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No it is about you, when you bash and spam the board with the same news over and over again.
Are you a cgaq share holder? if you are why arent you tweetting about this on your page?
Sure I will ask them on your behalf.
The issue with the deposit has been take care of. Tyler contacted him.
Only time will tell, I have seen an improvement in many ways.
Online gaming every night is going thru adjustments, last night they added the mic and they had people in the casino filming some type of commerical or what not.
The website has been updated, etc...
If the company has diluted, do you honestly think they will issue a PR about it? I am hopefull that we will see online gaming take off as well as that 2nd casino, it all cost money to expand.
Brock, i was reading postings made from over 1yr ago and remember the casino getting ready to be open, there are short term investors and long term. I am in long term, i am not in panic mode either. I know what it takes to build a business and more importantly the hang ups that come with building one.
For those that have been here for 1yr, do you remember when the bashers used to say that a casino didnt even exsist?
Well it did and hopefully #2 casino will be here soon as well.
I will help out anyone that needs help. Do you need help?
How can you make a deposit if you are in USA?
Sosuabay Grand Casino
Live Roulette is NOW AVAILABLE from 7:30 PM (EST) to 4:30 AM (EST).
CEO Steven Swank 9/21/2010 Interview is now on the website
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This info and link to the interview audio recording is from a post by sssneo:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54676987
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(The following was transcribed to the best of my ability, and although I tried to be careful, it is possible I could have gotten a word or two wrong or misspelled something or other. In addition to reading this, I urge everyone to listen to the broadcast archive of the interview yourself at the link posted above here)
This is Malachai, AKA Nilbud, and as Manic said I'm joined this evening live by Mr. Steven Swank, the CEO of Caribbean Casino and Gaming Corp., and their ticker symbol is CGAQ. We have a special treat, as Mr. Swank has agreed to take some questions from our chatroom at the end of the interview, so if you have any questions, please join us in our chatroom - the url is http://www.stockgoodies.com/
Good evening Steve, and welcome to stockgoodies radio.
Yes, hello Malachai, very happy to be speaking with you tonight.
It's excellent of you to come on and agree to do it live. It's not many CEOs that have the wherewithal to "face the music live" as it were. Steve, why don't we get started by giving our listeners some background information about yourself and why you decided to start Caribbean Casino and Gaming Corp.?
Actually I grew up in Portman, Indiana, a very midwest area. Have always been in the entrepenurial spirit in some of the endeavors I've been involved in. About ten years ago, I was approached by a party in Florida - where I have since moved - and said that I should go down and take a look at a casino in the Dominican Republic. I did just that, I went down and I looked at the casino, attemped to make some offers. That just didn't go together and I ended up making an offer on a local hotel, which I bought and operated for approximately five years. After the five year period, and after selling the hotel, I decided I liked the area, thought there might be some future there, so I decided to dabble in some small Texas hold 'em parlor rooms. I kind of started actually Texas hold 'em in the Dominican Republic. After that, I opened up a small casino. And then, about a year or so after that I decided to go larger, and went into a 90 foot three four facility. We opened October 24th, 2009. So, it will soon be our first year anniversary.
Excellent. Can you tell us about your management team?
Yeah, I have a very good management team. I have 3 or 4 people that have been in the casino business for more than 18 years. I have some excellent dealers that I've known in the area, that have been in the business also anywhere from 5 to 15 years. I've got an excellent wait staff. I have a very good IR person, his name is Tyler Cornell - he answers a lot of questions for you guys when you call in on the telephone or email us. So I'm very happy with our team. I'm in the DR approximately 50% of the time, and the rest of the time I'm in Florida, and operating the business from here.
Okay, how many employees do you currently have?
We have approximately 80-85 employees. That includes about ten employees that are employed in our disco, which is actually part of our casino. We have adjoining doors between the casino and the nightclub.
Well actually I believe that you have three parts to your business: you have the live casino located in Sosua, Dominican Republic, the hotel which is also located in Sosua, and then you have an online gaming platform which is licensed worldwide. Let's start with the live casino. Perhaps you could tell us about that.
Okay, the casino itself is approximately 12,000 square feet, with about another 3000 - 3500 square feet, which consists of breakrooms, executive offices, etc. We also have a ground floor, actually a basement parking garage. We do offer valet parking. The second floor of our building we have a convention center where we throw various activities, concerts, the casino has brought in the first ESPN Boxing - we've had two matches this year - the first time ESPN has ever gone to the Dominican Republic. We're looking forward to some American wrestling matches. And domino tournaments, various things that we think will be of interest to the people of Sosua and tourists that come in.
Now I believe you also have a nightclub, a gym, and a day spa in your casino. Perhaps you could talk about those.
