LiveSport, the global sports media company, has secured majority of the shares in Enetpulse, the global provider of live sports data.

Richard Hájek, Managing Director of LiveSport Holding, said: “LiveSport continues to adapt to the demands of the sports community in order to maintain our position as the leading sport live score company that can service every aspect of the requests of our growing user base.”

“The supply of data to the sports business world is becoming increasingly important and Enetpulse, with their progressive vision, excellent technological infrastructure and industry expertise, is a company who are at the forefront of this market.”

“We have been looking at sports data delivery area for a long time, so we believe this is a good fit for LiveSport, which will help our company to achieve an even bigger reach within the sports community. Enetpulse B2B business will benefit from support that our network of 50+ sporting websites can provide, in addition to other synergy effects.”

Leo Noer, Managing Director of Enetpulse, said: “After 15 years of operation I am delighted to confirm that Enetpulse will now become part of the LiveSport family. This announcement marks an exciting next step in the history of Enetpulse and we are looking forward to fulfilling a key role within the LiveSport group, which we believe is the right partner for Enetpulse.”

“Enetpulse are already at the forefront of an exciting and dynamic time for the global sports data market. We welcome the opportunity to now finally being part of a company that shares our vision and desire to be the market leader in our space.”

Enetpulse will continue it’s current path to increase the newly launched InPlay sports data product to the betting industry, with the same passion for serving their clients to perfection, dedicated long term management and constant growing worldwide network.

Melco Crown Entertainment’s Studio City, James Packer’s third casino in Macau, has secured partnerships with Warner Bros. and comic book outfit DC Entertainment, adding more family-friendly features.

In addition to the 130m tall Ferris wheel, the Golden Eye, an ongoing production of The House of Magic, a 5000-seat entertainment centre, a TV-broadcast studio and a version of the Ibiza dance music institution Pacha Nightclub, the massive complex will also include a 30,000 square foot family entertainment center that will feature Warner Bros and DC Comics characters like Tom and Jerry, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

Melco Crown Chief Executive Lawrence Ho said that Studio City would also introduce Macau to Batman Dark Flight, a virtual reality ride.

The $US3.2 billion (AU$3.9 billion) Hollywood-inspired gambling and entertainment complex is set to open in the third quarter of this year and begin operating 400 gaming tables and 1600 hotel rooms.

Gambling revenue in Macau fell 2.6% to 351.5 billion patacas ($54.4 billion) in 2014, the first fall in 11 years since the city began releasing financial reports in 2002. Studio City’s mass-market-friendly features are intended to reduce reliance on high rollers amid a Chinese government crackdown on corruption that has hit VIP gambling revenues.

“Studio City will radically enhance and diversify Macau’s evolving leisure experiences as Melco Crown Entertainment works to anticipate, innovate and ultimately satisfy the ever-growing needs of the region’s and world’s leisure destination visitors,” Ho said.

“It [Studio City] will represent Asia’s ‘next generation’ of immersive, world-leading, entertainment-driven gaming and leisure destination experiences, as we work to support Macau’s tourism development and diversification,” Ho added.

Hong Kong-listed casino developer Louis XIII Holdings Ltd has completed an extra upsize option on a share placement for its new VIP-focused Macau casino project. In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company was able to raise gross proceeds of HKD531.1 million ($68.5 million) from the upsize exercise.

More importantly, it was also able to raise an aggregate of around HKD2.17 billion ($217 million) since December 19, 2014. That total includes HKD1.56 billion ($201 million) under a share placing exercise and another HKD609 million ($78.5 million) from a handful of upsizing procedures organized by CLSA Ltd, Louis XIII’s placing agent in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s ITC Properties Group Ltd. also announced that it had increased its stake in Louis XIII Holdings by another 6.3%. Under the terms of the deal, the ITC paid HKD95.12 million ($12.27 million) for a total of 28.2954 million shares, the equivalent to an average price of $3.363 per acquired share at a discount of around 1.09%. With the acquisition of new shares, ITC Properties now holds 16.9% of the share capital, and according to its filing at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, there’s a chance that it might increase its stake further in the future.

NO SUSPENSION AFTER GALAXY MACAU PHASE 3 FIRE

Meanwhile, Macau officials opted not to order any suspension on the construction of the 36-storey building that caught fire last week at Galaxy Macau Phase 2 . A spokesperson from the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau told GGRAsia that that a team of technicians had already conducted an investigation of the site and that no further action will be imposed on Galaxy Entertainment.

“The bureau will not order the suspension of construction works because the fire only damaged the outside façade, not having affected the structural safety of the building,” the spokesperson added.

An investigation by the Fire Services Bureau revealed that the fire started when a construction worker forgot to turn off welding equipment, thus “setting alight construction materials on the roof of the building.”

WSOP.com and 888 Poker announced that they will begin sharing limited player liquidity across their online poker rooms in the Garden State effective January 12.

