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Dusk Till Dawn
It was hard work to get it open, but Nottingham’s Dusk Till Dawn poker venue is thriving. Kevin Stanley finds out why...
With 45 tables in the main card room and one High Roller table in the VIP section, Dusk Till Dawn (DTD) is the largest (and only) poker-dedicated venue in the UK. All tables are custom built for DTD and the chips and cards are of the highest quality. The club boasts 24 plasma screens displaying the DTD purpose-built tournament clock, Sky Sports and other poker productions. Kevin Stanley spoke to Rob Yong, DTD’s owner, about the project.
Casino International: What were the problems that you faced while you were trying to open?
Rob Yong: Trying to find suitable premises that were close to an airport as well as having strong motorway links was a challenge. We knew that we wanted to allow for players to come from overseas and for DTD to be able to host international events. We also knew that we needed a minimum of 10,000sq ft with substantial parking facilities. We looked all over the country and finally found the ideal solution here in my home city of Nottingham.
We decided that rather than just open a small card room operating without gaming board consent we would go legit and apply for a license, but we then found out that we would need to secure the premises before even applying. Smilin Sams, a disused pub and bowling alley, ticked all the boxes. It has parking for 225 cars, it’s only 10 minutes from M1 and it is also just 15 minutes from the East Midlands airport as well as having several hotels nearby in the city centre. We negotiated a 15-year lease, which turned out to be a £3,000,000 commitment. Then we started the arduous task of applying for a gaming license, refitting the premises and assembling a team of directors and staff.
We wanted to create the largest and most prestigious poker venue in Europe, all created with the player in mind. We felt that Dusk Till Dawn would quickly fill a gap in the market. With the explosion in poker in recent years Europe has needed a prestigious purpose built poker club catering for all bank rolls. We wanted DTD to look spectacular, and it does.
CI: What were the problems in Dusk Till Dawn acquiring a license?
RY: Being an individual with no gaming background the Gambling Commission had to be very thorough in their checks, having gone through all the necessary hoops and passed all the financial checks we then encountered huge resistance from the three local casinos which forced our magistrates to be delayed. We had full support from the Gambling Commission but were up against the fact that we required a full casino license to run our card room which no individual had ever achieved before. We also had opposition from Stanleys, LCI and Gala although LCI withdrew their objection at the start of the final hearing.
We took legal advice and consulted the UK Gambling Commission for a solution to the six-month court adjournment. We totally understood and respected the reasons for the three casino groups lodging their objections at the hearing; they had a duty to protect their businesses from another casino opening in Nottingham. We only ever intended for DTD to be a genuine ‘poker only’ venue but we did need a full casino license to operate poker legally, especially after the Gambling Act was passed. However, we could not expect the objectors to believe that we would never take advantage of this license and operate casino games in the future, despite our assurances to the contrary.
CI: How did you overcome these problems?
RY: By preparing a solid case. We accumulated as many statistics as possible to show the growth of poker and the potential for a club of this size. We wanted to show that DTD could put Nottingham on the map along the same lines as The Crucible did for Sheffield. We also got letters of support from all the major magazines and tournament organisers such as EPT / WPT.
CI: What it was like dealing with the Gambling Commission?
RY: They were very helpful even though it was a long process with some severe obstacles. We believed they wanted us to succeed as the first fully licensed card room so they could then start to look at closing down the illegal card rooms.
CI: Describe your customers. Who are they? What are they looking for?
RY: We get in the region of 750 to 900 players a week with our £25 Wednesday No limit event averaging 150 players. That particular event has peaked at an impressive 204 players. These are the sort of figures that no other club in the UK would see outside of a festival. We get around 150 new customers each week, so many in fact that it has been a challenge to create a community at DTD and our membership base is now in excess of 12,000. We get players from all over the country. They come because we offer an unrivalled poker experience with good tournament structures regardless of buy in. They want to play poker with dealer-dealt tables and without the distraction of traditional table games like roulette or blackjack. The one disadvantage of this is that without these table games we can't just give complimentary soft drinks to all players like a casino, although we have just introduced this service to our cash game players.
CI: How do you market Dusk Till Dawn to new customers?
RY: The club markets itself via the word of mouth of our members. However moving forward, from November 1st 2008 we introduced a new loyalty scheme called DTD Pounds where any player who visits DTD at least four times and plays a tournament or cash game during a calendar month will receive £25 in DTD Pounds. These DTD Pounds can then be spent during the following month on tournament entries, food, drink or merchandise. In addition our sister company DTD online poker will also be awarding £25 in DTD Pounds to any player who earns 250 MPPs (My Poker Points) in a calendar month, so it will be possible for any DTD regular to get £50 each month.
CI: How has your first year gone?
RY: My belief that we would open the club at all costs could be described as financially irresponsible but the whole thing became very personal for me. Common sense business acumen went totally out of the window at times and I refused to cut running costs or stop the momentum, but we finally opened. Now I have to make sure that we are here to stay. I still take the whole legal battle that we had very personally, even though we won the case in the end.
There have been so many ups and downs, emotions, pressure and heartache. Looking back it was crazy thing to do but I guess I just needed a challenge, something that would test me to the limits; something that was against the odds. There was such a fine line between success and failure.
As an entrepreneur you put your credibility on the line. I always knew that this was a risky project but I refused to use other investors’ money and made what appeared to be some strange decisions, executed many bluffs and sometimes refused to fold when I knew I was definitely behind. These moves were wholly necessary to open the largest poker venue in the UK with a full casino license.
Since we opened we’ve been very successful. From a start of just 16 poker staff, we now have 45 fully trained professional dealers. We have hosted several third-party events for Sky Poker, Virgin, Ladbrokes and Red Tooth as well as the Norwegian Poker Championships where we broke the entry record for a £500 event with 514 players. We also hosted the Greek Poker Championships and a televised event. This club was built to host big events and we already have many events scheduled for 2009. We are hosting the Sky UK Poker Tour Grand Final and the Norwegian Poker Championships will be returning. Our goal for next year is to increase footfall to a minimum of 1000 players per week and to increase the use of the club for third-party events. We are learning all the time and listening to our customers in the hope that by constantly evolving we can continue to offer the best poker experience in Europe.
