William Hill has said that its £2.9bn takeover by Caesars Entertainment had been cleared by a UK court despite shareholder protests.

The bumper merger had been held up by a court hearing after minority shareholder HBK Capital Management raised concerns about disclosures relating to the deal.

HBK and fellow US hedge fund GWM Asset Management both wrote to the board arguing that the terms of the joint venture were not properly disclosed by William Hill last year.

The court process was delayed for almost three weeks, but in the latest statement, the bookmaker said the deal had been sanctioned by the court.

The deal, which was agreed in September, highlights efforts to cash in on the burgeoning US betting market amid a relaxation of regulations.

“The opportunity to combine our land based-casinos, sports betting and online gaming in the US is a truly exciting prospect,” Tom Reeg, chief executive of Caesars, said.

“William Hill’s sports betting expertise will complement Caesars’ current offering, enabling the combined group to better serve our customers in the fast growing US sports betting and online market.”

In light of the continued uncertainty regarding international travel and the viability of in-person events due to the ongoing pandemic, the Board of the European Casino Association (ECA) has announced the cancellation of this year’s European Dealer Championship (Monte-Carlo, October 4-8) and ECA Industry Forum (Vienna, November 31-December 3), with both events postponed until 2022.

While no fixed dates can be supplied at this time, the ECA assures members that the European Dealer Championship will return in April/May 2022, followed by the ECA Industry Forum in September/October 2022.

“Health and safety have always been our top priority and the continued uncertainty created by the pandemic makes the postponement of our in-person events the prudent decision. We needed to put down our foot and make this decision now considering the scale of these events and the efforts that are going into organizing and executing them. While we regret the cancellations this year, we look forward to the prospect of EU-wide vaccination programmes lifting current travel restrictions to enable us to reunite with our members in 2022,” ECA Chair Per Jaldung said.

“The ECA Dealer Championship brings together the best dealers from all over Europe in the spirit of healthy competition, while the Industry Forum is a special get-together for industry stakeholders, suppliers and researchers to celebrate the collaborative nature of this business. We believe these events will be more important than ever in 2022 as the industry rebounds from the pandemic and seeks to address the challenges of the ‘new’ future,” Hermann Pamminger, Secretary-General of ECA, said.

Fast Track has signed a deal to provide its customer relationship management (CRM) solution to the new online casino brand of the DoubleUp Group.

DoubleUp Group strives to simplify the user experience. Using their expertise in tech, the team is always on the lookout for ways to improve the player experience. This creates seamless experiences, allowing players to “dive straight into the fun.” Their intuitive new online casino brand is set to launch this May.

Fast Track will support DoubleUp Group’s new launch with their real-time player engagement platform, allowing the team to implement automation across CRM activities and efficiently scale this as the brand grows. This includes the use of Fast Track’s in-house solution for on-site notifications to create “in the moment” engagements and experiences for their players.

“We chose Fast Track because they offer a flexible solution that can power the dynamic engagements that are vital to creating a memorable player experience. We want our team to harness the full extent of their creativity and not be limited by the capabilities of default tools. Fast Track will give them this freedom, allowing them to maximise player engagement,” Ale Rollo, Managing Director of DoubleUp Group, said.

“We share a lot of the same values as DoubleUp; we are constantly looking at how products and processes can be improved, and don’t settle for the status quo. We know they have ambitious plans for their brand and we are ready to support them in making it a success,” Christopher Hirst, Co-founder of Fast Track, said.