Blog :: Aspers Westfield Stratford City

Aspers Westfield Stratford City Blog

John Scanlon, Poker Manager

It’s been a busy few weeks since launching the biggest casino poker room in London. I’m really thrilled to be running it – I’ve been in the casino industry for 15 years and believe it has the potential to be the biggest and best poker club in Europe. Certainly our players so far have been impressed with the venue and its potential.

We have a fantastic 150 seat poker room, expandable to 250. We have daily tournaments, and cash games available 24/7. Our main offerings are Texas Holdem and Omaha.

Tournaments are going well – since opening we are averaging 70 players per tournament. Cash games are averaging 5 tables per week and 12 tables per weekend.

We’ve had some big payouts – recently our Badbeat Jackpot (which we seeded at £10k) reached £18.5k, and was claimed this week. The loser, with a full house of aces over kings, took 50% of the pot, the winner, with a hand of 4 aces, took 25%, and the remaining 25% was divided between the rest of the players.

We find that players like tournaments because they are more structured, with the potential to achieve bigger returns from an initial stake. The better players also play for prestige – and there will be plenty of opportunities here in 2012, as we look to bring some of the major European poker events to Stratford. We hope to have more news on that next year.

A good poker tournament has a good structure, with a decent amount of time to play. It’s for this reason that we give 25 minutes, more than any other casino in London. It’s also important to have a healthy starting stack, and of course professional and efficient dealers. On this point we have just recruited a dedicated poker trainer, who will work with our dealers on a daily basis to make sure they become the best in London.

If you haven’t yet visited us to play a game, we look forward to seeing you soon! If you’re interested in getting into poker, good starter tutorials can be found here and here.

Debbie Mazs, Campaign Manager - Marketing

As the Casino opening date fast approaches, we have been working hard to drum up lots of interest and awareness to make sure plenty of enthusiastic customers are ready and waiting to play as soon as we open the doors.

We have been running advertisements on the tube, outdoor and in the press, as well as online and on Facebook – and the number of people visiting our website as a result and signing up to receive more information has been extremely encouraging.

We are running a promotion for fans of our Facebook page, which is rapidly turning into a thriving community. We will be selecting three of our fans at random on Monday 28th November to win a top VIP night out with five of their friends at our launch event. This fabulous prize includes Champagne on arrival, limousine transport, a three course meal with a bottle of wine and vouchers for each guest. So if you’re not yet on our Facebook page, head over there now to be in with a chance to win!

If you’ve visited Westfield Stratford City recently, chances are you’ll have noticed our stunning Range Rover Evoque Coupe parked outside – if you Visit Aspers between 2nd – 24th December and pick up a free scratchcard, you could be driving it away after our Boxing Day prize draw! Each time you visit you’ll be presented with a new scratchcard which also gives you an instant prize, so keep coming back for more chances to win!

We’ll have many more promotions and competitions once we’re open, so stay tuned to our Facebook page and make sure you’re on our email list to make sure you don’t miss out.

Linda Lewis, Regional HR Manager

As you can imagine, these past few months have been an incredibly busy time for Aspers HR Department. My role as Regional HR Manager is to provide strategic and operational HR support for the company, and with regards to Aspers Westfield Stratford City I have been involved in devising the strategy and implementation of a recruitment process that will staff what will be the largest casino in the UK.

After many weeks of preparation, the recruitment process began 10 weeks ago with the recruitment of Trainee Croupiers and Trainee Cashiers. To make sure we find the right staff, we have worked closely with Workplace - a recruitment centre based in Newham that is committed to helping employers find the right local people to work for them as well as supporting local people who want those jobs.

Workplace provided us with applicants. No experience was required - we only stipulated that all applicants should be over 18 and had a Customer Service focus. Following interview workshops that involved competency based questionnaires and team building exercises, the successful candidates were identified.

A training school for 36 Trainee Croupiers at the London Gaming Academy, based at Charlton Athletic Football Club commenced on 03 October for 8 weeks of intense training. The training school provides each candidate with the fundamental skills of dealing Roulette, BlackJack and Three Card Poker; a City & Guilds qualification; as well as being funded for the obligatory gaming licence that is issued by the Gambling Commission to be a Croupier in the industry, all costing just under £200 per person.

