Macau (MNA) – Philippines-based poker event organiser Asian Poker Tour (APT) has announced that it has cancelled its APT Finale Macau 2018 tournament originally scheduled to take place in Macau, and relocated to Manila.
The event will now be held at the Resorts World Manila in Pasay in the Philippines’ capital from November 27 to December 6 of this year.
The delay contradicts previous statements made to Macau News Agency (MNA) by APT CEO Jeff Mann that the tournament scheduled for November 27 and December 8 in Macau would not suffer any alteration after reports that the Chinese central government was to enforce a ban on online poker promotion and activities starting from July 1.
Last year, APT made a five-year exclusive agreement with local poker event company Macau Billionaire Poker (MBP) to host a minimum of two international poker events per year in the city at the company’s usual venue in the Babylon Casino at Macau Fisherman’s Wharf.
However, in a statement issued on September 5, the APT CEO indicated that in August the company had to cancel the tournament due to “circumstances beyond either APT’s or our local partner’s control.”
“We did not wish this to happen again given that some confirmations for the event including exact dates were outstanding. The fact is our Finale is becoming very popular with players from around the world and already some are requesting confirmed details so that they can make plans for the end of the year,” Mann said in the release
Despite onfirming that the company was a “little disappointed to not be going back to Macau this year” Mr. Mann said the company would return to Macauwith two events in 2019.
APT states on its website that it has an APT Macau 2019 scheduled for March 22 to April 2, 2019 and an APT Finale Macau 2019 to be held from December 4 to December 15, 2019.
On MBP’s company website the latest public release, published in June, states that the delay of its 2018 MBP Summer Showdown was also due to ‘some irresistible factors’.
Earlier this year, the company postponed its APT Macau 2018 scheduled to be held from August 29 to September 5, 2018, also in partnership with MBP.
At the time the local poker event company said that during the ‘submission process, the associated regulatory departments have begun to draft new measures to govern and regulate upcoming/future tournaments’ with the event having to be delayed until ‘revised regulations’ are established.
MNA contacted MBP and APT concerning the reasons for the APT Finale event cancellation but no reply had been received before this article was published.
