Bloomberg – Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (MPEL) said it will boost its budget for its Manila casino in the Philippines by 10 percent to $680 million after the company received government approval to add more gaming tables. The country’s casino regulator gave the company, a venture between Macau gambling tycoon Lawrence Ho and Australian billionaire James Packer, approval to increase gaming tables to 365 from 242, while slot machines and electronic table games to 1,680 each from original 1,450 combined, the company’s Philippines unit said today in a filing to the country’s stock exchange. Melco Crown (Philippines) Resorts Corp., which…

Bangkok Post – A faint odour hovers in the air, cheap perfume laced with sweat and anticipation. And there is no dinner-jacket in sight. It is noon in the casino on Singapore’s entertainment island Sentosa and business is booming. Men and women, all Asians in shorts and T-shirts, are sitting at the machines. Two wheelchairs are in the aisle. A few metres away, at the roulette tables, the evocative order to stop betting – “Rien ne va plus” – is no longer heard, but simply displayed on a sign at the touch of the croupier’s button. Ever since Singapore opened…

The Lakers, who called the Thomas & Mack Center their Las Vegas home for years, have moved down the street to the MGM Grand Garden. The arena, which is set up for just more than 13,000 seats, about 5,000 fewer for basketball than the Thomas & Mack, purchased its own floor a year ago and now has the ability to host an NBA game. It was a move the Los Angeles Lakers likely would have made years ago — had their new Las Vegas preseason home had a basketball court. But the relocation is more than just about basketball. It’s…

iGaming Business – Online gaming company Bet365 has agreed a long-term deal to become a new headline sponsor of the Hennessy Heritage Festival UK horseracing event. Although the length of the deal was not disclosed, Bet365 did confirm it would sponsor 13 races across the three-day programme – including the Grade Two Long Distance Hurdle. The news comes shortly after fellow sponsor Hennessy also extended its deal with the event by a further three years. This year’s event at Newbury will run from November 28-30. SOURCE

iGaming Business – Hungary’s Constitutional Court has rejected complaints over a ban on gambling machines in the country. According to the Politics.hu website, the state introduced a law last October that stated that gambling machines could only be operated in licensed casinos. Two companies and the watchdog for basic rights sought the opinion from the top court over the law, citing the loss of thousands of jobs and little time to adapt to the change. On Friday, the court ruled that the state had not violated any laws when it terminated the concessions of gambling machines operators. The court did…

QZ.com – Macau, the Portuguese-influenced region on the southern coast of China is famed for its money-spinning casinos and the UNESCO-listed ruins of a 17th century Catholic cathedral. It also appears to be a recent magnet for hackers. The area’s only internet provider, Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau, or CTM, said in a statement Monday it had “detected high volume of irregular overseas traffic flowing into its DNS Server,” on the evening of Oct. 6, activity generally associated with attempts to break into a server. This attack was repelled by the company’s firewall. CTM wasn’t as fortunate in July, when…