Its been very busy (and very very disappointing) today as you would expect. Radio, TV, magazines have all been contacting us, and wanting to speak to me. I have tried my best to speak with as many people as possible about
the 5 month adjournment handed out by Nottingham Magistrates Court today (effectively a 8 months adjournment as you will see below). However, its hard saying the same thing over and over again.
Anyway, for those of you that are interested in what happened today here is a summary:
1. Gala, Stanley and LCI legal council arrived, only LCI brought one of their own employees to the hearing, I had a chat with him, seemed a very nice chap. Stanley and LCI are not open yet in Nottingham, but have already obtained their licences.
2. The Court Clerk explained that due to the fact there is 3 Objectors, the case could not be heard today, and must be adjourned to a date in the future.
3. He consulted each objector, LIC were very co-operative, saying they would make themselves available, but Gala said they could not make another hearing till March 2008, and Stanley said that would suit them better.
4. My legal council, Andrew Woods, objected to these dates, stressing that DTD was effectively financed by an "individual" rather than a "large corporate", and in the end, the court and the legal representives "negotiated" a date of the 24th - 27th September 2007.
5. That was it! 20 minutes........all over
What does this mean, well to be honest, its just one disaster after another. These are the steps I have had to go through which have caused all the delays, I had originally hoped the open this club in April 2006 lol ....
1. Had to secure premises before I could apply for a Certificate of Consent from the UK Gambling Commission
2. Had to change the premiese us to a "new" catergory, the old
use used for casinos for past 10 years was replaced by a new code
3. Could not start work on the refit due to point 2 above
4. Well documented delays with the Gambling Commissions, ending with being reported for "illegal online gaming" by certain Uk casinos
5. Finally get my Certificate of Consent in Feb 2007
6. Told today that my hearing has been adjorned to Sept 07 due to the casino objections
7. Told that I cannot apply for employee (dealers etc) licencees UNTIL I have got licence from Magistrates Court - will take another 3 months
So, realistically, lets say I get the local licence on the 27th September, apply for the dealer licences in October, I cannot open this club legally till January 2008, a total of 18 months delay, and at running costs (excluding online costs) of £75,000 per month on wages and premises costs (its £25k per month just for the building!), clearly I am facing a serious problem, even Richard Branson would find this hard to swallow, and I am Vauxhall Conference (no - saturday morning football) compared to his Premiership status.
However, some of the stuff the media and others are saying is a little exagerated, I mean, I just noticed a figure of £7m quoted on the BBC web site which is was way overestimated, I'd be living on a bowl of rice under a trent bridge if I had really donked that amount of money off on Dusk Till Dawn. I also heard recently from a couple of sources inside the poker world that I'd spent a lot more than I was letting on and was way over budget and DTD was going to financially collapse, things are not "great", but this is not the case.
So, what has happened has really happened, I cannot change this, the responsibility for this hole I fnd myself in, is of course, my own. Being honest, I did not plan this venture very well, I went with gut feel and passion to do something different, to be the first legal and largest poker venue in the UK. I never needed to take on these risks, but I ignored some pretty basic business rules, it was not for financial gain, but for the challenge. I also hugely underestimated the task of "becoming legal" for a "regular joe" like me. Let's face it, its not like I have could say to these casinos, "hey, don't object to DTD in Nottingham, and I won't object to your new casino application in Manchester".
Where to now? The answer is I do not know. To be legal DTD cannot open for 8/9 months, a further loss of £600k+, to open illegally would mean that my Certificate of Consent would be revoked and I would be in the same boat as the Gutshot. The online business has only made a small loss (not bad for a start up really), incidental to the capital, set-up and running costs of the live club.
Anyway, these are the facts, you guys have followed me from the beginning, things have taken a turn for the worse, I need to look at these implications after a night's sleep.
On the positive side, one of my dogs, "Numpty", is recovering well from his leg operation.
Cheers Rob
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