Israel has reached a financial settlement with UK-based horseracing broadcaster GBI Racing after the country’s race betting ban took effect.

On Wednesday, the Racing Post reported that the government of Israel had agreed to pay nearly £5m to GBI Racing, a joint venture of television channels Racing UK and At The Races, as compensation for the early termination of its contract with the Israel Sports Betting Board (ISBB).

This week, Israel formally banned betting on horseraces, part of the country’s broader effort to reduce gambling activity by its citizens. GBI’s contract to supply the ISBB with UK and Irish racing product was supposed to extend through August 2018.

Despite race betting having only launched in Israel in 2013, the country had reportedly become one of GBI’s top-five territories in terms of revenue generation. GBI originally sought compensation of up to 200m shekels (£43m) for the termination of its ISBB deal but the company revealed Wednesday that it had settled for a mere 23m shekels (£4.9m).

The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) is pushing back against local media reports that Italian organized crime groups had attempted to infiltrate Malta’s gaming industry.

In December, the Times of Malta published an article detailing allegations that members of Palermo-based Mafia clans had developed “advanced plans” to shift their base of operations to Malta due to increased pressure by Italian anti-mafia police.

According to Palermo’s chief anti-Mafia prosecutor, the local clans believed Malta’s online gambling industry “would be a good financial vehicle for them and less risky than making their money from extortion.”

The alleged plan required the mobsters to find a Malta-based gambling operator to take over operations of Palermo’s Favorita race track, which police raided last month, arresting 25 suspected mafiosi.

An Argentine court has ordered the operators of a controversial online gambling site not to leave the country, using new laws that classify unauthorized online gambling as a federal crime.

Last July, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Buenos Aires suspended the domain of Miljugadas.com, an online betting site based in the province of Misiones. Prosecutor Martin Lapadú also froze bank accounts associated with the site, which he claimed had no authority to take wagers from punters outside its home province.

However, Miljugadas took the action in stride, switching to a mirror domain and continuing to take action from Buenos Aires bettors. Lapadú said at the time that he had yet to identify the site’s principal directors or representatives, but that dilemma has since been rectified.

On Tuesday, local media outlet Diario Popular reported that the Criminal Court of Misconduct had identified Quinton Gregori Marshall, Diego Israel Céspedes, Federico Fernández de Francesco, and Margarita Teresa Boeiro as owners of Eligra Solutions SRL and Miljugadas SRL, which control multiple Miljugadas domains.

The majority shareholder of Central and Eastern European betting operator Fortuna Entertainment Group (FEG) wants to take the company private to better compete with its major rivals.

On Tuesday, FEG announced that Fortbet Holdings Ltd had made a non-binding offer to acquire 100% of FEG and delist the company from the Czech Republic and Poland stock exchanges. Fortbet currently holds a nearly 80% stake in the company, after boosting its stake from 68% last year.

Fortbet’s offer to acquire all outstanding shares in FEG values the company at nearly €450m. The offered prices of CZK 182.5 or PLN 29.8 represent premiums of 54.2% and 53.5%, respectively, from FEG’s 12-month volume weighted average price.

Fortbet’s rationale for taking FEG private includes releasing the company from its public disclosure obligations, which Fortbet views as “a significant disadvantage as Fortuna’s major competitors are private companies that are subject to less extensive and transparent reporting requirements.”

Payment service providers in Netherlands may continue processing transactions from internationally licensed gambling websites after the Dutch Council of State (DCS) ruled that the state regulator has no power to stop them from offering their services.

Last week, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) regulatory body announced that the high court granted the appeal of CURO Payments to overturn the decision of an Oost-Brabant court, which prohibited payment processors from extending services to unlicensed iGaming operators.

A disappointed KSA admitted that the ruling was a “major setback” that would make it difficult for them “to take action against online gambling.” The state regulator pointed out that it could no longer appeal their case against CURO.

“The Gaming Authority tries to enforce the law within the current laws and regulations (the Act on games of chance dating from 1964, when the Internet did not yet exist),” read the KSA statement posted on its website. “Further examination of the ruling must show what the consequences are for the enforcement policy of the Gaming Authority. The public goals of this are consumer protection, counteracting illegality and crime and addiction prevention.”

Hong Kong-listed Landing International Development Ltd. is postponing the opening of its foreigners-only casino on South Korea’s Jeju Island after the provincial council decided to sit on the company’s relocation request.

The Korea Times reported that Landing has moved the opening of Jeju Shinhwa World casino from January 28 to a later date due to the inaction of the Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Council.

The council didn’t offer any reason for the delay except that both Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong and Council speaker Ko Chung-hong were being cautious about granting Landing’s petition, according to the report.

In an e-mail to GGRAsia, a Landing spokesperson said that the Jeju government is still processing the firm’s application, adding that they are hopeful that the council will approve it after February.

A beach resort in Vietnam’s Thua Thien Hue province is once again pressing the government to allow it to operate a casino on the premises.

This week, Vietnamese media outlet Vnexpress reported that the Ministry of Planning and Investment was urging Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to permit the Laguna Lăng Cô resort to add a casino by the year 2021. In exchange, the property would be required to accelerate its timeline for completing all phases of the resort from 2030 to 2026.

As part of this request, the Ministry urged the PM to authorize an increase in the Laguna project’s total investment capital from $875m to $2b, which is the minimum threshold required for international resort projects to offer casino gambling.

Vietnam Investment Review reported that the resort’s casino hoped to launch by 2021 with “500 electronic gaming machines and 50 card shufflers.” By 2029, the casino hopes to expand to 2k machines and 200 card shufflers. The project’s developers have also pledged to add six five-star hotels and 2,218 “villas and apartments.”

Betting operator SportPesa’s sponsorship brinksmanship with Kenya’s government is getting an assist from the nation’s newly impoverished sports franchises.

As of January 1, SportPesa followed through on its promise to scrap its Kenyan sports sponsorships as a reaction to the government proceeding with its controversial 35% tax on all gambling products, which is on top of the 30% corporation tax gambling operators already pay.

Two formerly SportPesa-sponsored Kenyan Premier League football teams – Gor Mahia FC and AFC Leopards – announced this week that they would pull out of future continental tournaments. The two clubs had enjoyed combined annual revenue of Sh100m ($970k) via SportPesa shirt deals, but with these funds now gone, the clubs are questioning all unnecessary expenditure.

AFC Leopards chairman Dan Mule issued a statement underscoring the dire state of the team’s financial books, saying that “without the backing of SportPesa, the club will not be able to pay salaries.” SportPesa’s sponsorship reportedly paid up to 70% of the team’s monthly nut.