Lee Davy brings you his usual weekly round-up of all the poker news, views and comments, including a round-up of the live tournament results, a lot of movement within PokerStars orbit and much more.

If you read the compost doing the rounds regarding sexism last week you could be forgiven for believing that females have such an erotic hold over men that they simply crumble at their feet, passing them sponsorship deals with the frequency of the bills that end up at the foot of your door.

This week, female poker players reminded everyone that despite all of that bullshit, they could compete in this misogynistic male dominated environment, and with style. Female players reached the final table of the three biggest live tournaments in the world, and two walked away with their respective titles.

We will start with one of the most talented, and recognized, female poker players in the world: Loni Harwood. In 2012, Harwood emerged from the World Series of Poker (WSOP) fog as one of the games rising stars – cashing six times, making three final tables, capturing her first gold bracelet and winning close to $900,000 in the process.

GVC Holdings Plc. raised its offer to buy Bwin.party for the second time, hoping to take bwin’s attention away from a rival bid by 888 Holdings.

GVC made a fully-funded offer to bwin’s board on Friday, which values the company at about £1.3b ($1.6b). Under GVC’s latest cash-and-stock offer, bwin.party shareholders would be entitled to receive, for each bwin.party share, 25p in cash and 0.231 new GVC ordinary shares.

The proposal is based on GVC’s closing share price on August 6 of 435p per share.

“GVC is working closely with bwin.party and its advisers with a view to progressing the remaining open aspects of its Proposal to enable the bwin.party Board to make a full evaluation of the Proposal. GVC anticipates that this work should conclude within the next 5-10 business days,” said GVC in a statement.

Shares of Genting Singapore dropped 8.3 percent—its lowest in six years—after the casino operator warned of a “significant” fall on its second quarter results.

Genting dipped 8.3 percent to 82.5 Singapore cents on Thursday, the company’s lowest close since 2009. Bloomberg reported some 61.4 million shares changed hands, placing Genting among the day’s most actively traded counters. Still, the company was the worst performer for benchmark Straits Times Index.

The company, which operates Resorts World Sentosa, said Tuesday that it expects a substantial decline in net profits for the second quarter of the year. Genting is expected to release its earnings report on Aug. 13.

In a statement to the Singapore Stock Exchange, Genting attributed the expected profit slump to “fair value loss on derivative financial instruments as a result of unfavorable market conditions and unrealized foreign exchange translation losses.”

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) has agreed to proceed with the application process with Brockton as the lone applicant for a casino in the southeastern part of the state.

Mass Gaming and Entertainment Chairman Neil Bluhm, proposing the casino resort on the Brockton Fairgrounds, and Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter, presented Brockton’s updated proposal to MGC on Thursday.

Bluhm spoke about the economic viability of the project while Carpenter told the commission what he believes the positive impact that a casino in the city would have.

“The inability of New Bedford to get something done was really irrelevant to the ability of us to get a successful casino,” said Bluhm.

The future of smoking lounges in Macau casinos is in the public’s hands.

Social Affairs and Culture Secretary Alexis Tam said the government is keeping an “open-minded attitude” on the issue of setting up smoking lounges in VIP rooms, but the final decision will depend on the results of a new public consultation.

Media broadcaster TDM quoted Tam saying, “If the result comes out and they believe that it’s ok to set up smoking lounges in VIP rooms, then our SAR government, the Health Bureau, will discuss this issue with industry representatives and gaming workers.”

In January, the Macau government proposed a tobacco control bill that will enforce a full smoking ban in casinos, including VIP rooms and airport-style smoking pods on gaming floors. The city-state’s plan mirrors efforts in Beijing to reduce smoking in public places.

Belle Corp. has sold all of its shares in Pacific Online Systems Corporation (POSC) to its consolidated subsidiary Premium Leisure Corp. (PLC).

In a filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Belle said that it has raised Php1 billion ($218m) by selling its remaining 47.85m equivalent to 16.03% remaining stake to PLC.

PLC, in a separate filing said that it has already secured board approval for the sale.

The deal was priced Php20.90 per share, based on the last traded price of Pacific Online on Aug. 4.

Casino operator Melco Crown Entertainment (MCE) profit tumbled 83% in Q3 as the bottom line was laid low by Macau’s ongoing slump.

Revenue in the three months ending June 30 was down 24% to $916.8m while adjusted earnings slipped 35% to $204.9m. Net income fell to $24.3m from $143.6m in the same period last year. Company CEO Lawrence Ho said MCE had delivered a “solid” performance given the “challenging environment” in Macau, where gaming revenue has fallen for 14 straight months.

MCE’s flagship City of Dreams property reported revenue falling one-third to $654.2m. Reflecting Macau’s overall trend, the property’s VIP gaming turnover fell by one-half, while mass market table drop fell 10% and slots handle fell 26%. Non-gaming revenue dipped just 5%.

At Altira Macau, revenue fell 21% to $143.9m. VIP turnover was down 21% and mass table drop fell 15%. The Mocha Clubs slots halls saw revenue dip 10% to $33.2m.

Terrence Chan has responded to a tweet from the World Series of Poker asking for suggested nominations for the upcoming Poker Hall of Fame induction by prompting poker players to join him and vote for PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg.

Does the World Series of Poker have any balls?

That’s the question being posed by Terrence Chan. A man, judging by his recent MMA YouTube clips, who very definitely does.

Earlier today the person behind the WSOP Twitter account posed this question:

888Poker continues to butter up their player database during a critical bout of connectivity issues by upping the monthly guarantees by $100,000.

It’s a tough time in the 888 household of late.

When they became the only online gambling outfit to open up for business in the newly regulated U.S. online gambling marketplace, things were pretty good.

When they announced plans to acquire Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment, a move that would turn them into an online gambling superpower, champagne corks were being sheared off with swords like chicken heads in a slaughterhouse.