10 More Essential Hold'em Moves: Floating the Flop

There’s no simple fix for becoming a winning poker player but there are a handful of simple, easy-to-execute poker moves that can make a world of difference to your bottom line.
By fine-tuning these tactics you’ll have more tools to put to work at the poker table. You’ll be able to better understand your opponents and how to manipulate them, and that will translate directly to money in your pocket.
We already wrote the book on the 10 Essential Texas Hold’em Moves and now we’re back to bring you 10 more.
Today we’re talking about floating the flop, a move that can turn your opponent's continuation bets against him. By just calling your opponent’s bet on the flop, you’ll be in a perfect spot to take the pot away when he shows weakness on the turn.
The float is an intermediate poker move that requires a strong understanding of the players you’re up against but if you can master it you’ll be able to win more pots post-flop, regardless of the cards you’re holding.
The What: At its most basic, floating the flop refers to calling a bet on the flop with the intention of betting and taking down the pot when your opponent checks to you on the turn.
The Why: Floating the flop is a move used to defend against the continuation bet. Because marked cards players routinely continuation bet with a wide range of hands, you shouldn’t be surrendering every time someone does it. But instead of simply raising the flop, floating allows you to pick up more information on the turn before making your move.
The Who: You should only be floating the flop against tight-aggressive players who do a lot of preflop raising and continuation betting.
The When: You should only be floating the flop when you are in position.
The Where: Floating the flop is a powerful poker move that can be used in all forms of Texas Hold’em but because it requires two streets of action it lends itself more to deep-stacked games.

Floating the Flop the Right Way

Floating the flop is a bluffing technique so it’s important to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it to avoid burning money.
To make it crystal clear, you are only technically floating when you believe your cards are worse than your opponent’s. If you believe you have the best hand then you would be calling the flop and betting the turn for value.

Like most poker moves, floating works better when you're in position.

And because you’re bluffing, the conditions have to be just right to give yourself the biggest chance of success.
Here are the three most important factors to consider when you’re thinking about floating the flop and betting the turn.

• Only float when you’re in position.
• Only float when you’re in a heads-up pot.
• Only float against tight-aggressive players who continuation bet frequently and are able to make laydowns when shown strength.

It’s important to be in position when you float the flop because you need that extra piece of information your opponent will give you on the turn.
Because your opponent will be continuation betting with good hands as well as bad hands, when he checks to you on the turn you’ll have one more clue that he’s got air. If he does bet the turn instead of checking, you need to reevaluate your plan.
It’s also only advisable to float the flop and bet the turn when you’re in a heads-up pot. More players mean more variables and a worse chance of succeeding with a bluff.
Floating is about telling your opponent a story, one that involves you calling the flop because you have a trick cards legitimate hand. In a multi-way pot your call on the flop doesn’t mean as much and your story will be less believable when you bet the turn.

Advanced Strategy Tip

If your opponent throws a wrench into your plans by betting the turn, all may not be lost. Many aggressive players won’t give up and check/fold fourth street. They’ll fire a second barrel as a bluff to try to blow you off your hand.
If you think you’re up against a tough, very aggressive player, you should consider raising the turn. Calling the flop and raising the turn is an extremely strong line and will usually force a good player to quickly lay down marginal hands.
This is an advanced move and should only be made with a very strong understanding of your opponent and his or her behavior.

Only Float Against Tight-Aggressive Players

Making sure you have position and only one opponent are important factors, but you must also consider the type of player against whom you are going to float.
Floating does not work against a player that only raises preflop and continuation bets with premium hands, for obvious reasons.
Floating also does not work against a loose/passive calling station who will frequently call your turn bet with marginal hands.
Look for tight-aggressive players who raise a lot in position preflop and follow it up with a continuation bet a high percentage of the time. These players will be showing up with air a lot, and check-folding to you when you bet the turn.
It’s much more difficult to float successfully against tough, hyper-aggressive players, however. Try to find players who fire one continuation bet but tend to shut down on the turn when they don’t have a hand.

