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Casino Plus, one of the country’s leading responsible digital entertainment platforms licensed by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), today made Philippine gaming history with the ceremonial handover of a ₱122,409,603.00 jackpot — the biggest verified jackpot in Philippine online slot machine history.
The landmark cheque presentation was held at LaVie Resort and Casino, Manila, on September 9, 2026, in the presence of PAGCOR, Casino Plus CEO Evan Spytma, and the verified winner, who attended with their identity protected for personal safety and security.
A record that rewrites Philippines online gaming history
The ₱122,409,603.00 payout represents a record-breaking jackpot in Philippine online slot machines. The win was achieved through Casino Plus’ certified online gaming platform, with the payout verified under the applicable PAGCOR regulatory framework.
The record-setting jackpot underscores the scale and technological capabilities of Casino Plus’ digital gaming platform, while highlighting the importance of regulated, secure, and transparent gaming experiences for Filipino players.
“This is not just a win for one player; it is a defining moment for responsible, enjoyable, competitive, and transparent digital gaming in the Philippines,” said Evan Spytma, CEO of Casino Plus. “We built this platform on the promise that every Filipino player deserves a fair, secure, and life-changing experience. Today, that promise is ₱122 million worth of proof.”
RESPONSIBLE GAMING ADVISORY
In accordance with PAGCOR’s Responsible Gaming Code of Practice, Casino Plus wishes to remind all players of the following:
Gaming is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered a source of income or a means of financial relief. Players are encouraged to play responsibly and within their means.
Winning is never guaranteed. All gaming outcomes are determined by chance. Past results, including jackpot wins, do not influence or predict future outcomes.
About IGO Digital High Technology, Inc.
Casino Plus is a PAGCOR-licensed online casino platform in the Philippines, providing secure, regulated, and responsible online gaming experiences for Filipino players. The company is committed to providing a secure, fair, and engaging digital entertainment experience, guided by the principles of responsible gaming and player protection. With its continuous expansion, Casino Plus is now regarded as one of the country’s leading online casino platforms, combining entertainment excellence with meaningful corporate social responsibility initiatives.
New product brings branch-level intelligence to the QSR, retail, hospitality, and healthcare industries across the Philippines and Southeast Asia
TAGUIG, Philippines — September 4, 2026 — Sprout Solutions has launched Frontliner, an AI-powered operations platform that gives multi-location businesses in retail, F&B, hospitality, and healthcare real-time visibility into what's happening across every branch, replacing the paper checklists, spreadsheets, and group chats frontline teams rely on today. Frontliner is built for businesses where the real work happens in a branch, not a boardroom. Frontliner is Sprout's first product outside its core HR and payroll suite.
The problem: a branch running on five disconnected tools
Frontliner targets a specific problem: companies that have digitized payroll, compliance, and HR can still find themselves running branch operations on WhatsApp or Viber group chats, paper checklists, and Excel files. A store manager at a QSR chain with 20 locations might use five different tools on any given shift:
● a form on paper
● a tracker in Google Sheets
● a group chat on Viber
● a separate training platform
● a ticketing tool for equipment repairs
But none of them talk to each other.
One platform for the entire branch
Frontliner replaces that stack with a single platform. Staff complete checklists, report issues with a photo, and take training courses entirely from their phones, with no desktop required, and no separate app for learning.
● Training on demand. The LMS generates a full training course, slides and quiz included, from a topic description or an uploaded SOP; a crew member can finish a food safety module between the breakfast and lunch rush.
● Audits that close themselves. When an audit fails, the system auto-generates a corrective action plan and creates real tasks with real assignees. A failed temperature check becomes an assigned corrective task before the auditor leaves the building.
● Issues triaged automatically. When a crew member reports a broken fryer with a photo, AI classifies it as Equipment Failure, sets the priority to High, and starts the four-hour SLA clock without anyone making a decision.
An Operational Health Score, and a brief every morning
At the operations level, Frontliner computes an Operational Health Score for each branch and for the company as a whole. A 0-to-100 composite of checklist completion, audit pass rates, issue resolution, attendance, task completion, and training progress.
Every morning, Sidekick generates a daily brief for managers and operations directors; not a report to scroll through, but two or three specific findings with a recommended action each:
"Makati's food waste pull-outs are 60% above their four-week average and the top reason is chicken overproduction on Mondays. BGC's fryer has had three equipment issues this month; two incident reports flagged an oil leak."
The brief reads the entire operation overnight so the manager doesn't have to spend the first hour of their day figuring out what's on fire.
"Companies don't usually have a standards problem. The challenge is knowing whether those standards are actually being executed across every branch, every shift, every day. We built Frontliner to give operations leaders that visibility, wherever they are."
— Kat Uytiepo, Venture Lead for Frontliner
"Our clients in retail, F&B, and hospitality kept asking the same question after they got HR and payroll working. The back office is sorted. What about the branch? What about the people running the floor every day?"
— Alex Gentry, Co-founder of Sprout
Built for the floor, not the office
The gap Gentry is pointing at is older than the software that's closing it. Knowledge workers have spent a decade accumulating digital tools such as project management, communication, documentation, analytics. The person at a desk has options. The crew member at a QSR counter, the nurse on a ward, the warehouse picker on the night shift have largely been handed a clipboard and a group chat and told to figure it out. The tools that exist were designed for offices, then stretched to fit operations they were never built for.
For Gentry, the real product question was never about replacing paper:
"How can AI make the people on the floor more productive? How do you help teams actually gel together, and not simply give management another report to look at from above?"
Frontliner is her answer to that: a platform built from the ground up for how frontline teams actually work: on mobile, in a branch, under time pressure, with no desk in sight.
Industry templates, live in about 30 minutes
The product includes industry-specific template packages covering QSR, restaurants and cafes, fashion retail, grocery, hospitality, logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare. Each package includes pre-built checklists, audits, issue categories, automated workflows, and training modules based on how operators in that vertical already run their branches. A new customer in QSR can be operational in about 30 minutes.
As shared by an IlaoIlao franchise, a Frontliner client:
As shared by Jennifer Castro, Area Manager of llaollao, a fast-growing frozen yogurt brand in the Philippines and now a Frontliner user:
"Simple lang gamitin yung app kaya mabilis siyang natutunan ng managers at staff. Syempre may konting adjustment coming from paper checklists, pero after a few days naging part na siya ng daily routine nila. Nakatuwa kasi instead na dumagdag sa trabaho nila, mas pinadali pa niya.”
Integration, pricing, and availability
Frontliner integrates with Sprout HR and Sprout Payroll:
● Attendance data flows to payroll automatically.
● Employee records sync without a manual import.
For companies not yet on the Sprout platform, Frontliner works as a standalone product.
Pricing is per location with unlimited users, which is a deliberate choice for an industry where headcount is high and per-seat pricing tends to price out the operators who need it most.
Sprout Solutions is the Philippines' leading HR and payroll software provider, serving over 2,000 companies across retail, banking, BPO, healthcare, and manufacturing. Its products cover core HR, payroll, compliance, talent management, and employee engagement. Frontliner extends the platform to frontline operations for the first time. Learn more at sprout.ph.
MANILA, Philippines — Filipinos in Spain will gain stronger protection and easier access to social security benefits as the Philippines and Spain move to strengthen their longstanding partnership and restore SSS services in Madrid.
Philippine Ambassador to Spain Philippe J. Lhuillier recently met with Social Security System (SSS) President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Joseph M. De Claro to discuss measures to improve social security services for Filipinos in Spain. The meeting comes ahead of the planned reopening of the SSS Representative Office at the Philippine Embassy in Madrid in September.
Ambassador Lhuillier welcomed progress toward concluding and signing the Administrative Agreement implementing the Convention on Social Security between the Philippines and Spain. The framework will establish clearer procedures for totalizing insurance periods, ensuring equal treatment, exporting benefits, and avoiding double social security contributions.
“Strengthening our social security partnership with Spain is an important step in ensuring that the rights and benefits of our kababayans are protected and accessible, wherever their work and lives may take them,” Ambassador Lhuillier said. “We value our longstanding cooperation with Spain and look forward to working closely with our Spanish counterparts and the SSS to further strengthen the systems that support the Filipino community.”
Under the arrangement, eligible workers who have contributed to both countries' systems may combine their insurance periods to qualify for certain benefits. Qualified beneficiaries may receive benefits regardless of where they reside, while temporarily assigned workers may avoid duplicate contributions.
The framework also aims to streamline claims processing, information exchange, and coordination between Philippine and Spanish institutions, while reducing documentary requirements and administrative back-and-forth.
The effort will be reinforced by the reopening of the SSS Representative Office at the Philippine Embassy in Madrid, scheduled for inauguration on September 11, 2026. Located at the Embassy's Eric P. Valenzuela Consular Hall, the office will provide Filipinos with a local venue for SSS concerns and transactions. Mary Jessielyn C. Sia, formerly an SSS Foreign Representative in Milan, will serve the Madrid community.
The Philippines and Spain have maintained a social security arrangement since 1988, with an updated convention signed in 2002 and entering into force in 2012. The forthcoming Administrative Agreement takes this partnership a step further—turning a decades-old commitment into more accessible, responsive support for Filipinos building their lives and livelihoods between the two countries.
