• BLAST Dota Slam Singapore to take place this November at Singapore Indoor Stadium in partnership with Singapore Tourism Board and AEG Presents Asia

• The world’s best Dota teams will meet in Singapore from 4th – 9th November 2025 to compete for a prize pool of $1,000,000 at the first ever BLAST Slam arena event 

Esports entertainment company BLAST has announced the return of its world-class events to Singapore with the BLAST Dota Slam Singapore, set to take place in November 2025 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

This announcement follows the sellout success of the BLAST Premier World Final 2024, which marked BLAST’s Southeast Asia debut and saw more than ten-thousand fans pack out the Resorts World Convention Centre to witness the world’s top Counter-Strike teams compete for the $1 million prize pool.

Building on that momentum, Singapore will now host the BLAST Dota Slam arena event, teaming up with AEG Presents Asia again to bring together the world’s best Dota teams to battle it out for $1,000,000 in front of a live audience and millions of fans tuning in globally across 50+ territories and in 12 languages.

The BLAST Dota Slam Singapore is the latest milestone in BLAST’s global expansion into Dota 2, and reinforces Singapore’s growing reputation as a premier destination for sports and live entertainment. It marks the second consecutive year the city-state has hosted a BLAST arena tournament, following the successful Counter-Strike event in 2024.

James Woollard, Director of Market Development at BLAST, said: “Singapore delivered one of the most passionate esports crowds we’ve ever seen during last year’s BLAST Premier World Final. We’re thrilled to be returning with our next major arena show – this time for Dota 2 – and to once again partner with the Singapore Tourism Board and AEG Presents Asia to help to further grow Southeast Asia’s esports ecosystem. The response to our events in Singapore has been incredible, and this November’s Dota Slam promises to be another landmark moment for fans and for the region. Singapore has an impressive history and pedigree for the biggest international sporting events, supported by STB, and BLAST is proud to be building on this with the biggest esports events.”

Ms Lilian Chee, Director, Sports, Singapore Tourism Board, said: “We are delighted to welcome BLAST back to Singapore, this time with the Dota Slam. Building on the success of the BLAST Premier World Final, this event further reinforces Singapore’s reputation as a world-class destination for sports and live entertainment. We look forward to welcoming the passionate fans, players and partners once again to our vibrant city.”

BLAST’s return to Singapore is set to shine a global spotlight on the city while delivering significant economic benefits and meaningful destination marketing. With an estimated economic impact in the tens of millions, the tournament further demonstrates how esports events are evolving into major cultural and economic drivers for host cities – on par with large-scale traditional international sporting events.

With Singapore, Rio, London, Austin, and Lyon among the major destinations on BLAST’s global calendar this year, it is evident that governments, cities and tourism bodies are recognising the power of esports to attract young and engaged visitors, create jobs, and drive international visibility.

DSTGAMING has announced that it has been shortlisted in two prestigious categories at the SIGMA Asia Awards 2025: Best Platform and Best UI/UX. These nominations mark a significant achievement, recognising DSTGAMING’s continued dedication to delivering high-performance, user-centric solutions in the iGaming sector.

The SIGMA Asia Awards celebrate the most impactful contributors across the iGaming industry in the Asia-Pacific region. To be shortlisted in both the Best Platform and Best UI/UX categories is a strong testament to DSTGAMING’s dual focus on technological robustness and seamless user experiences.

DSTGAMING’s all-in-one iGaming platform has been widely recognised for its scalability, reliability and flexibility. With modular architecture and full customisation capabilities, the platform empowers operators to tailor offerings precisely to their market needs. Its seamless integrations, powerful backend and real-time analytics tools offer an unmatched operational advantage to partners worldwide.

In the Best UI/UX category, DSTGAMING has gained recognition for prioritising intuitive navigation, visually engaging interfaces and mobile-first designs. The platform is built to deliver a smooth, immersive player journey across all devices — critical for enhancing engagement and retention in today’s competitive market.

These dual nominations reflect DSTGAMING’s core values: innovation, user satisfaction and technical excellence. The company’s design and development teams have worked closely to align user interface aesthetics with operational functionality — ensuring both players and operators receive a seamless and responsive experience.

Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) has been actively supporting cultural and artistic exchanges between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, and advancing the establishment of Macau as “a base for exchange and cooperation where Chinese culture is the mainstream and diverse cultures coexist”. Spanning over 30 activities from April 4 to May 6, the “Galaxy Entertainment Group Presents: Literary and Cultural Festival for Parents and Children ‘Alphabet & Friends’ 2025” (the Festival) was jointly organised by the Portuguese Institute of the Orient (IPOR) and the Consulate-General of Portugal in Macau and Hong Kong and title-sponsored by GEG. As part of the Festival, GEG hosted an exclusive parent-child story creation session at the Galaxy Kidz Edutainment Centre, inviting over 30 local children and parents from the Associação Promotora da Instrução dos Macaenses to participate. Together, they created and read Portuguese-language stories, deepening their understanding and interest in Portuguese culture through relaxed and interesting interactions. Since its inception in 2021, GEG has supported the Festival for five consecutive years, facilitating cultural exchanges within Macau’s Chinese-Portuguese community. Including this year’s activities, the Festival has drawn participation from 40 local schools and institutions, totaling over 10,000 participants.

During the parent-child story creation session at the Galaxy Kidz Edutainment Centre, Ms. Catarina Mesquita, founder of Macau’s first trilingual children’s book publishing company, Mandarina Books, inspired the creativity of children in an educational and entertaining way, guiding them to use different Portuguese phrases and vocabularies to create unique stories based on everyday life. Portuguese cartoonist, Mr. Rodrigo de Matos, also attended the event and vividly illustrated the children’s ingenious ideas on canvas. The children and their parents added colorful stickers to their works afterwards in a warm and lively atmosphere. Additionally, Ms. Mesquita brought her books, published in Chinese, English and Portuguese, for the participating families to read together, allowing them to experience the joy of cross-cultural communication.

Mr. Mário Herculano Fernandes Estorninho, a representative from the Associação Promotora da Instrução dos Macaenses, said: “We sincerely thank GEG and all the organizers for providing this rich cultural experience. The event not only sparked children’s creativity and imagination through engaging activities, but also fostered their interest in storytelling, improved their expression and comprehension skills in the Portuguese language, and deepened their understanding of Portuguese culture.”

For the first time, the series of activities in this year’s Festival were the “reading points” of the “Reading Month in the City of Macao 2025” organised by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macau SAR Government (ICM). The Festival was linked to a number of related initiatives, such as International Children’s Book Day, World Book Day and World Portuguese Language Day, with various activities ranging from concerts, theater performances, parent-child workshops, children’s book fairs and book launches around the theme of “Artificial Intelligence in Education – The Robot and I” held to the enthusiastic response of different sectors. Furthermore, at the “Mini Library”, one of the key events of the Festival, IPOR, the Consulate-General of Portugal in Macau and Hong Kong and GEG jointly donated a collection of nearly 400 books by Portuguese-language authors, including some bilingual editions released during the Festival, to nearly 40 non-tertiary local schools that include Portuguese in their curriculum in hopes of enhancing local youth’s interest in reading and deepening their understanding of the Portuguese culture through high-quality bilingual learning materials.

Over the years, GEG has upheld its philosophy of “What is taken from the community is to be used for the good of the community” by supporting Chinese-Portuguese cultural and artistic events in Macau through diverse ways, hoping to enrich the city’s multicultural landscape. In this March, GEG sponsored the Macau Literary Festival for the 11th time, providing a platform for literary exchange between cultural and artistic advocates from China and Portuguese-speaking countries. Last year, GEG supported the “GEG Lusofonia Festival” for the second consecutive year, serving as one of its organisers for the first time alongside ICM. Since 2021, GEG has partnered with ICM to launch a variety of initiatives under the “Encounter in Macao – Arts and Cultural Festival between China and the Portuguese-speaking Countries”, including supporting the “GEG Traditional Music and Dance Performance in the Community” held at Galaxy Macau integrated resort for two consecutive years. Additionally, GEG has supported the “China and Portuguese-speaking Countries Film Festival” for four consecutive years, co-hosting it twice and providing outdoor screenings at GEG’s revitalisation project – the Lai Chi Vun Shipyards during this past edition.