Floating the Flop in Action

If you’re still not convinced about the efficacy of floating the flop and betting the turn, let Phil Ivey show you how it’s done like only Phil Ivey can.
In this video Ivey breaks one of our golden rules by floating in a mutli-way pot, and he does it not once but twice.
Ivey calls two big bets with seven-high and manages to take the pot away when Patrik Antonius checks on the river. This hand doesn’t even come close to following the easy-to-execute formula we presented above so consider it something to which you can aspire.

How to Qualify for the EPT: Don't Reduce Your Chances to Survive

This is the third article in a seven-part series from EPT Serial Qualifier Pierre Neuville. Check back every Thursday for the next in the series.
See the list below the article for links to the rest of the series.
Make the hero call, make a big bluff or play for safety?
It all comes down to what best suits your one goal: increasing your chances of qualification.
Play 23s and fold AA? Not easy, but sometimes it’s necessary. And it’s a scenario that happens more often than we might think.
So what do you do?
Online there are few tells and little information on our opponents. Our big decisions remain quite subjective marked cards.
What then are the elements that determine our decisions if it’s not pot odds?

Manage Your Stack, Not the Pot

In an EPT qualifying tournament, you don’t live or die with the pot or the pot odds.
What you manage is your stack and the opportunity it gives you to survive the bubble. This is the only base that should guide your decisions.
Here are a few examples to help make it a little clearer:

Manage your stack, not the pot.

 

Example 1:
You have a stack of 150,000. Player B has 100,000. Players C and D have 37,000.
Five other players have 25,000 and you’re on the bubble. Your chances of qualification are perfect. Almost close to 99% even.
Your risk is zero whenever there are two players with an all in and a call between them.
So it’s enough to just wait quietly until they’re eliminated.
Hand 1: You have AA and Player B shoves all in.
With your aces you’re favored to win the hand around 80% of the time, but if you lose the hand your stack falls back to 50,000 - in other words, back to the average stack.
At the average stack size, your chances of missing out on qualifying now increase between 1 and 10%.
If you fold your aces?
At first glance, it’s a surprising solution that some would say is even a ridiculous idea. I even think some infraredink players won’t even consider it.
But if you fold your aces, you keep your 99% chance of qualifying. The best solution here is therefore an insta-fold preflop.
Throw your AA into the muck, without regret.

Folding aces? Not so crazy.

 

Why?
Because a call would help your opponents directly in every case.
For you, it only helps you the 80% of the time that you win and it’s very unfavorable in defeat - which would happen 20% of the time.
Qualification is virtually assured right now, so the best tactic becomes completely avoiding any "move" that can significantly reduce your chances of qualifying.

Congratulations – You’ve Just Made a Critical Leap

If you’ve never thought about folding KK or AA pre-flop, you’ve just made a big leap in your progress.
You don’t lose qualifying tournaments with 77. "Future accidents" happen with big hands, so you just have to learn to avoid them in certain cases.
In learning this new step, your chances of qualifying have increased substantially.
This is also going to serve you well in other cases.
From the moment you have it clear in your head that you can throw away AA easily and without regret, depending on your overall situation in the tournament, you'll have no trouble throwing all other average-to-fair hands away pre-flop according to the circumstances.
No more falling in love with timebomb starting hands like AK, AQ – which are often fatal on arrival.
The quality of your poker has just taken a giant step. 99.9% of players would probably make the call with AA without thinking, and you’ve come to understand that in poker everything is food for thought.
The proof is you’ve just learned to throw away AA despite great pot odds to protect your almost guaranteed qualification.

On the Other Hand: Risk-Taking is Sometimes Required

Another example:
You’re the short stack with 10,000 chips. You have JT on a board of of 246KT.
The pot is 9,000. He bets 4,000, sitting with an average stack of 25,000. You figure there’s a 50% chance he’s trying to take the pot with his AQ.
Your chances of qualifying overall at that moment are quite thin. If you fold, you stay at 10k.
Let’s say that gives you about a 10-15% chance of qualifying. But you’re also only slightly more at risk overall with 6k (instead of the 10k) if you lose when you call.
If your hero call is successful and you win the hand, your stack is up to 23k &ndash back up to the average and now with about a 50-60% chance of earning a seat.
In other words, the general situation at that exact time advises you to take a reasonable risk.
Losing the hand doesn’t change much, but the potential gain from winning the hand can reestablish your position for qualifying.
This is what you must primarily look at in any difficult situation – the effect on your chances to win or lose this seat.

