In the increasingly overcrowded European poker tournament market Casino RAY of Helsinki, Finland and Olympia Casino of St. Petersburg, Russia have joined marketing forces to gain competitive edge over other Baltic Sea region poker rooms. The two casinos are running their international winter poker tournaments back to back, with common best overall prize pool, during the first two weeks of December 2002. On top of the common prize pool the two casinos are also offering free transportation from St. Petersburg to Helsinki for all the players.

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p> “Of course, both casinos are expecting to benefit from this cooperation. Even though we have been running successful international poker tournaments since 1994 we are still suffering from our geographical location. Players are more inclined to drive from Germany to, for example, France than to fly to Finland if they have to make a choice.

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p> Our objective is to combine our tournament with the one in St. Petersburg to make it more economical for the players to travel to both countries when the tournaments are back to back. Also, I believe the Russian poker market is ready to explode internally and we want to be part of it, us being the only poker room in the neighboring western country. Already, we have had around 30 Russian players to our tournaments and the number of Russian players is increasing steadily.

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p> The cooperation will be good for Olympia Casino, too, because many players have been cautious about traveling to Russia. However, when we are putting our reputation on the line to assure that St. Petersburg is a safe and beautiful place to visit and the poker room of Olympia Casino is a very professionally run and friendly arena, I am sure that will benefit Olympia a great deal as well”, says Poker Manager of Casino RAY Mr. Jyrki Sinisalo.