Portomaso Casino: Mecca of Poker Players for The Festival Malta
Wherever you come from in Europe and beyond, you can't wait for the great summer weather to arrive. The Festival Series will land in sunny Malta from May 15-21. In collaboration with the well-known Portomaso Casino, numerous tournaments will be played and other games can also be enjoyed during this eccentric week. To introduce you to the location of this entire event, we have spoken briefly with the lovely people of Portomaso Casino.
Melvin TF: The Festival Series is coming with its 5th stop, after several successful events in Slovakia, Estonia, and UK, it is now going to be on the rock, in sunny Malta. The schedule already has been released roughly two weeks back. What are your thoughts about the schedule and what are your expectations overall?
- Portomaso Casino: We have been following the snowball effect of The Festival Series since its inception and we have been very enthusiastic to partner up and host this event. The schedule is a jam-packed roller coaster for all poker enthusiasts and surely it will reach out to every poker player, from novice to pro. Most of the tournaments are low-cost and will attract a lot of players, making the stop in Malta one of the highlights of the Festival Series so far. We must admit that we have previously worked with some members of The Festival Series team through Cashgame Festival, and we still remember those good memories. Hopefully, everything will go just as smoothly this time, and we will see more of The Festival Series events in Malta in the future
Melvin TF: Portomaso Casino is the most well-known casino brand in Malta. Can you tell us a bit more about its history of it? And what Portomaso stands for? What is the goal in regard to poker?
- Portomaso Casino: Portomaso Casino opened its doors in 2006 in one of the prime areas of Malta and became very popular instantly. In 2011, the casino was extended to have more gaming floors and accommodate daily poker tournaments. Soon enough, international poker tournaments were being hosted. While at Portomaso Casino we strive to give our clients an exciting gaming experience, the casino is also considered as the main poker venue on the island having hosted plenty of international events over the past years.
Melvin TF: Valuable and trusted staff is key in casinos, I reckon. In poker, the staff who is organizing events and handling them day in and day out, are so much important. What is key for Portomaso when it comes to its staff? How do you handle situations when there is a big event coming up, do you arrange also external staff? Who is the hero amongst the employees?
- Portomaso Casino: In Live poker and land-based casinos, you cannot operate without human resources and it is the latter that makes all the difference. Although we do have our own internal poker department, when it comes to international events, we do also take on the services of Ludos Academy, which provides us with all the staff requirements to operate a large-scale tournament. In the Portomaso Casino structure, you can’t mention the one person that continuously oversees the whole poker operation and the poker customer relations, namely Mr Jonathan Micallef. Jonathan has behind him a vast experience in the organization of the poker operation.
Melvin TF: Portomaso Casino does not only offer poker games. It is a full-grown casino which, of course, also offers casino games. Can you tell us a bit more about the assortment you have when it comes to such games?
- Portomaso Casino: Once on the casino floor, one can enjoy an array of games i.e. roulette, blackjack, punto banco, Ultimate Texas Holdem, and Three card Poker. Most card games include also progressive jackpots. Lately, we have also introduced Triple Win Roulette and we can already see that the game is getting more popular day by day. In the casino, one can also find 170 slot machines and sports betting terminals. A variety of studios which are run by Religa, our sister company, are also situated under the same roof. The studios are operated on a B2B basis. Tumas Gaming Ltd operates also another casino in Malta namely Oracle Casino.
Melvin TF: The Festival Series is ready to set foot on Malta soon. Do you have any kind of specific recommendations for players? What are 'must-do' things around there? What are good places to visit for some dinner/drinks?
- Portomaso Casino: If this is your first time visiting Malta and Portomaso Casino, the venue is situated in the mecca of entertainment on the island adjacent to the Hilton Hotel. At Portomaso Marina, one can find a variety of restaurants and an exclusive club at Portomaso Business Tower, called ‘Level 22’. In walking distance, further clubs and restaurants are available around the St Julians area.
Avoid long queues during the initial registration
We would like to remind all players that, due to casino regulations, all casino visitors must be identified. Therefore, during large festivals, there may often be queues at the entrance to the casino, so we recommend that all players reduce their waiting time by pre-registering online.
Having prospecting clients do the Pre-Registration is very important as it will save a lot of time for registration, as the registration process without the Pre-registration will take an average of 15 minutes per person. While if a client has already done the pre-registration we would be able to finish his/her registration in less than 5 minutes. Whilst we will always strive to register people as quickly as possible, without having the majority of prospected clients do the pre-registration we cannot guarantee a smooth registration process.
Online pre-registration checklist:
- Anyone who entered PORTOMASO or ORACLE Casino after 7th June 2021 does not need to do the pre-registration, everybody else needs to do it.
- The permanent address is the current residential address
- The temporary address is the name of the Hotel for your stay in Malta
- All fields marked with a Red Asterisk (*) are mandatory
- Contact field (E-mail or Mobile) is not mandatory but if the E-mail address is given a confirmation E-mail will be sent if the pre-registration was completed successfully.
- Once at the casino client will need to advise the receptionist that he has done the pre-Registration.
- V.IMP! - The Document inputted in the pre-registration will need to be presented at the Casino Reception to be scanned, only the original document will be accepted (no photos on mobile)
- Kindly note the Pre-Registration may take up to 24 hours to be processed by our front desk.
If you happen to be able to come to Malta, for sure you would like to check out our page in regard to the daily qualifiers which are to be found on various poker clients. And most definitely, you would want to check out the hotel accommodation page as well.
