The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) reported casino plans at the historic site of Manila Army and Navy Club would violate Philippine laws.

A source told the Philippine Star that PAGCOR plans to build a casino at the Manila Army and Navy Club (ANC) and is set to start the operation in January 2017.

The city of Manila, which according to the documents provided by the source, owns the ANC and leased the property to Oceanville Hotel and Spa Corp. The latter sub-leased it to Vanderwood Management, which then leased part of the venue to PAGCOR.

Under the agreement, which started March 2014, PAGCOR will lease part of the ANC for a period of 15 years. In October 2014, PAGCOR CEO Cristino Naguiat Jr. was asked in an interview whether PAGCOR would be transferring its Casino Filipino Pavilion at ANC as its contract with its current location will expire in 2016 but Naguiat stressed that there are no definite plans yet and PAGCOR will have to undergo a bidding process. However, there is no public bidding or notice of agreement that was published.

Australia’s Aaron Lim has become the first player to win two Asia Pacific Poker Tour Main Event’s after securing the Manila title at PokerStars LIVE in the City of Dreams.

It took the European Poker Tour (EPT) 10-years to find a two-time Main Event champion, the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (AAPT) did it in nine. Aaron Lim following in the high heels of Victoria Coren Mitchell to take down the APPT9 Main Event in Manila two years after doing likewise in Seoul, South Korea.

[Image Credit: PokerNews & Long Guan]

The 29-year old Australian pro managed to come out on top of a scrap involving 585 entrants. He earned PHP6,016,250 (USD$131,780) and a seat in the 2015 Asia Poker Championships worth HK$100,000 for his hard work. He beat 222 entrants to take his first title, and $111,088 in prize money back in Season 7. The World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet holder has now earned $1.9m in live tournament earnings.

Belgian Pierrick Tallon has won the United Kingdom & Ireland Poker Tour Main Event in Bristol after beating Christopher Brice in heads up action to take the £53,000 first prize

[Image Credit: PokerNews]

Belgian player Pierrick Tallon only has one live cash on his Hendon Mob resume.

It’s a pretty decent one.

Online gambling software outfit Playtech’s iPoker network has called a halt to its experiment with a two-tiered poker platform.

On Tuesday (11), iPoker’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 will be merged back into a single network, ending a three-year-old experiment aimed at improving the network’s poker ecology. PokerStrategy, the online poker affiliate network Playtech acquired in 2013, broke the news this past Friday.

In autumn 2012, iPoker announced that it was splitting into two tiers, with Tier 1 occupied by major sportsbooks like Bet365, William Hill and Paddy Power – operators that tended to bring in more recreational poker players who actually deposited money now and then. Tier 2 was a ghetto for poker skins that confused marketing with rakeback offers and were populated mainly by grinders who deposited whenever Halley’s Comet swung by the earth.

The move was justified as a way to motivate network licensees to bring in more net depositing players, although its success is questionable, given Playtech’s poker revenue and player volume have fallen to shadows of their former selves. Part of this decline can be attributed to poker’s globally waning popularity, yet operators like 888 Holdings have fared far better without such organizational slicing and dicing.

The bankruptcy proceeding involving casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corp’s main unit officially entered comedic territory on news that Caesars’ junior creditors had sued the company’s senior creditors.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that a group of bondholders representing the bottom tier of Caesars lenders had filed a lawsuit against creditors in the top- and middle-tiers. The suit, filed on Friday in Chicago, argues that collateral pledges supporting billions of Caesars’ debt are legally suspect and should be overturned.

In case you’ve been in solitary for the past couple years, Caesars put its heavily indebted main unit into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January, but not before controversially shifting most of its profitable assets into other divisions and reneging on billions of dollars in debt obligations to junior creditors. Caesars has proposed a restructuring that junior creditors believe gives senior creditors a break at the junior creditors’ expense, a situation that has already sparked lawsuits o’plenty.

Despite the development, Caesars shares rose 11% on Monday, which demonstrates either that optimism isn’t quite dead in this sorry world or that P.T. Barnum was a shrewd judge of humanity.

South Korean casino operator Grand Korea Leisure (GKL) turned in a mixed bag of results in the second quarter of 2015.

Net income in the three months ending June 30 was KRW 18.54b (US $16m), nearly twice the sum earned in the same period a year ago as revenue rose 4.9% to KRW 122.4b. But profit was down 42.4% from the first quarter of 2015 as revenue tumbled nearly 18%. For the first half of 2015, GKL’s profit is up 8.2% to KRW 50.7b.

The sequential decline can be blamed on a number of factors, particularly the outbreak in June of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that has done such damage to the country’s tourism industry. Efforts by China to stem the flow of its citizens heading to South Korean casinos hasn’t helped.

GKL operates two of the country’s 16 foreigners-only casinos; two in Seoul and one in Busan, under the Seven Luck Casino brand. According to the South Korean Casino Association, GKL’s share of the country’s casino market rose 2.6 points to 37.2% in Q2.

Toronto-listed online gambling firm NYX Gaming Group has struck a pair of deals to further bolster its gaming options.

The first deal is a five-year B2B pact that will see NYX supply online poker and casino games to the SKS365 Group’s Planetwin365 brand’s Italian-facing operations. The partnership will commence with the launch of a Planetwin365-branded site on NYX Poker in Q4 2015. NYX entered the Italian market in May via its acquisition of Italian development studio Game360.

In a related move, NYX has also acquired eGaming Consulting (EGC), a Belgrade-based firm that previously supplied Planetwin365 with gaming operations. The deal is worth €7.5m, with half up front and the rest payable within six months as certain performance benchmarks are reached. NYX will finance the all-cash deal with cash on hand.

EGC’s 14 staffers will be integrated with NYX’s Ongame poker operation, which NYX acquired from Amaya Gaming last November, and will lead to an overall reduction in costs. NYX CEO Matt Davey said the deal and acquisition were “important steps to meeting our commitment to shareholders to restructure Ongame and achieve cash flow breakeven for that division by the end of 2015 or early Q1 2016.”

The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has awarded online sports betting licenses to Bet365 and Betconstruct.

On Monday, the MGA announced it had awarded a Class 2 remote gaming license to the Maltese subsidiary of the Stoke-based Bet365. A Bet365 spokesman said the company decided to add a MGA license to its existing Gibraltar license “in order to obtain and maintain certain regulatory approvals as well as support its operations in the evolving global regulatory environment.”

At the same time, the MGA announced that gambling tech provider BetConstruct had been issued a Class 4 remote gaming license covering sports betting services and provisions. BetConstruct CEO Vahe Baloulian said the new diploma would ‘further enhance our ability to serve existing and future partners, including those wishing to operate under the white label arrangement.”

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