Mahjong for Big Money
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- Created on Friday, 12 December 2008 21:40
- Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 18:00
- Written by Staff
The subscription fee for OEMC 2009 recently was increased. Probably the same will happen to the WCM 2010. Mahjong is more and more becoming an exclusive hobby.
UTRECHT - It looks as though participating in large international mahjong competitions is going to be an exclusive hobby.
The subscription fee to participate in the OEMC 2090 has been raised with 10 euros to 180 euros. Mr. Otto Myslivec, secretary of the Austrian Baden Mahjong club and of the organizing committee for the OEMC 2009, blames the credit crisis. The World Mahjong Championship, to be held in the Netherlands in 2010, has the same problems. According to Mr. Robert Rijnders, president of the Dutch Mahjong Association, earlier predictions of a subscription fee of 200 euro are probably too optimistic.
Otto Myslivec looks rather said as he switches off his computer. He just has sent the fifth newsletter about the European mahjong championship, with the message that the subscription fee will be raised by 10 euros. "The credit crisis is playing tricks on us", he says. "Until now, we only have been able to find some smaller local sponsors. And we still hope Mahjong Time will sponsor us."
After accepting the challenge of organizing the OEMC 2009, the Austrians were quite optimistic. Last year, during the World Mahjong Championship in the Chinese town of Chengdu, they spontaneously invited the new world champion, Li-Li, to come and play in the OEMC 2009. His airline ticket and hotel cost would be paid for. One year later, however, Mahjong Austria has not made much progress in the field of sponsoring, so the organziging committee decided to raise the entry fee.
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The chances of that happening are slim to none. At least slimmer than say, forcing non-alcoholic venues...
When DMJL was approached by Spielbank Hannover in 2011 about providing know-how and material for a Mah-Jongg tournament with money prizes the board discussed, if a cooperation seemed possible and worthwhile - the publicly available board minutes from March 2011 reflected on this (originally in German - inofficially translated [and commented] here): Apart from earnings for the association a cooperation promises a possible contact to the responsible regulatory authority [to gain higher legal certainty about DMJL's self-organised non-gambling tournaments] and obviously the development of contact to a potential sponsor, namely the Spielbank herself. The board decided unanimously that a cooperation was desirable.
To draw a line between the paid-for support of legal gambling and DMJL's very own activities, the board also decided (also unanimously), that DMJL would only act as a service provider for the said tournament, but would not want to benefit from publicity in the course of gambling activities, so that it would not be (even mistakenly) seen as an organiser of such. More over the board stressed the importance of an adequate distinction (in rules, exposition of differing procedures etc.) between events of gambling and mind sport.
There was not a minute of discussion within the board, before Uwe Pelzer terminated the cooperation with the Spielbank/RP5 - no information about his findings, no questions, no suggestions, he just acted on his own. So, Frauke, the board was neither unable nor unwilling to find an answer to the question, if this said (and before unanimously supported) cooperation should've been terminated - it was simply not asked.