On a Saturday afternoon in Hong Kong, Dodo was at a colleague's wedding in the New Territories (aka "boonies") while I was channel-flipping back at the hotel. It wasn't until early afternoon that I shook off my procrastination and took the subway to the ferry terminal. The first ten minutes of the hour ride to Macau were rough but it smoothed out once we picked up speed. I had a knot of Hong Kong dollars in my pocket, exactly $4,000, which I'd recently won in a Chinese New Year poker game. I was going to turn the four into ten or twenty, I told myself, then sip champagne on the helicopter ride back.
Like Hong Kong, Macau is a SAR or "Special Administrative Region" of China. The Portuguese finally handed it back in 1999 after centuries of rule. So, you're kind of in China but not quite. You can do things in an SAR that you could never do in China, like gamble legally. Macau, being next to the fastest growing country of bettors, has become the gambling capital of the world. The preferred Chinese game is Baccarat with poker far behind. Only three casinos offer poker and spend just a handful of tables on it. After we docked and I waited in a long line to get through customs and immigration I jumped on a free casino bus.
I made my way into the Wynn and most of my five senses were immediately assaulted. I was choking on cigarette smoke and tearing up from the pulsating lights in the ceiling. It was packed with Chinese who didn't seem affected in the least. They were yelling and splashing their chips on the tables with abandon. I followed the signs for the poker room, turning corner after corner of long hallways. I eventually found it in in the back of the casino. I looked at the electronic board and saw the first table listed at 100/200, way too high. That table would require about $20k. The electronic board blinked and showed a 50/100 table, which was still too high. It blinked again, back to the 100/200 table. That's when my poker fantasy ended. I felt stunned and small. The lowest game they offered was too rich for me. I'd brought a Las Vegas-sized bankroll to a Macau-sized game. I turned, head down, and shuffled out into the afternoon sun.
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