Risks are still required, but only smart ones.

 

Same Principle Applies to Bluffing

This example can also be applied to making a bluff of your own.
Of course it’s reasonable to bluff at a pot if the amount won will radically change your final chances of qualifying and if the amount you might lose only results in a relatively small decrease in your chances.
This takes away almost the full repertoire of bluffs like "I push all in on the button and I close my eyes."
Repeat this to yourself:
I won’t make a "negative infinity"move with only relative improvement possible!
Key Takeaways:
Take risks with minor consequences on the condition that they can really improve your position.
But above all, don’t take risks that can turn a safe position gained into a new risk of losing your chance at qualifying.

Poker Gym Offers Interactive Poker Training for Cheap

Poker Gym is a straightforward poker-training app that caught our eye earlier this year.
We played around with the software (which is entirely in-browser, btw) for a few hours this week and really liked what the Poker Gym team was bringing to the table.
Poker Gym emphasizes fundamentals and gives players a chance to practice their newfound knowledge on a simulated table.
The training program is broken down into six major components: Counting Odds, Break-even Pot Size, Hand Equity Concept, Combos, Preflop Hand Equity Values and Flop Statistics.
Counting Odds and Break-even Pot Size are free while the other four components cost from $.99 to $2.99 a piece. We tried out the marked cards two free components as well as the $2.99 Hand Equity Concept in our review.
Each component has a learning session, which explains concepts and a practice session where you put the concepts into use at the poker table by completing a quiz. A Poker Gym, so to speak.

A typical Poker Gym practice session.

Each practice session is randomly generated so it’s a different set of questions each time, which keeps things fresh.
It’s the interactive nature of Poker Gym that separates it from competing training products.
Poker Gym is one of the best new poker training tools we’ve used lately and only costs $10 for every component.
If you are a newish poker player or just want to brush up on your fundamentals this is a great product and considerably cheaper than subscriptions to the big training sites.
To learn more just head over to www.pokergym.com and complete the first two training modules for free.

Hits

• Cheap but effective.

• Reinforces simple but useful formulas for counting odds and estimating equity.

• The interactive nature of Poker Gym makes it more compelling than some training tools.

• There are some rather obvious percentages that a lot of people (including ourselves) calculate wrong juice cards. Poker Gym helps with that.

• The major formulas in Poker Gym are surprisingly simple and relatively easy to grasp.

Misses

• A timer would add a degree of difficulty and also foster competition between friends. 

• Would be great if Poker Gym had a way of explaining what you are doing wrong when you answer a question incorrectly.

• Poker Gym will be overly simple for some players.

Great Moments in World Series of Poker History Part 3

In just a couple of weeks thousands of dream-filled hopefuls will take their seats in the 44th annual World Series of Poker Main Event.
With its $10,000 buy-in and historic playing fields the Main Event has produced many of the greatest moments in World Series of Poker history.
Guest blogger James Guill continues his Great Moments in WSOP History series with this Main Event-themed installment.

Action Dan Goes Back to Back in Main Event

When Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 Main Event, 1995 Main Event Champion "Action Dan" Harrington finished 3rd.
The very next year, Harrington navigated marked cards through a then-record field of 2,576 players to finish in 4th place.
While Harrington's 1995 Main Event title may be his greatest victory, many consider his back-to-back final tables in the 2003 and 2004 Main Event to be his greatest accomplishment in the game.