Yeah, the disco and nightclub opens around midnight, and is open until 7:00 in the morning. The people that are in the casino end up wandering back and forth between the two facilities during the evening, and then after our casino closes they kind of hang out at the nightclub, until they're ready to go home.
Wow, I didn't think casinos ever closed.
Yes, we could stay open 24 hours, but we're not ready to do that yet. We find that most of the people have kind of worn themselves out by 7:00 in the morning. We are going to be opening earlier here within the next two weeks. Instead of 8:00 in the evening, we're going to be opening at 2:00 p.m., so we'll be opening at 2:00 p.m. We'll be working with our, we just put a bingo operation in. So we're gonna' start the bingo at 2:00 p.m., open our slot machines at 2:00 p.m., and we'll have one of our live roulette tables open at 2:00 p.m. By the way we also, on the third floor - we have a gym and a spa. And of course in the hotel across the street we have 240-some rooms - all oceanside - and we're right in the tourist area of the city. You can stay at the hotels, you can go into the casino, you can walk almost every place you want to go, for dinner or for drinks. Snorkeling, swimming, boating - whatever you want to do.
Now I know you're just gonna' make me want to go there in the worst way, but tell me about your hotel if you will.
The hotel is a 4 star hotel. It's on a bay, it's on Sosua Bay. The water is crystal clear. And the public beach where everybody in the center areas of the Dominican Republic go over there to the North Coast, because that's where all the beaches are. It's crystal clear water. It's just a gorgeous, gorgeous place to go. There's sailboats you can rent. There's charter boats you can take out. It's a tremendous atmosphere for anybody that wants to go on vacation.
I told you you were gonna' make me want to go there in the worst way. Now, what about being in the Carribean? Is there any chance of hurricanes coming your way?
The North Coast of the Dominican Republic, from Cabereti, Sosua, Peurto Plata to Monte Cristi is pretty much hurricane free. It's surrounded by a mountain ridge up to 6,000 feet. And, in fact, just a little further North, there hasn't really been a hurricane that's affected the coast for almost 100 years now.
Well that's got to be a relief, huh?
Oh yeah, the area that it hits is the Punta Counta area, and the South side of the island, but we're protected very very well. I've been down there 10 years, and not even had any kind of a scare whatsoever.
That's gotta make your insurance less than the other side of the island then, I'm sure.
That's for sure.
Yeah. Now, the online gaming. I know it's a huge business, it just keeps continuing to grow and grow - can you tell us a bit about that?
Well, are you talking about the live roulette, or the ..
I believe you have an online gaming platform?
Yes, we have a live roulette table that has three cameras, and it's posted that anybody should play there, they're gonna' be seen worldwide on the monitors on your laptops or your monitors at home. We can play anywhere from 1 person to 10,000 people at a time. It's brand new. We have been - we made an announcement that we were gonna' open officially for live gambling on the 21st of September. We did get it up, but we had technical problems with our wagering sites, and decided to pull that part of it out temporarily, and then we've had some glitches that you had with the Dominican Republic, and really tonight - it's probably the first night that you're gonna' have everything working, I hope perfectly.
Wow, I hope so too.
Well, you want to go to the website. And the website, to get to it, is http://www.sosuabaygrandcasino.com/
Okay, excellent. I see that CGAQ trades on the pink sheets under current information, which is not far off the OTCBB. The question is, do you have any desire to make a move to the OTCBB, and have you made any advances in that direction?
Now we're working on that, we're getting our accountants in step to go forward with that. We're probably gonna' wait 'caz we're deep in negotiations on two additional casinos. I'm leaving for the DR in another week or so, and hoping to put the final touches on these next two adventures that we're gonna' get into. And once we get those ready to go I'm hoping then we're probably gonna' make our move to the bigger board.
Excellent. Room, as I said earlier, Steve has agreed to take some questions from our chat room. If you're listening to us outside of the chat room you can join the chat room by going to http://www.stockgoodies.com/ and anyone in the chat room that has questions please get your questions ready. Steve, so in your own words, what makes CGAQ stand out from the rest, as an excellent investment opportunity?
Well, if I think in the end, it's going to be the fact that we're going to be in the live online betting business, as opposed to machine oriented equipment that can, I don't mean cheat you, but certainly is set up so that you can't win. If you play on our equipment live, you'll see our roulette dealers spin the ball, you'll see other people that are playing in the casino, you'll see their faces, you'll see everything that happens in the casino at that table, and you can feel, I think, very comfortable that you're playing as just a straight roulette game, just like you would if you happened to be in the casino yourself. And we have other things that we're going to be doing. We think we're probably going to be in live blackjack, we'll probably be setting up baccarat, we just installed all of our new bingo equipment with - We haven't even put the news release out, it's probably going to go out tomorrow - We have a beautiful new setup, and our first night was just tremendous. We doubled our normal profits on our slots because of the bingo acceptance that we had. So we think that probably the live betting is going to surpass the net profit that we might have in the entire casino. We're expecting about a quarter of a million dollars a month just from that one table.
