German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom is teaming with buyout group Centerbridge on a bid to acquire German sports betting operator Tipico.

In October, the Malta-headquartered Tipico enlisted the help of JP Morgan and Rothschild to explore a potential sale of the business, with names like Amaya Gaming, 888 Holdings and William Hill bandied about as potential suitors.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Deutsche Telekom (DT) and Centerbridge had thrown their hats into the ring via a tandem bid that would see DT take a minority stake in Tipico. Details were scant, but the DT/Centerbridge bid reportedly meets Tipico’s original estimation that the company is worth around €1b.

Tipico is one of Germany’s largest retail and online betting operators, with earnings of around €110m in 2015. Tipico recently burnished its visibility in the German market by entering into a four-year official betting partnership with football giants Bayern Munich, adding to existing Bundesliga deals with FC Hoffenheim and Hamburger SV.

German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom is teaming with buyout group Centerbridge on a bid to acquire German sports betting operator Tipico.

In October, the Malta-headquartered Tipico enlisted the help of JP Morgan and Rothschild to explore a potential sale of the business, with names like Amaya Gaming, 888 Holdings and William Hill bandied about as potential suitors.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Deutsche Telekom (DT) and Centerbridge had thrown their hats into the ring via a tandem bid that would see DT take a minority stake in Tipico. Details were scant, but the DT/Centerbridge bid reportedly meets Tipico’s original estimation that the company is worth around €1b.

Tipico is one of Germany’s largest retail and online betting operators, with earnings of around €110m in 2015. Tipico recently burnished its visibility in the German market by entering into a four-year official betting partnership with football giants Bayern Munich, adding to existing Bundesliga deals with FC Hoffenheim and Hamburger SV.

Are Macau style anti-money laundering laws coming to the Philippines gaming industry? If they are, it’s time to get out of Filipino gaming stocks post haste. There aren’t many of those outside of the local Philippines Stock Exchange, with Melco Crown being the most liquid but Bloomberry no longer traded over the counter. It you hold Filipino gaming securities though the local exchange, while it isn’t time to sell, it’s still time to watch. These include Melco Crown Philippines Resorts and the Travelers International Hotel Group.

As I write, the Philippines Senate is debating what to do about an $81 million heist from the Bangladesh government’s New York Federal Reserve account that was filtered through Filipino casinos in a giant money laundering operation to hide the money. The Bangladeshi government is understandably angry about this fairly large hiccup in their finances, though at the same time it’s pretty funny that the Fed can be robbed so blatantly by people who can’t even spell “foundation” correctly in their wire request form.

The Philippines is one of the last bastions of banking secrecy left in the world. That secrecy was broken a bit by FATCA, that wonderful piece of legislation that lets the US government keep an eye on the money of US citizens in foreign countries. The US basically strong-armed its allies by threatening to cut them off from the US banking system if they didn’t comply with FATCA and send info on all US citizen accounts to the IRS.

Still, for non US citizens for which FATCA does not (yet) apply (it’s only a matter of time before the Feds decide they own a piece of everybody’s income in the world because everyone uses its banking system or some such justification), a Filipino bank cannot give information about its client’s account without the written consent of the depositor. There are some feeble anti-money laundering laws in the Philippines, but they don’t even apply to casino bank accounts. This makes the Philippines a haven for gamblers looking to escape the long arm of the State.

Are Macau style anti-money laundering laws coming to the Philippines gaming industry? If they are, it’s time to get out of Filipino gaming stocks post haste. There aren’t many of those outside of the local Philippines Stock Exchange, with Melco Crown being the most liquid but Bloomberry no longer traded over the counter. It you hold Filipino gaming securities though the local exchange, while it isn’t time to sell, it’s still time to watch. These include Melco Crown Philippines Resorts and the Travelers International Hotel Group.

As I write, the Philippines Senate is debating what to do about an $81 million heist from the Bangladesh government’s New York Federal Reserve account that was filtered through Filipino casinos in a giant money laundering operation to hide the money. The Bangladeshi government is understandably angry about this fairly large hiccup in their finances, though at the same time it’s pretty funny that the Fed can be robbed so blatantly by people who can’t even spell “foundation” correctly in their wire request form.

The Philippines is one of the last bastions of banking secrecy left in the world. That secrecy was broken a bit by FATCA, that wonderful piece of legislation that lets the US government keep an eye on the money of US citizens in foreign countries. The US basically strong-armed its allies by threatening to cut them off from the US banking system if they didn’t comply with FATCA and send info on all US citizen accounts to the IRS.

Still, for non US citizens for which FATCA does not (yet) apply (it’s only a matter of time before the Feds decide they own a piece of everybody’s income in the world because everyone uses its banking system or some such justification), a Filipino bank cannot give information about its client’s account without the written consent of the depositor. There are some feeble anti-money laundering laws in the Philippines, but they don’t even apply to casino bank accounts. This makes the Philippines a haven for gamblers looking to escape the long arm of the State.