved, but i think damien had made up his mind and didnt really care about our opinions and didnt want to listen.

Above sorted now, self dealing allowed when no dealers available.

Excellent News. We did try and tell Damien, lets hope he got a nice telling off for the way he delt with the matter.

I dont care, to be honest as long as poker room sorted

Yeah i agree - i still cant believe the rules are changing every day. This still needs to be sorted.

We dont often explore the deep dark corners of the forum, especially little pauls area, but we are pleased we have done so today.


Your comments are well recieved, and as always we like good & bad feedback - It helps us get better.

Some respones to you concerns / views.

Rules - As always these develop as time goes by, you can not have a rule for every single possibility in any card room. However we do have some very extensive rules (see in the card zone for more details)

Our challenge is to ensure they are applied consistently, which we are now doing - so I hope you see some improvement.

Deal Training - This is on going to ensure every dealer has a full understanding of these rules.

Lack of Dealers at 4am + steps have been taken to ensure this never happens again, whilst we do not want self dealt games, as a temp measure, and only when we have zero dealers available, and when the sun is shinning (ok i joke about that bit) we will allow self dealt games. We are looking for extra staff, but want to make sure we recruit the best, so It may take a few weeks

Hopefully this will solve the major issues - As with any Poker venue around the world, im sure you will find things to moan about, and we will always listen, and I can also guarantee that any dealer / supervisor will always act with total professional


Enjoy the venue, and help us make it Europes best venue :)

Thanks for your comments. We do want to make the Card Room a major feature in the Casino as many of us would like to play against new people as well as old players.

Stay tuned incase we find anything else to moan about lol.

Played in the new casino once, late January and found the new dealers open for suggestions and I'll believe that it will improve a lot in the future.

I totally agree with littlepaul.
How you can pretend to be a major casino and offer such a poor service to your loyal customers.
Did they really need security to force people to leave if they were right.
These occurences provide no incentive for playes to want to return.

Well - I must be the lucky one! we got good service last night (Friday) - Think Ronnie did a good job - at leat he understood what the customer wanted!