The move has been designed to help boost player liquidity, which is considered as a key in the New Jersey market as it enters its second year of regulating online gaming.

The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has identified online poker as a potential growth area this year, despite generating 25% of the state’s total online gaming revenue, compared to 75% that comes from internet casino games.

Online poker players in New Jersey could benefit from increased prize guarantees for tournaments and a greater number of players available for cash games, sharing $130,000 (€109,825) in guaranteed tournaments each week.

Micro and low-limit cash games and selected tournaments will be part of the shared liquidity. Each site will continue to maintain its individual reward and VIP programs and players will earn points towards these programs only when they play on the specific site. Both WSOP.com and 888Poker have agreed to limit the liquidity share to specific cash game and tournament tables in order to effectively monitor and ultimately determine what the right mix will be for the customer base.

“This is an excellent step forward for us and should help in building a larger audience and player base for online poker in New Jersey,” said David Licht, CEO of the All American Poker Network (AAPN), the joint venture between 888 holdings and Avenue Capital. “Shared liquidity will help create a better player experience, we hope will attract a diversity of players and begin to bring poker to a broader audience once again.”

“It is important we continue to experiment and look for new ways to create stickiness,” said WSOP.com Director of Online Poker Bill Rini. “Customers used to playing on our site will not notice anything different, except more robust action and bigger prize pools. We also hope this will help expand the market by offering more variety.”

Sportster Bet and Win, the social sports betting app developed by Nordeus in partnership with the bwin.party-backed social gaming studio Win Interactive, is to be shut down at the end of January, four months after its launch.

The closure of the Facebook game comes weeks after bwin.party announced that it was in discussions regarding the potential sale of social gaming unit Win development studios.

A communication was sent to Sportster customers that says, “Dear users, we are sorry to inform you that we are shutting Sportster down on January 30th. Please note that you will not be able to log into the game after the scheduled date.”

The social betting game was launch on September 30, a collaboration between game publisher Nordeus and bwin.party’s social gaming development studio Win, aiming to extend the sports betting operators’ social coverage and product portfolio.

Scientific signed with UK-based Mecca Bingo Ltd.

Scientific Games has signed a five-year agreement with UK-based Mecca Bingo Ltd. to provide the server-based gaming solution to Mecca Bingo clubs across the UK.

The server-based gaming platform is powered by technology partner Videobet, a Playtech company and an exclusive content from SG Gaming library along with Clarity, T8 and Triple 7 cabinets.

The last time I covered the Philippines in any depth, Manila was at the tail end of a huge spurt in money growth of about 50% in two years, translating to 25% annual money growth. Now, since December 2013, that growth rate has slowed dramatically to 4% a year. 4% a year is not much more than the average 2% annual growth in the world’s above-ground gold supply. In other words, for all intents and purposes, Manila has been on a virtual gold standard for over a year now.

Predictably, with the extreme deceleration in money growth comes deceleration in price inflation from 5% annual to 2.7% annual, a 50% drop. GDP growth is also down to near recession levels as expected, but there’s also a very good side to this. Government spending in the Philippines has stabilized, along with interest rates to around 4%. Lower than in the past, but not dangerously low. Manila’s debt to GDP is down to under 50% despite weak GDP growth. Government spending, the universal GDP “fudge factor”, is actually steady. Try to find that in the Western world. It can barely be said even of the so-called “austerity” countries. Total external debt in the Philippines is actually down.

The overall picture is that while the Filipino economy is in for some weakness due to slowed money growth, if this steady-to-tight monetary policy holds through the coming weakness, then by the time that major casino development projects are complete, the economy will be in full rebound mode. The timing won’t be perfect, but that will probably be the trend.

Companies going in on the upswing will benefit, especially if development plans were and continue to be financially responsible. Melco, Genting, and Universal Entertainment Company are all putting their chips in at Entertainment City. Genting’s development there has been especially prudent and could turn out to be a great success.

The key points to note with Genting’s investment into Entertainment City are, first of all, despite the money put down there, total debt for the company is down to $479.1 from $746.4M a year before. That a 36% decrease in one year. Very smart to pay down debt now while interest rates are low. Interest expense for the company has plummeted to $63M from $231M in the same time frame. 89% of the company’s debt is floating rate, and only 11% fixed, but at the rate the company is paying it down it shouldn’t even matter. For the $1.1B project that the Bayshore Project in Entertainment City is projected to be, Genting is sure managing its finances well.

The major risk is that the slowdown in money growth will bring the country into a deep recession, complicating the launch of Entertainment City. That is certainly possible, but given that the current slowdown is over a year old already and GDP growth in the Philippines is still technically positive even with government spending more or less steady, this is a good sign that the Filipino economy is handling the monetary shock well enough. The current slowdown is not over yet, but given the country’s relatively low debt burden and manageable interest rates, there won’t be a torrent of defaults even if GDP growth goes negative.

In fact, expect that to happen, and expect gaming companies invested in Entertainment City to take a temporary hit. It will be a good buying opportunity.