Central and Eastern European gaming operator Fortuna Entertainment Group (FEG) nearly doubled its 2017 profits following a year of transformative acquisitions.

FEG recently released its preliminary FY17 financial report, which showed annual revenue rising 87.4% to €305.4m, earnings up 148% to €55m and net profit up 86.4% to €15.4m. The company’s gambling turnover topped the €2b mark last year, a 93% improvement from 2016.

FEG CEO/chairman Per Widerström said the profit figure would have topped €20.3m were it not for one-off costs related to integrating the myriad businesses FEG added early in 2017. Regardless, Widerström hailed the results as evidence of the company’s “investments into operational excellence, new platforms and regional expansion.”

This will likely be the final annual report FEG ever issues, as the company’s majority shareholder Penta Investments is currently gobbling up the FEG shares it doesn’t already own in order to take the company private and rid itself of this need to air its dirty laundry in public every three months. Earlier this month, Penta increased its FEG stake to 95.8%, and a forced buyout of the remaining shares will follow the eventual delisting from the Prague and Warsaw stock exchanges.

Paraguay’s new chief gaming regulator has approved the controversial awarding of a sports betting monopoly license to a politically connected firm.

Late last week, Óscar Ramón Portillo Martínez, the newly appointed president of Paraguay’s National Commission of Games of Chance (Conajzar), confirmed that local operator Daruma Sam S.A. had been issued a five-year monopoly license to operate sports betting through its Apostala (Aposta.la) brand.

Conajzar issued a statement via the Ministry of Finance website that claimed the decision to award Daruma Sam the monopoly concession had been “unanimous” but both the decision and the process that led to it have been plagued by reports of irregularities and rumors of political favoritism.

Daruma Sam will now have the sole right to offer online and land-based sports betting in this country of around 7m souls for the next five years. The six other local companies that previously offered betting services will have to shut their operations, but at least one of them isn’t going down without a fight.

Eastern European gaming operator Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG) has agreed to be acquired by a UK-based private equity group.

Earlier this week, the Estonia-based OEG announced that its two largest shareholders, Armin Karu and Jaan Korpusov, who collectively hold 64% of OEG, had voted in favor of a takeover bid by Odyssey Europe AS, which is owned by funds advised by UK private equity firm Novalpina Capital.

Odyssey is looking to buy 100% of OEG’s shares in an all-cash offer at €1.90 per share, which would place a total value of around €288m on OEG. The share offer period is expected to start on April 4 and extend through May 2. Assuming all goes as planned, OEG will delist from the Nasdaq Tallinn exchange following the offer, after which OEG and Odyssey will merge into a single entity.

Karu, OEG’s founder and chairman, issued a statement saying he considers the €1.90 per share offer “to be fair and I recommend other shareholders to take up the offer.” Karu said Novalpina Capital’s team “has significant experience in investing in companies and helping them expand both geographically and digitally.”

Vietnam has all the ingredients to have a successful casino industry but somehow, the Asian country remains to be underpenetrated.

Imperial Pacific Senior Vice President Lu Tsai pointed out that many operators have overlooked Vietnam’s potential in favor of more popular Southeast Asian jurisdictions such as Philippines and Cambodia. But just like its peers in the Southeast Asian region, Tsai pointed out that the Vietnam market still has lots of opportunities to offer.

“I think there’s still room for penetration. Just what we’ve talked about earlier, with the Vietnam market, is not penetrated very well,” Tsai told CalvinAyre.com.

Among the main draws of the Vietnam market are its young population, its propensity for games, and the Vietnamese’s love for travel. Tsai noted that Vietnam has international airports with many direct flights to a lot of regional places.

Gambling operators are shaking their heads as Brazil’s long-promised gaming liberalization plans appear to be moving backward.

On Tuesday, members of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies removed integrated resort casino language from a must-pass package of tourism reforms after the tourism bill’s main backer Rep. Paulo Azi declared that there was “no agreement” on including the casino proposal.

The casino language, which would have permitted integrated resorts in just two Brazilian states, had been inserted into the tourism package in late February over the objections of deputies who favored a broader gambling legalization effort.

The pushback against the casino language threatened approval of the overall tourism measure as an urgency statute, which fast-tracks legislation by limiting further committee discussion. The casino-free tourism reform package eventually passed by a vote of 290-57.

When it comes to revenue growth, casino operators in the Southeast Asian region may learn a thing or two from Macau Cotai Strip’s business model, analysts said.

Speaking before the ASEAN Gaming Summit 2018 in Manila, Bloomberg analyst Margaret Huang emphasized the importance of the premium mass sector as revenue streams for brick-and-mortar facilities operating in Southeast Asia.

Huang described premium mass as players who are awash with money and yet fall short to the category of VIP players. She said these premium mass players like to be pampered and be treated like VIPs.

“That in itself is an opportunity,” Huang said. “It’s a segment that Macau is going after and these guys can very easily come in here (ASEAN) and roll the way they roll and come in as a VIP player.”

A little over half a year after returning to the board of Australian casino giant Crown Resorts, James Packer is out of the door. Again.

Australian-listed Crown Resorts announced on Wednesday that the Aussie billionaire has resigned from his position as director at the casino company, citing “personal reasons.” A spokesman for Packer said the businessman has been “suffering from mental health issues,” which resulted in his decision “to step back from all commitments.”

The news of Packer leaving the casino company for the second time in less than three years is the latest event in the turbulent period of the 47-year-old casino mogul’s life, including the unraveling of his dreams of an overseas gambling empire as well as his very much publicized breakup with singer Mariah Carey.

Packer relinquished his board seat in December 2015 to focus on Crown’s international expansion opportunities, only to rejoin in August 2017 on the heels of the China crackdown that resulted in the arrest of several Crown staffers. The incident ultimately led to Crown shelving its overseas expansion plans: the casino operator withdrew from Macau, shut down most of its offices in Asia, and even sold its assets in Las Vegas worth $300 million along with other assets to pay off debts.

Macau-based casino operator Galaxy Entertainment group is making a mad dash to Japan, hoping to be the first company to get a casino license in the country after getting the nod in the Philippines’ island tourist draw Boracay.

GEG Vice Chairman Francis Lui announced that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) has finally issued a provisional gaming license to the group on Wednesday, giving the green light to the construction of an integrated resort in the popular holiday island destination.

“We are very excited about the prospect of investing up to US$500 million into a proposed premium quality, low rise, eco-friendly resort development located in Boracay,” Lui said in a statement.

GEG plans to start the construction of its first integrated resort in the Philippines by 2019. Lui expects the project to be completed in three years’ time.

UK-listed online gambling operator GVC Holdings has cleared what could be the last hurdle in its bid to acquire rival Ladbrokes Coral Group.

On Wednesday, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that a merger between the two gambling companies “does not give rise to competition concerns.”

“GVC has a small presence in the UK and only offers services online,” the UK competitions watchdog stated on its website. “The CMA has found that GVC and Ladbrokes are not close rivals and there are many other providers of betting and gaming services online.”

During the course of its investigation, the CMA said it looked at both operators’ betting services for individual sports and games. In the end, the agency determined that “there will be enough rivals to the merged entity to prevent price increases or a reduced quality of service as a result of the merger.”