Ireland’s High Court has approved Ladbrokes’ rescue plan for its Irish retail betting division, ending the examinership proceedings on Friday.

Under the scheme, Ladbrokes UK will invest €12.8m in its Irish business, of which €3.8m will be used to pay off debts, €5m to provide working capital and €4m for capital expenditure purposes.

In addition, Ladbrokes will close 52 of its 196 Irish retail stores, keeping 700 staff members in employment whilst offering a compensation package to about 90 employee who have opted for a voluntary redundancy scheme.

The plan would see Ladbrokes retain its presence in nearly every town across Ireland in which they have been trading.

Bwin.party investor said that GVC needs to increase its offer to have a chance of winning the bidding war against 888 Holdings.

Jason Ader, who owns 5.2% of Bwin.party through his Spring Owl Asset Management, said GVC will need to further boost its offer to bwin.party to 14% more, approximately 140p per share, in order to be in contention with 888 Holdings’ accepted offer.

“I would want a much bigger premium than 122.5 pence,” Ader told Bloomberg. “There are a lot of risks and uncertainties with this GVC bid. By increasing its proposal from 110 pence, GVC has done ‘just enough to have a conversation with Bwin.’”

GVC has teamed up with Cerberus Capital Management and returned with a new proposal on Monday, which values bwin.party £1b ($1.55b). Under the new offer, bwin.party shareholders would get 122.5p for each Bwin share, consisting of up to 25p in cash and the remaining in new GVC shares. The proposal will be financed via a combination of the issuance of new GVC shares, to bwin.party shareholders, and a €400m senior secured loan provided by Cerberus.

Korean casino cruise ships for foreign gamblers are set to open its doors as early as next year.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced on Tuesday that an ordinance to allow cruise casinos was approved at the latest cabinet meeting.

The ordinance, which was purposely created to support the cruise tourism industry in Korea, will take effect on August 4 but the government assumed that the casino cruise ships operators will need more time to turn their ships into a gambling facility.

According to the ordinance, the cruise operator should have an “investment appropriate” grade given by credit-rating institutions. The size of the casino will be limited to 2,600 square meters for 100,000+ ton vessels and less than 1,300 square meters for vessels smaller than 100,000 tons.

European gaming equipment maker Novomatic will increase its stake in Casinos Austria with shares it will soon acquire from MTB Privatstiftung and Leipnik-Lundenburger Invest Beteiligungs.

Gaming equipment maker Novomatic is set to acquire a stake of almost 30 percent in Casinos Austria AG.

The Austria-based company announced it has made binding offers to MTB Privatstiftung and to Leipnik-Lundenburger Invest Beteiligungs AG (LLI). Privatstifung has 16.8 percent shares in Casinos Austria, while LLI has 29.6 percent shares in MEDIAL Beteiligungs GmbH, which equates to an indirect equity stake of 11.34 percent in Casinos Austria.

“By means of these transactions we will be able to contribute as a solid Austrian partner with international expertise and become a part of a sustained shareholding structure of Casinos Austria AG,” Novomatic CEO Harald Neumann said in a statement.

Expect more slot machines soon as gaming device maker Aruze Gaming America, Inc., which supplies roughly 10% of slot machines worldwide, announced plans to expand its $35-million factory in the Philippines.

Aruze Gaming America is planning to churn out more slot machines soon.

The gaming device maker, which currently supplies about 10 percent of the slot machines globally, said it plans to expand the operations of its manufacturing plant in the Philippines, Business World reported. Aruze Group Chief Executive Officer Takahiro Usui said they intend to add up to 200 people to their 400-strong workforce, with emphasis on the research and development team.

Aruze Gaming’s 65,000-square-meter facility is located in Batangas, about 107 kilometers south of the country’s capital Manila. The $35-million factory produces an average of 30 machines daily, which are exported to Macau, Australia, South Africa and the United States.

French footballing legend Michel Platini has been installed as the new favorite to replace Sepp Blatter at the head of the Federation Internationale de Football Association despite not yet confirming that he will run for office.

Michel Platini, arguably one of the most flamboyant and enigmatic footballers to ever grace a blade of grass, could well become the most powerful man in football as the bookies install him as the favorite to become the next President of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

60-year old Platini is currently the President of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) after being elected for a third term in March. He has been at the helm of UEFA since 2007 and last summer pulled out of the 2015 FIFA Presidential campaign to concentrate on that job.

Platini wasn’t the only candidate to withdraw from that particular one-sided race. Former Real Madrid & Barcelona star, Luis Figo, also withdrew after suggesting that the electoral process was ‘anything but an election’ calling it a ‘plebiscite for the delivery of absolute power to one man.’

Famed betting syndicate member David Walsh (pictured) is getting closer to realizing his plan to build a VIP-only casino at his Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in the Australia state of Tasmania.

Multiple Aussie media outlets are reporting that the Tasmanian Treasury has been discussing the potential of a casino tie-up between Walsh’s MONA and the Federal Group, which holds a monopoly on casino gaming in the state. For such a plan to work, the Federal Group’s deal with the state would require amending.

On Tuesday, ABC News quoted Tasmanian Treasurer Peter Gutwein saying his office had received proposals from both MONA and the Federal Group “a number of weeks ago.” Gutwein said the Treasury had enlisted “an independent firm” to study the proposal and that this process was underway.

The proposal reportedly involves a boutique casino offshoot of MONA that would be open to only the ritziest of VIP gamblers. Last year, Walsh announced his desire to add a gaming option to MONA that would be called Monaco and would only be accessible by high-net-worth international gamblers for table games only, with no video poker (pokies) machines on the premises.

Full Tilt has removed heads-up tables from their online poker offering in a bid to remove a potential stumbling block when it came to retaining casual players.

Full Tilt has removed Heads-Up ring games from the site.

The news came virtue of a blog post written by Full Tilt Managing Director Dominic Mansour. The decision forms part of a strategy designed to retain the custom of casual players – a strategy designed, and often ridiculed, by Jonas Odman when introduced to the Bodog product many moons ago.

The feedback that Mansour’s team has pushed underneath his nose shows that heads-up tables provide two major drawbacks in terms of the retention of casual players: