Elsewhere, Tencent also seeks to increase its investment in and make deeper forays into Southeast Asia as it sees the region – home to 650 million people – as having potential to replicate the success of China’s internet boom, said two of the sources.

Padre fans beaming: Emma Stone, pkv poker 33, and husband Dave McCary, 37, were all smiles much of the night when they attended game one of the NL Wild Card series between the New York Mets and San Diego Padres in Queens, New York City, on Friday

Doug Burgum to approve the idea under tribal-state agreements known as compacts, the first of which was signed in 1992. The current compacts expire at the end of this year and only Burgum can approve them, said Deb McDaniel, North Dakota´s top gambling regulator.

Tencent’s new strategy indicates how China’s tech titans are looking to emerge from the regulatory shadows after two years of crackdown and uncertainty that weighed on their sales at home and triggered a massive selloff in their stocks.

Americans have bet more than $125 billion on sports with legal gambling outlets in the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court´s 2018 decision that lifted a federal ban on sports gambling, clearing the way for all 50 states to offer it.

In the fifth year of legal sports betting, the action is speeding up due to microbetting, the ability to place a bet on an outcome as narrowly targeted as the result of the next pitch in baseball or the next play in football.

Going strong: The couple e first started dating in October 2017, and eventually they would go on to get married nearly three years later in September 2020; they are pictured at a Los Angeles Clippers game in January 2019

Tencent’s pursuit for bigger stakes in gaming firms comes as other tech giants such as Microsoft, Sony and Amazon are snapping up gaming assets and related intellectual properties, said three of the sources.

A similar compact between Florida and the Seminole Tribe is tied up in federal court after a judge in November found the multibillion-dollar agreement between the state and tribe allowing online betting violated a federal rule that requires a person to be physically on tribal land when wagering.

«We believe Tencent will continue to make reasonable investments to acquire quality gaming content and talents and deepen partnerships with top-tier studios worldwide in order to step up its investments and presence in overseas markets,» said Citi analysts in a report in early September.

McCary’s resume in entertainment includes serving as a segment director on Saturday Night Live from 2013 to 2019, and as director for the first two seasons of the popular web series Epic Rap Battles of History. 

Tencent in September raised its stake in Ubisoft in a deal that made the Chinese firm the single biggest shareholder of the top French games developer, with a stake of 11% which can be further increased to as much as 17%.

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley, a Republican, said he has offered Burgum legal advice on the tribes´ proposal but would not disclose what it is.Wrigley said he´s aware of the lawsuit in Florida.

Stone also stars in the upcoming film Poor Things, which is in post-production, alongside the likes of Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Mark Ruffalo, Jerrod Carmichael, Margaret Qualley, Suzy Bemba and Christopher Abbott.

From 2015 to 2020, the owner of China’s number one messaging app WeChat 150 investments at home totalling $75 billion, compared to 102 deals worth $33 billion in overseas markets, according to Refinitiv data.

The Ubisoft deal comes just after deep-pocketed Tencent in June acquired Copenhagen-based Sybo Games, the developer of hit mobile game Subway Surfer, and in August took a 16.25% stake in Japan’s «Elden Ring» developer FromSoftware.

Tencent’s growing focus on overseas assets and markets is in sharp contrast to its much slower dealmaking pace at home since the regulatory clampdowns intensified, and the divestment of a clutch of domestic portfolio companies.

Also, with Beijing strictly restricting game approvals at home and still suspending approvals for games of foreign IPs, Tencent is forced to move towards gaining control of foreign game companies and their IPs, said the four sources.

In Europe, except for its purchase of majority stake in «Clash of Clans» mobile game maker Supercell for $8.6 billion in 2016, Tencent has for years mostly cut minority deals including its purchase of 9% of British gaming firm Frontier Developments.

De’Longhi Espresso Machines: From $300 – Up to 25% off

Amazon is offering seriously low prices on a variety of De’Longhi coffee machines right now, with as much as $150 off regular prices.

Given the success of Prime Day each year, we’ve seen regular rumors that Amazon could move to a twice-a-year format in order to juice sales in the summer and the fall. Therefore, it’s not surprising to see Amazon try to get out ahead of the competition before the Black Friday sales kick off in November.