AT a recent discussion with Widus Hotel & Casino Vice President David Lawrence, he shares how Widus is a premier destination for leisure and how the sprawling metropolitan that is the Clark City in Pampanga has become a major entertainment hub in the north.
“There is a big market in Clark,” said the gaming-industry veteran, who has more than 30 years of gaming-operations experience from the United Kingdom, South Africa, West Indies, Macau, as well as cruise ships operating across Asia. According to Lawrence, Widus takes a remarkable share of the pie with the casino having over 500 clients on a weekday, doubling to more than a thousand on weekends, the clients streaming from North of Manila, North Luzon and the outskirts of Central Luzon.
“I think, in general, for a lot of tourists around these parts, they’d rather come to Clark than go to Manila. Because, here, you can have the same experience sans the traffic,” Lawrence said. “When you look at the figures, especially the influx of our clientele from overseas, it’s increasing: Chinese among them, Koreans and other market segments. Factor the fact that, if you are a gambler, instead of going to Manila, it’s quicker to come this way.”
According to Lawrence, the key to growth is to diversify. “I’ve been in Macau for a long time, and I learned that, in running a casino, when you take away the VIP players, you basically take all of the business away. I think that, and this is true with any business, you need to diversify. And that means we don’t just rely on the big players also.”
Lawrence oversees the daily operations of the progressively expanding 4,500 square-meter Las Vegas-style Widus gaming space, featuring over 250 slot machines and 52 gaming tables. Couple these with an equally sizeable prizes: a Mercedes Benz, an Audi, a BMW series, as well as P300,000 to win every week and gadgets to take away midmonth. That’s not to attract people according to Lawrence. It’s rewarding casino players for their being a member.
“With regard to how many tables we have, how many slot machines we have, these are actually at par with Manila, this also notwithstanding a number of other casinos operating in the freeport,” Lawrence said. “We have a large casino department, as well, and we comply with international standards.”
And complying with international standards means fostering responsible operations, especially where the difference between “gaming” and “gambling” is, well, basically just hairsplitting two letters. “Because gaming is like a Timezone for adults,” Lawrence said. “It’s entertainment, but, in casinos—a lot of people think of casinos and they think of people gambling away. This is not true because, as the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) puts it, gaming should be pure fun and pure entertainment.”
Which is why, together with providing a world-class gaming experience in terms of infrastructure—think latest machines and latest equipment that could rival that of Metro Manila or even hold a candle to that of Macau and Singapore—Widus sees to it that complying with international standards means espousing responsible gaming on the top of it all.
Widus complies with Pagcor Code of Conduct for Responsible Gaming, which represents a broad commitment by the entire gaming industry to make the public aware of responsible gaming resources and incorporate it into business operations.
Pagcor is now and ever very, very strict; everything we do has to be approved by them,” Lawrence said. “At Widus, we self-regulate. We have a responsible-gaming training every year. We would identify patrons who are gambling: They are those who stay here for a long time, they don’t have much money, they’re trying to borrow money; we exclude them from the casino—these individuals who have a gambling problem.”
Widus takes the cudgels by partnering with Life Change Recovery Center, a professional counseling and treatment facility, to take care of its pathological gamblers.
“I think the main thing that I’ve learned operating a casino is that you have to make sure you can operate within all the rules and regulations. Business is about making money and doing it the correct way.”