Good Lord! Just from one table?
Yes.
I mean, the whole idea of playing while it's live somewhere, it's just amazing. Actually the whole idea of gambling online just blows me away. It's just, you know - the idea that you can lose your house while you're sitting in it.
(both laugh). That's true.
The website that you mentioned earlier, now is that your corporate website, or do you have a corporate website where people can go and find out more about your company?
You can find everything on the http://www.sosuabaygrandcasino.com/ website. It'll show you pictures of the newspaper that we operate. It'll show you pictures of our grand openings, it'll show you the design of the buildings - and, while we're talking about the design of the building - and we're going to do this with all of our new endeavors - we didn't build this like a conventional casino. We took a building that had very very high - and they have to be black ceilings already - and we set it up so that we - we hung everything from that ceiling down to the tables. We put special lighting bars up there, and we light the entire building with L.E.D. lights. And the way the lights work - they change colors, they do different designs on the walls, and we have actually 36 different light shows for that building. Every day you go in it's a different color. The walls are a different color. It has lasers when you walk in the door. It's just an amazing sight when you walk in there, it's very beautiful.
Sounds amazing.
Yes - it's less expensive to do it that way. So you can go in and build yourself the casino structure itself for less dollars than you would normally have to build a conventional casino with.
Great. And you were talking earlier about - that you could have different designs on your wall.
Yeah we have lights - yeah well the actual walls move. In some cases it'll be like a big sunflower. You might, you won't notice it unless you're sitting in the lounge or having a coctail or just looking around, but you'll see the walls very slowly, the designs move all the way around the four walls - just continuously. And our bar's the same way. We have a long coctail bar in the casino. And we have lazyboy chairs, and overstuffed furniture, and if you go to our sports betting area and you want to watch a ball game - baseball or football, you can sit on what we call our lounge area in front of the bar, and we have big screen TVs all along the front edge of the bar.
Now you're talking my language.
So you can sit there and watch the ball games and take it easy. We have a problem with people falling asleep in those chairs.
(both laugh). Bet you do. Is there any upcoming news or events that you can share with our listeners at this time Steve?
We are negotiating still with ESPN on our future fights. One possibly in November. We're negotiating with two or three "name" entertainers, live entertainers to come into the convention center for shows. we're constantly working on bringing people into the hotel. We're working with some junket people and some groups out of Lauderdale and Miami and West Palm Beach that have showed interest in bringing groups of 20 or 30 gamblers down on private jets. So, we're always looking at different ways to bring people down to the casino.
Excellent. Are you ready to take some questions from the room?
Sure I'd be happy to.
Okay. We have from Cher, "Recently you announced further investment into the technology worldwide manufacturing distribution rights for a kiosk system that is synchronized with the online gaming system. The kiosks would be sold in retail outlets around the globe. How's progress going on that?"
Okay. This is something very new - this is a touch screen. It's gonna' come in 2 or 3 different sizes. One that will sit on a bar. Some that will sit on the floor, similar to a slot machine. They'll have a combination of features. They'll all have bill accepters, and ticket out. So these are basically for, right now we're set up for sports betting. You can go on and touch any number of sports activities. As an example, if you wanted to make a bet on the superbowl in February, you could go to Superbowl, make your bet, get your ticket, stick it in your pocket. Hopefully you lose it before February, and we won't have to pay you. (laughing). But that's the type of thing we have. We also have, that same machine will operate with 5 slot machine games. You can go to horse racing, soccer, everything that you want to do in sports you can do on these kiosks. The reason I invested in that is these people have assisted me with some of their technology on the live roulette, and when I went down and visited them at their operation in Costa Rica I found their technology lab to be sigificant and 5 star in my opinion, and I decided that it would be in my best interest to invest some of the casino's money into that technology so that we could stay on top of everything. And for that I did a tradeoff of having the, basically the exclusive rights for the Dominican Republic. Since then, I've made some inroads in possibly getting some exclusivities, and also some licensing to do the import, where we're looking at a facility right now to manufacture those kiosks and then to sell them throughout the Dominican Republic. We also have some tentative orders for some outside islands in the Carribean. We're looking right now - we have verbal orders of over 5,000 units. That's just been in a period of about 3 weeks. They're gonna' sell for around $7,500 apiece. In some cases we'll sell them for strictly cash, in other cases we'll do a trade out where they'll put some money into 'em, and we'll take a percentage of the profits. So that's going to be a - could be another very very big thing for the company. We're another 2 - 3 weeks away from, maybe a month from getting our manufacturing operation up.
Excellent. Now another question from the room, I see this is from sssneo, for Mr. Swank. "When is the announced Grand Opening for the 2nd casino going to be?"