Chan Beats Seidel to Win Back-to-Back Main Events

Johnny Chan was looking to stake his claim to history in the 1988 WSOP Main Event with back-to-back titles.
Erik Seidel was looking to make a name for himself by taking down the richest prize in poker. Both eventually were immortalized but it was Chan that went in the history books first.
Chan held a slight edge over Seidel when he limped in with J♣ 9♣ and Seidel followed suit with Q♣ 7♥. On a flop of Q♠ 10♥ 8♦, Chan had a nearly unbeatable straight and Seidel top pair. Chan tested the waters against a Seidel with a 40k bet and knew he had him when Seidel put in a 50k raise.
When the turn fell the 2♠ Chan checked in hopes that Seidel would overcommit to his hand. Seidel shoved and Chan made the easy call. The river was irrelevant and Johnny Chan made history.
Ten years later both Seidel and Chan would be immortalized in Rounders with Seidel portrayed as the sucker of the encounter. Ironically Seidel has $9 million more in career winnings than Chan.

Lamb Goes From Contender to Bust in Four Hands

Ben Lamb's run in the 2011 WSOP led him to his first WSOP bracelet, three preliminary event final tables and a spot in the 2011 WSOP Main Event November Nine.
Lamb was second in chips when the final three took their seats on the last day and many felt he had the best chance of winning it all.
The very first hand of three-handed play marked cards lenses Lamb decided that it was wise to four-bet shove against the solid Martin Staszko.
Lamb held K♥ J♦ and Staszko, knowing that Lamb liked to shove light, made the call. The board failed to help him and Lamb was crippled.
Three hands later Lamb shoved with Q♠ 6♥ and this time around Staszko had pocket jacks. The board blanked again and Ben Lamb went from possible Main Event champion to third place in four hands.

Bluff of the Century

When Chris Moneymaker reached heads-up play of the 2003 WSOP Main Event, many did not expect him to prevail despite the fact he had two-thirds of the chips in play. Moneymaker even offered an even chop with Sam Farha but Farha wanted to play it out.
A short while later Moneymaker decided to raise to 100,000 with K♠ 7♥ and Farha made the call.
On a flop of 9♠ 6♠ 2♦ it was checked around and the 8♠ hit the turn. While Farha had the best hand with a pair of nines, there was now both a straight and flush possibility on the board.
Farha bet out 300,000 in hopes of winning the pot there and prevent any further drawing. Moneymaker then decided to test Farha and put out a 500,000 semi-bluff raise. Farha made a reluctant call and both saw the river 3♥.
With the multiple straight and flush possibilities on the board Farha checked. Moneymaker, holding nothing but air, knew he could only win with a bluff and shoved for his tournament life.
Farha took a while to make his decision and even commented that he could make a "crazy call" and that it could be the winner. Giving Moneymaker too much credit for a hand, the seasoned veteran folded the best hand in what Norman Chad referred to as the "Bluff of the Century."
Moneymaker's bluff would give him the momentum needed to finally take down the Main Event title and usher in the Poker Boom.

Poker Books

One of the best ways to improve your game is to read every bit of expert poker advice you can get your hands on. There are hundreds of books and eBooks on poker, so how do you know where to start? The list of must-read poker books below should help you select the ones you’ll want for your poker library.
If a book does not reside in the list below, we do not wish to infer that it is not a quality resource. We simply feel that if you are limited in the number of books you can buy and/or read, the books listed here provide you the best foundation for your game, whether you’re a novice player or wanting to take your game to the next level.
Click on the link of any book to purchase it through Amazon.com.
Internet Texas Hold’em: Winning Strategies from an Internet Pro by Matthew Hilger – This book provided me with the biggest “ah-ha!” in my first year of playing online poker marked cards. I can’t promote this book enough. It is written in great detail about pre-flop starting hands as well as play on the flop, turn and river. Hilger also covers general concepts of probability, odds, bluffing, raising, and check-raising. He also discusses the differences in strategies between Internet and live play. To top it off, there are countless practice hands provided so that you can begin to put the concepts into action. If you only bought one book off of this list, this one should be the one!!

Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 by Jonathon Little – This book came out in 2011. Jonathan Little is a successful poker player who has won over $5 million in poker tournaments over his career to date. In ‘Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker’, he explains exactly how to succeed in this highly competitive MTT field. It’s essential reading for anyone wanting to improve their No limit Hold’em tournament poker skills. This first volume analyses a number of different situations in tournaments, giving solid advice in an easy to read writing style. The two-time World Poker Tour champion advocates a LAG style of play, which is necessary to beat MTTs as it lends itself to winning tournaments not just making the money. The books deals mainly with how to play with different stack sizes during the course of the tournament. Whether it’s playing very deep stacked (125bb+), a medium sized stack (40-60bbs), and smaller stacks (12-35bbs).
Winning Low-Limit Hold’em by Lee Jones – A bible for low-limit players, this book provides a solid foundation on which you can build more advanced strategies. Pre-flop and post-flop play is covered extensively, as well as money management and patience, two virtues usually missing from many a low-limit poker player’s game. If low-limit stakes ($4/$8 and below) are where you play, this book is definitely for you!
The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How To Think Like One by David Sklansky – This is one of the best poker books ever written. If you take poker seriously, you will get this book and study it like a bible. He goes over many advanced concepts that could apply to a wide variety of situations, including hold’em, five-card draw, seven-card stud, lowball draw, and razz. This book introduces you to all the important aspects of playing fundamentally solid poker including concepts such as bluffing, semi-bluffing, slow-playing, playing position well, psychology, heads-up play, game theory, implied odds, the list goes on.
Serious Poker by Daniel Kimberg – This book is very easy to read and is very useful. Serious Poker does not cover quite the number of advanced concepts that several other poker books on the list cover, it would be better suited for new or intermediate players, although still a good book for anyone. He has a nice section that would help make things go smoother if you have never played poker at a land based poker easy cards tricks room before. Anyone who would like to feel more at ease before playing live poker for the first time would want this book.
Small Stakes Hold ‘em: Winning Big With Expert Play by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth – Anything Sklansky is a part of will be a solid work and this book is no different. Ed Miller, the primary author, takes many of the concepts from Sklansky and Malmuth’s earlier works and applies them to the loose low-limit stakes games you find everywhere today. There are over 50 hand quizzes as well, which are great tools. One word of caution I will give is that these books are not as easy of a read as some others on the list. The concepts are fantastic and considered by many players as the foundation for their game, but in the hands of a novice player who does not understand the logic and math behind these concepts, these advanced concepts could lead them into trouble.
Reading Poker Tells by Zachary Elwood – This book came out in 2012. It’s the first major contribution to live poker tells since Mike Caro’s book on poker tells, which is a bit dated now. It would be a great addition to a poker library for any player who is making the transition from online to live play. A great deal of discussion is given to correlating the behaviour of players over time and forming a read based on that. It provides scientific analysis and doesn’t just say “this means that” and so forth. Definitely worth picking up!
Middle Limit Holdem Poker by Bob Ciaffone – This book is underrated and overlooked (so underrated Amazon doesn’t even have a picture of it!). It is a fabulous book that addresses the necessary changes one must make in their game when moving up from low-limit games to middle limit games. Ciaffone provides real-life examples (a feature, by now you know we love!) to support the theory in the book, which is arranged in a logical, thematic format. Do not be one of those to overlook this book!
$16 / Hour SNG Blueprint by Planet Mark – This is a free eBook course by Mark over at Sit and Go Planet. It comes over 4 e-mailed parts and shows you how to grind 1-table SNG tournaments for up to $16 profit per hour. Mark does not expect readers to be playing SNGs forever. The idea is to use these games to build your bankroll up, then move on to either cash games or tournaments. An ideal choice for beginning players looking to quickly make a steady income from online poker – and best of all, this book is completely free.
Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold’em by Tom McEvoy and T.J. Cloutier – When you are ready to take on the Cadillac of Poker, No-limit hold ‘em, you need to be prepared with a new set of skills in addition to what you bring with you from the limit tables. McEvoy and Cloutier teach you those skills in yet another fine book in the Championship series. T.J. Cloutier is arguably the greatest no-limit tournament player in history with more no-limit and pot-limit titles than any other player. He not only shares his winning strategies but a number of personal poker experiences as well which add a great deal to the book.
Tournament Poker for Advanced Players: Expanded Edition by David Sklansky – As I mentioned earlier, Sklansky is not for the casual reader. His attention to the mathematics of the game can be lost on some readers, but his concepts are spot-on. This book is another that fits that bill, but I must give it some props because it provided me another “ah-ha!” with regard to my tournament play. Sklansky discusses the Gap Concept and this concept opened my eyes to a shift in strategy I did not make moving from cash ring games to tournament play. Since that time, my return on investment in tournaments went up significantly. This book covers more than hold ‘em in its examples, so if you do not play stud, you will have to wade through those examples.
Harrington on Hold ‘em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play by Dan Harrington – I included this book in our list, because “Action” Dan Harrington is the player I most aspire to be like. He is a tight player who has managed to make the final table at the main event of the WSOP four times, winning in 1995 and cutting through nearly 2,600 players in 2004 to make it to fourth. I think the man’s got enough skins on the wall that warrant reading his book!
Super System 2: A Course in Power Poker by Doyle Brunson – I would be terribly remiss if I did not pay homage to what many professional players consider to be the bible of all poker play. Super System and now Super System 2 are comprehensive discussions regarding all poker games. You will want to read this at some point, if for no other reason than that many of your good opponents will have read it. Each chapter is written by a different contributor, all of whom are experts in the field of poker. Doyle’s chapter on no-limit is considered the gospel, but it is a VERY aggressive style and recreational players should use it at their own risk.
Play Poker Like the Pros by Phil Hellmuth – Ah, Phil Hellmuth, the player everyone loves to hate. Well, love him or hate him, there is always action surrounding him. I read this book when it first came out and enjoyed it very much. In hindsight, there are probably several better poker books when it comes to no-limit strategy, but Hellmuth does a good job of touching on a number of hand situations. I particularly enjoyed his defining of the types of players you will face and how to beat each of them. He categorizes players as Jackals, Elephants, Mice, Lions, and the one we all aspire to – the Eagles.
Pot-Limit Omaha Poker by Jeff Hwang – If you’re a Hold’em player that is just getting into Omaha you will want to pickup this book many people consider it to be the bible for Pot Limit Omaha. The author does a great job of explaining the complexities of the game and how playing hands that can make the nuts will provide a solid foundation for playing at a winning level in most low stakes Omaha poker games.
If you can read and digest all the content in the above poker books, you are guaranteed to gain an edge against any opponent you face in the live poker arena or on the virtual felt. But for the best outcome, you should not just read these, but also see how each concept applies to real hands.

Hollywood Poker

The origins of this game are unknown but it can be found at the kitchen tables across the Canadian Prairies

Equipment

• Chips
• 3+ Decks
• 2+ Players

Players

There are players and the dealer, both of which pivotal to game play marked cards. PLAYERS: participate in every game DEALER: the dealer only plays in games specified. They also play house and make up any differences. Position moves to the left each round.

Game Play

Dealer gives five cards to everyone face down.

I. Red Black Each player bets whether the majority of cards is red or black, if all are one type the bet is doubled.

II. Poker Dealers deals house hand face down. Players place bets against the house only.

III. Bingo Dealer calls bingo cards while players put one chip on every card called. The winner(s) get all chips placed on the cards

IV. Put & Take Dealer flips cards (one at a time); first puts in one, second puts in two… and then first takes one, second takes two… the dealer makes up the difference

V. Counting Dealer flips cards from deck counting out loud (ace, two, three…). If a card flipped matches the verbal card, players give the amount on the card (Jack eleven, Queen twelve, King thirteen)

End Of Game

As soon as a player runs out of chips the player is out of the game. If the game is called short the player with the most chip wins.

Macau’s wheel of fortune turns

Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson was in a buoyant mood on a visit to his new project in Macau three months ago. The 5,800-room Sands Cotai Central, scheduled for completion next year, had already cost $4.4bn by then – “but who’s counting?” he said.