In addition to the trainee roles we have also recruited Experienced Croupiers, Coaches; Cashiers, Poker Dealers and Managers for all Gaming departments. We continued to use Workplace to source candidates but also placed advertisements on GamingFloor; on our website www.aspersgroup.co.uk as well as inviting our existing talent pool from our other casinos to apply for internal development opportunities. All applicants went through an interview process before a table test – designed to assess dexterity, knowledge, commentary and above all customer service.

Aspers will be a “World of Entertainment”, so as well as Gaming staff, our recruitment programme has included hospitality, security and surveillance staff.
A large percentage of security and surveillance candidates have been provided through Workplace, and we have been able to create further opportunities by recruiting 5 Trainee Surveillance Officers who are currently on a six week training programme to enable them to understand the fundamentals of a Croupier role; prevent fraud and spot infringements. Inaddition to our trainee group, Aspers have also recruited another 35 experienced Security & Surveillance personnel, and have funded each of these individuals required licences.

Last, but certainly not least, we have also hired a large number of Hospitality staff including Bar, Restaurant and Kitchen workers, Guest Relations staff, Electronic Gaming Hosts and Cleaners.

In total, we have recruited just over 400 staff in total for Aspers Westfield Stratford City – an enormous, and very exciting, task

Moving forward there will be further opportunities to join the team – for instance we have a new Trainee Croupier training school scheduled for February. If you’re interested in working for Aspers Westfield Stratford City you can continue to apply by forwarding an expression of interest mail containing your CV via our website. Those that live in the Newham Borough may apply directly through Workplace.

Head of Electronic Gaming - Mark Beattie

Mark Beattie, Head of Electronic Gaming

It’s a really exciting time here at Aspers Westfield Stratford City. For the first time UK customers can experience a truly international style casino. Up until now, consumers have had little access to slot machines, with a maximum of 20 per casino allowed. We will have 150. On entering the casino you will be met by a fantastic and fun atmosphere – we can’t wait.

We have all of your favourite slot machines, including Pharaoh’s Fortune, Cleopatra, Lucky Lady’s Charm and Rainbow Riches. The quantity we have means that you won’t have to wait to get on to your favourite machine. We will also have a number of new exciting games including Sex and the City & Star Wars – and all the latest multi-game machines with a choice of up to 9 different games on each.

In total we will have well over 100 different games on offer. You can play stakes from 1p upwards, with a multi-line, multi-bet format, with prizes of up to £4,000.

But that’s not all. We also have 92 electronic gaming terminals, where you can play Roulette from 10p a chip as well as Punto Banco. In addition, unique to this Casino, we have a world first live bingo game which is called using old fashioned bingo balls, with tickets from 10p each.

And last but not least we will have sports betting terminals, where you can place bets on a huge range of sporting events all over the world, including football, horseracing and much more. You can place bets on multiple events and also in play whilst watching live events.

We simply could not be more excited and we have an inkling you’re going to feel the same. See you soon.

Richard Noble, Chief Operating Officer

We and our partners at Crown Limited and Westfield have been working on the Aspers Westfield Stratford City project for over five years. We are delighted that the launch date is now within touching distance.

Westfield’s Stratford City complex is arguably the finest of its kind in Europe. Opening in December, Aspers will set a new benchmark for casinos offering a stunning variety and number of high quality games for both the professional player and novice.

As the largest casino in the country - at 65,000 sq. ft. - Aspers will offer a stylish and relaxed live gaming experience, with the widest selection of games available in any casino in the UK including 40 gaming tables with classics such as American Roulette, Blackjack and Punto Banco as well as exciting new games including Casino War and Blackjack Switch.

The 150-seat dedicated poker room offers the opportunity to experience the world’s fastest growing game in a safe and regulated environment. There will be a daily Texas Hold’em poker tournament as well as a wide range of poker cash games, so no matter what level guests want to play at, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.