Well, we won't know that until after I get back on the first week of October. That casino, if everything works out, will be very very fast, because it's already pretty much ready to go. And it would be a takeover venture on our part. And we could have that up and running probably within 30 days, maybe even less. The other venture is an existing disco, and a facility that's already built - it's not just 4 empty walls and cement. It's already there and just needs a minimal amount of remodeling to turn it into a nice casino. It's an 890 room resort. It's pretty much full year round. And that probably will be something that will take about 120 days to finish.
I have stocksdiva who's pointing out that you're expanding throughout the Carribean, but she wants to know when you're coming to Florida?
Well I think the Indians have Florida tied up here. I don't think I can compete with the Hard Rock people. Even though we tried to put the Hard Rock name on our hotel at one time, we couldn't get the job done.
Somebody else in the room asked why you said "hopefully" about the live online working smoothly for the first time tonight. I can answer that one. With anything to do with the web and servers and all that kind of stuff, you can only say "hopefully." You can never say "definitely" on that.
We've had our problems there, just a real - I don't want to bore you with the problems you have in a 3rd world country but, we had serious problems with the electrical in this building, and also the cable system to run servers and so forth - the speed wasn't high enough. And I bought a lot of equipment and hooked it up, had it ready to go, but we just didn't have enough megs to do what we needed it to do, and we ended up, we spent, we basically took all the equipment that we previously bought - bought new equipment. We brought fiber optics in - specially from Comcast - from about a quarter of a mile away. We had to move telephone poles, because the telephone poles were overburdened with weight, and they were afraid they were gonna' fall down if we put any more equipment on 'em. So we spent, just in the last 3 months, in excess of about $180,000, just to re-do everything we thought we had done. So, we are in position now to do some serious business.
That's what - about 2 night's profit now, huh?
Yeah that's for sure. (both laughing) a little bit more than that.
Well Steve, we've covered quite a bit here tonight - is there anything you'd like to add?
Well, I'd like to say that from Miami, we're an hour and 38 minutes in the air. It's a nice trip from New York City, they have direct flights to Peurto Plata and to Santiago. If they want to go to Santiago there's - it's only about an hour's drive to come over to Sosua. It's a beautiful place. The state department has rated the Dominican as one of the safest places in the Carribean to visit and to be a tourist in. So, it's just a great, wonderful opportunity for a person to have a really good time. And if they come to the casino, they can ask for me, and if I'm there I'll be very happy to help them out, tell them where to go, tell them where to have dinner. And if you lose enough money, possibly buy all your dinners while you're there (laughing).
Well, on that I got to tell you, don't be too surprised if I show up on your door.
Okay, I hope so.
Steve, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I'd like to thank you for coming to stockgoodies radio and giving us an insight into Carribean Casino and Gaming Corp.
They are on it dont worry, and dont panic. They are sorting things out and when said and done things will be better. I am in this for the long run.
From the day you joined ihub and your 9 post, thats all you say. Do you own any cgaq shares?
Why would they dilute at this price?
ok, just be patient there working on it.
I agree with you, but hopefuly in the next 30days they can announce the 2nd casino and give us some numbers on online gaming.
I dont add anything there but a company PR and pics and vids.
I know i will let tyler know and see what he says.
I just emailed tyler that.
Looks like there working on the mic issue
There filiming some thing inside the casino
Yea it does.
How did you deposit money, can you share your experience with us.
Looks like there is a filming crew filimg somethng inside the casino
Hows online gaming tonight!
Here is what i did, i made my self run out of play money to see if i can get more... well once your done you cant.
how long did it take for you to get the credit... yes they do.. go to payout and you will see play money dosnt count.
ONLINE GAMING IS WORKING!!.
If you are in the USA it will block your payment.
CLICK TO TRY ONLINE GAMING
At these low prices i dont see what the negitive is in buying...
Just bought 500k shares and for some reason it went thru at a sell and not a buy!
Stay on topic and stop repeating your posting and words.
We need ground breaking news.
Good luck and you did us a favor by leaving...
It was good, I am happy with the direction the company has taken, we all the know the pps should be much higher, I think the interview will bring alot of great attention.
Tomm will be a interestig day, i like th fact that they will open the place now at a eailer time. looking out for me i will be buying tomm!
Great post! I do agree, i will be buying shares tomm, I dont know how long we will last at such low leavls!
I agree wit sony, i am as well, both long and looking forward for this to turn around.
I agree, i am going to rebuy as well. I really want to see that 2nd casino open already!
Dont forget this is a 3rd wrld country... poles he ment internet fiber optics
online gaming is working.
i think it went well, online gaming is working right now, many of us here also wanted info on the 2nd casino which i hope comes thru soon.
very nice opening earlier!!!!!!!
online gaming is looking nice!... log in and cehck it out!