Ontario’s provincial gambling monopoly has selected Bede Gaming as its new digital platform provider in the hopes of boosting its online gambling site’s limp performance to date.

On Thursday, the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation (OLG) announced that its competitive procurement process had identified the UK-based Bede as the best candidate to build OLG’s “new enterprise-wide digital foundation.”

OLG began its search for a new digital platform provider nearly two years ago, and it doesn’t expect the new player platform to be in operation until early 2020. Nonetheless, OLG’s chief operating officer Greg McKenzie said the monopoly was “looking forward to developing our relationship with Bede as OLG continues its digital transformation.”

Bede co-founder Michael Brady celebrated the “landmark” deal with OLG, which marks his company’s first North American deal. Brady called the deal “a huge recognition of the strength of our offering” and he predicted “a long and successful relationship with one of the most respected names in the worldwide lottery sector.”

UK-listed gaming giant GVC Holdings saw its revenue and profit soar following its takeover of fellow UK operator Ladbrokes Coral Group.

On Thursday, GVC announced that its revenue rose 8% year-on-year to £1.72b in the six months ending June 30, gross profit gained 6% to £1.1b, earnings improved 11% to £349.5m and the company booked an after-tax profit of £113.8m versus a £6.4m loss in the same period last year.

The above comparisons are calculated on a pro forma basis, assuming that GVC’s takeover of Lads-Coral, which was made official on March 28, was already a done deal in H1 2017. Also excluded: the Turkish black-market business that GVC ditched in late 2017 to ensure its Lads-Coral deal passed UK regulatory inspection.

GVC’s H1 gains were driven by strong digital performance, with its sports brands – bwin, Coral, Crystalbet, Eurobet, Ladbrokes and Sportingbet – reporting online revenue up 19% while its games brands – CasinoClub, Foxy Bingo, Gala, Gioco Digtale, PartyPoker and PartyCasino – were up 13%.

The fifth event of the 2018 Poker Masters is in the bag, and Ali Imsirovic is one of the new favourites to win the Purple Jacket after taking down the biggest event of the series so far.

The 2018 Poker Masters has turned the corner. The horses pull into the home straight, steam billowing out of nostrils more full than Andre the Giant’s yawn, and there, at the final post, hangs a Purple Jacket.

Who will reach it first?

Like a glass slipper on the foot of someone called Cinders, if it fits, then the fairytale is confirmed.

Casino cruise ship operator Genting Hong Kong Group announced plans for its cruises to go beyond Asian waters starting 2019, as part of its move to become “Asia’s Global Cruise Line.”

In a press release, the company said it was scheduling its ‘Queensland and the Barrier Reef Cruises’ beginning October 27, 2019, after a $30-million rehabilitation of one of its ships into the ‘Explorer Dream,’ weighing 75,000 gross tons and with a 1,870-passenger capacity.

Genting HK Executive Chairman Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay said, “Dream Cruises will be extending its brand recognition to 300 million Chinese in Shanghai and Tianjin/Beijing next summer as well as offering cruises in Australia and New Zealand to its Asian-sourced passengers during winter 2019 – the first time Dream Cruises will be sailing outside Asia.”

Other cruises offered are ‘North and South New Zealand Cruises,’ starting December 15, 2019, and ‘Tasmania Island and Melbourne Cruises’ starting February 9, 2020.