For the first time, LA TRỊNH atelier is pleased to announce the presentation of its new fashion collection, “Gods Within Her,” in Milan, Italy. Featuring 30 designs exploring femininity and the power of contemporary womanhood, the collection brings together traditional craftsmanship and environmentally conscious materials.
Inspiration & Artistic Direction
“Gods Within Her” unfolds as a captivating chapter in the awakening of the inner goddess, who walks proudly through ancient sanctuaries and mysterious mythical mountains stretching from East to West. This journey is more than a passage across geographical landscapes; it is a sequence of stories that reaches into the depths of different cultures. The powerful interplay of Eastern and Western symbolism will be brought to life on the fashion stage in Milan, Italy, and Europe.
“Gods Within Her” also explores the relationship between contemporary mythology and the enduring values of nature and humanity — a return to original values through environmentally conscious materials, while reflecting on the challenges of our time and the human search for a renewed connection with nature.
At its heart is a vision of cross-cultural, intergenerational and global dialogue, with women and femininity at its center.
Key Messages of the Event
To bring stories of women in the creative industries, as well as Vietnamese and Asian cultural meanings and symbols, to the world.To preserve and elevate traditional craftsmanship through the distinctive design language of LA TRỊNH atelier, a Vietnamese brand committed to sustainable and nature-conscious fashion.To celebrate contemporary femininity, its mystery, ethereal beauty and romantic spirit.To support the Vietnam Children’s Fund and help create opportunities for young Vietnamese talent to reach the international stage.
Partners, Supporters & International Community
The event has also received attention and support from diplomatic representatives, businesses and the Vietnamese community network across Europe.
Official Letter of Introduction from the Embassy of Vietnam in Italy: The event is honored to receive an official letter of introduction from the Embassy of Vietnam in Italy, recognizing the cultural and diplomatic significance of the initiative.Diamond Partner – Nguyên Xuân: The strategic partnership between Vietnamese herbal haircare brand Nguyên Xuân and LA TRỊNH atelier marks a meaningful step in bringing Vietnamese values and brands to the international stage, while supporting the next generation of young Vietnamese creatives in expressing their identity on the global creative map.Strategic Supporting Partner – Italian Atelier:Italian Atelier accompanies LA TRỊNH atelier in connecting with relevant partners, businesses and resources, helping expand opportunities for collaboration and further introduce the values and story of a Vietnamese brand to international networks.Strategic Communications Partner – CjC Marketing Agency:CjC Marketing Agency supports LA TRỊNH atelier through communications and information outreach, helping connect the brand’s story with relevant media networks, communities and partners in Vietnam and internationally.Strategic Partner – Cinexia Productions & Beauty Tech World: The event also marks a strategic collaboration with Cinexia Productions & Beauty Tech World, formally established through a signing ceremony held during a film premiere event in Prague, Czech Republic.The Strength of the Vietnamese Community Across Europe: The project is further supported by a multigenerational Vietnamese community network in Italy and across Europe, including intellectuals, emerging entrepreneurs, international students and second-generation Vietnamese, who actively connect Vietnamese and European cultures through stories and values with global relevance.
About the Designer & LA TRỊNH atelier
Namie Trịnh, Creative Director of LA TRỊNH atelier, is currently studying Fashion Design at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) and works as a fashion designer and stylist in Milan.
With a distinctive surrealist aesthetic, she works across Ready-to-Wear and one-of-a-kind Couture, bringing a fresh perspective shaped by her young age and emerging creative practice. Her experience in the Vietnamese exhibition at Milan Design Week 2024, as well as her development of the “Ám Hoa” collection, has attracted interest from international media.
Event Information
Time: 5:30 PM, September 21, 2026Venue: Veranda Studio, Via Rutilia 10/9, Milan, ItalyScale: 350 VIP guests, including business leaders, artists, influencers, press and media representatives, fashion and art enthusiasts, as well as Vietnamese associations and communities from across Europe.
Founded in 2024, LA TRỊNH atelier is a fashion and creative brand established by young Vietnamese and Vietnamese-origin students and creatives based in Italy. With the ambition of bringing Vietnamese and Asia-Pacific cultural symbols to the Mediterranean and Europe, LA TRỊNH atelier focuses on femininity and sustainable fashion, with a strong respect for nature reflected in its choice of materials.
Through each project and appearance, the atelier seeks to communicate meaningful stories to a dynamic younger generation while presenting an image of Vietnam that is culturally diverse, open to integration, and rooted in original stories of people and identity.
The philosophy of LA TRỊNH atelier centers on designs with enduring and original value, with particular attention to refined finishing, technical pattern cutting and construction, and a lasting relationship between the garment and its wearer.