Mr Adelson, one of the biggest donors to Mitt Romney’s US presidential campaign, is brimming with confidence about the future of gaming in Macau, as is his cross-town rival Steve Wynn, who has just broken ground on a new $4bn casino in the former Portuguese colony marked cards.

Yet both are raising their stakes in Macau just as the market is losing steam.

Total gaming revenue rose 12 per cent in June from a year ago, following paltry 7 per cent growth in May. That is a far cry from the blistering pace of expansion that fuelled a seven-fold increase in gross gaming revenue between 2004, the year the first foreign-owned casino opened in the city, and 2011, when casinos made $34bn in revenue.

Macau gaming stocks have slumped as that slowdown has become evident, with Sands China down around 30 per cent since April – falling 11 per cent in the past month alone – and MGM China down 02 since May. Wynn Macau and Melco International are both trading at record low price-to-earnings ratios.

The main reasons for the hesitation are the sheer size of the market – last year’s revenue was equivalent to seven Las Vegas Strips – and decelerating economic growth in mainland China.

But there are other issues causing disquiet, including the potential for new restrictions on mainland Chinese gamblers travelling to Macau, which has its own borders, and burgeoning competition in the region.

The 2008-09 global financial crisis showed what can happen to the gaming industry when the economy sours. Mr Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands flirted with bankruptcy, lacking sufficient cashflow to meet debt obligations, and along with other cash-strapped rivals, halted construction projects in Macau.

However, a repeat of that scenario is unlikely, says Grant Chum, gaming analyst at UBS, because in 2008 many of Macau’s largest casinos had only just opened their doors.

In the years since the financial crisis, new resorts including the Venetian Macau, Stanley Ho’s Grand Lisboa and the Galaxy Macau have begun generating a lot of cash for their owners as the mainland Chinese economy averaged annual growth of more than 9 per cent and the number of mainland visitors rose nearly 50 per cent over the past three years. As a result, most Macau operators now have more cash than debt, says Mr Chum.

Compared with Las Vegas casinos, which rely heavily on less-profitable non-gaming businesses, Macau resorts make up to four times more in earnings before interest, depreciation and amortisation than Las Vegas properties, according to CLSA, the Asian brokerage.

CLSA projects that even including the substantial costs of building new casinos and the backdrop of a infrared contactlenses slowing Chinese economy, the six Macau casino licence holders listed in Hong Kong and the US will generate a record $3.8bn-$5.7bn in annual free cashflow in 2013 and 2014.

But the prediction assumes the continuation of favourable policies from Beijing – which is not a certainty. Last month, a vice-president of Agricultural Bank of China was arrested for allegedly using illegal proceeds to gamble in Macau.

“High profile cases like [that] could potentially have a profound impact on the gaming industry in Macau,” says Aaron Fischer, head of consumer and gaming research at CLSA.

It may have been coincidental but shortly after the arrest, a local newspaper in Macau reported that Beijing was tightening visa restrictions on independent travel from the mainland. The Macau government said it was not aware of any change but the number of independent visitors to the gaming enclave fell in the first quarter, the first decline since 2009.

Given the lack of transparency in China’s visa policies, it is not clear if the two were related. But Macau, where over half of the visitors are from the mainland, came to a virtual standstill in the summer of 2008 when China abruptly suspended issuance of double-entry permits without giving a reason.

Macau is also no longer unique as casinos spring up in other parts of Asia. The two casino resorts in Singapore made as much in revenue last year as the Las Vegas Strip, just two years after opening. In the Philippines, a massive casino district is being built along Manila Bay, and the residents of a Taiwan island last weekend [July 7] voted in favour of the government’s plan to allow casinos to be built there.

All this means that new construction in Macau comes with increased risk, says Mr Pinge. “For the first time since 2009, new supply of gaming tables in Macau has exceeded the growth in demand. Investors should be aware of the intensity of the competition going forward, and how that may impact profit growth.”