Kazuo Okada is no stranger to the courtroom. The former CEO of Universal Entertainment has spent the past couple of years trying to defend himself in front of judges for what can only be considered highly questionable business tactics, and has repeatedly found himself on the losing end of the litigation. He’s had a couple of minor victories along the way, but nothing worth writing home about – until now. As he continued to do battle with his former company in a Hong Kong court, he has now been given a substantial win after a judge denied a request by Universal to freeze hundreds of millions of dollars in assets controlled by Okada. Having access to that money should help him cover the cost of his massive YouTube giveaway.

Universal is going after Okada for $620 million, asserting he completely mismanaged the company’s development of the Okada Manila resort in the Philippines. That ultimately led to cost overruns and delays, and the company wants its former CEO to be personally held accountable because he “undermined all control measures put in place to minimize risk, prevent the diversion of funds and prevent cost overruns,” according to the lawsuit. The expected cost was right at $2.43 billion but, as of September of last year, was already at $3.05 billion.

The ongoing battle between the two had to take a vacation because of the coronavirus, so Universal went to the judge to request a Mareva injunction, a type of court order that prevents an individual or entity from removing or selling assets. The company asserted that Okada might try to unload substantial amounts of holdings that would have otherwise been used to cover the claim if it ultimately wins.

The verdict doesn’t bring the lawsuit to an end, but it might have provided a glimpse into what Universal can expect. Judge Russell Coleman determined that the company had not properly showed the necessity of a Mareva injunction, adding that there was “obvious difficulty” connecting the Okada Manila delays directly to the former CEO. He added, “Until the submissions at the hearing, the plaintiffs do not seem to have countenanced that the damages claim is realistically not simply the dollar figure of overspend. Once it is acknowledged that US$620 million is unlikely to be the right answer, and the alternative figure offered by reference to a different date (US$112.6 million) suffers the same intrinsic difficulties, I am afraid that I do not think there is really any evidence demonstrating a good arguable claim to any particular figure.

Since the sports world has been able to tentatively get back on its feet, sports gambling operators are beginning to dust off their playbooks to offer different contests and promotions. DraftKings just announced a major, $2-million contest for NFL fans and, across the pond, Sweden-based daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports gambling operator Scout Gaming is bringing back one of its popular offerings for English Premier League (EPL) soccer fans. This time, though, the contest is going to be much larger than before.

Two years ago, Scout offered an EPL contest that had a prize pool of €100,000 ($118,000 at the time) and then followed it up with another contest last year that boosted the prize pool to €250,000 ($293,150). In its latest take on the contest, Scout has upped the ante considerably, putting up a €1-million ($1.17 million) guaranteed prize pool for its Premier League Season Game. The DFS contest will award €200,000 ($234,620) for the first-place winner, but 1,250 participants will all get a piece of the action.

Each entry only costs €25 (just under $30), making this one of the more lucrative DFS contests around. The contest is similar to the official Fantasy Premier League game in terms of some of the rules, and prizes will be awarded for best manager per week and per month. There is also a side tournament that targets those with deeper pockets, and which has a buy-in of €2,625 ($3,078).

Scout Gaming co-founder and chief product officer Andreas Sundal explains, “We are very pleased on a global basis, first time ever, offer a life changing money prize pool for the upcoming start of Premier League. Outside the U.S., Premier League is considered to be number one Fantasy Game, the official Fantasy Premier League, free-to-play game, which currently attracts between 6-7 millions [sic] players has experienced heavy growth the recent years. On the backbone of that and the general interest from our partners enables us to provide this record-breaking prize sum.”

Having spent plenty of time in Manila since 2007, it’s fair to say that Saxon Shadforth, Director of Avalon Marketing Services, is no stranger to the online gaming market in the Philippines. Shadforth took some time out to chat with our Becky Liggero Fontana on the benefits of working from a country that has become a major hub for the online gambling industry.

Shadforth highlighted the rapid growth that had occurred in infrastructure in Manilla since 2007. “The first time I went there around 2007/8 was around the time many other serviced focused industries were looking to the Philippines whether it was airlines, banks, financial services or telcos, he explained. “The infrastructure evolved quite rapidly and the telecoms infrastructure and the maturity of the talent continued to improve at that time. So I think online gambling has benefited greatly from all the other industries but also has contributed to the improvement of the economy there, and certainly provided opportunities not just for financial reward but for education for many people in the Philippines.”

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The country offers benefits that one may not find in other areas of Asia. “The Philippines does have a good hub of all different types of languages and skillsets than some other cities you might think of,” Shadforth said. “The Philippines has been the one that has consistently been the one that’s tried to put their arms around regulation and making it a safe place for people to work and whether it be foreigners or locals and providing services to an industry that is not viewed as the same in every country that you look at in the region.”

The Coronavirus lockdown has impacted virtually every business in different ways. For some companies, moving online has worked, for others, it’s been a case of changing the key ways in which they operate to survive. But what about one of the industries who were already online?  

Poker has resisted a hit on the online side of the industry, but the live side has been hit badly, with many casinos closing for months on end and now having to return to a completely altered set-up, costing them vital numbers on their bottom line. Online tournaments have had to take up the challenge of keeping poker brands not just afloat but providing profits and that’s happened for virtually all poker sites with a strong online presence.  

A good example of this – and potentially a guide to how strong poker will be in an uncertain future – is the way that the game has come across on Twitch.  

The popular game-streaming platform has seen a boom in recent weeks for poker viewers. From the World Series of Poker, brought to life by players such as Daniel Negreanu and Mike Matusow, to the PokerStars Stadium Series, with events won and streamed by popular Twitch streamer and Stars pro Lex Veldhuis, it’s been a phenomenal few weeks, as Veldhuis himself summed up on Twitter: