Category: News

Ireland-based Thimba Media paid $1.8m (£1.3m/€1.5m) to purchase the assets, which it said are online casino product comparison portals across predominantly locally regulated markets including Sweden, the UK and Latvia.

Thimba Media said the assets are expected to generate net income in excess of $580,000 over the next 12 months.

“This acquisition is another major step toward our goal of becoming a large affiliate company and realising our goal of sustainable and accelerated growth both organically and via our systemic M&A strategy,” Thimba Media chief executive Chris Russell said.

“Our next target will be a US focused acquisition in late 2021.”

Thimba Media chief marketing officer Ferdia O’hAodha added: “At a time when the majority of our competitors are looking at the US market, we are looking at value investments across locally regulated European markets providing us with strong returns to grow our business.

“In addition to having strong agreements in place with some of the largest casino operators in Latvia and Sweden, the assets also have extensive reach in the CIS markets.”

The governor, together with state senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and assembly speaker Carl Heastie, announced their agreement on the budget yesterday (6 April).

Under the budget legislation, the state will issue a request for applications and must select at least two platform providers, who will work with a total of at least four operators or skins.

Cuomo’s office says that once it is fully phased in, legalisation of the vertical will provide more than $500m (£361.7m/€420.8m) in revenue for the state, with the possibility of becoming the largest sports wagering market in the US.

With the current largest market, neighbouring New Jersey, bringing in $46.2m in February 2021 and a record $82.6m the month before, this suggests the state of New York will receive at least half of mobile betting revenue if it expects to take in more than $500m.

The governor’s office said that once fully phased in, the programme will provide $5m annually to youth sports and $6m to combat problem gambling, double the resources currently available.

The remainder of the new revenue will be dedicated to education, it said.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Flutter offered Fox Bet this option when it agreed to purchase a further 37.2% stake in FanDuel from investment consortium Fastball for $4.18bn (£3.03bn/€3.52bn) in December 2020. That acquisition took Flutter’s stake in FanDuel to 95%.

At that time, Flutter said it “intends to offer to Fox Sports the option to purchase 18.5% of FanDuel at fair market value in July 2021”, though it has since referred to the stake as being 18.6%

However, in its new lawsuit, Fox said it agreed it had the option to acquire the stake “for the same price that Flutter paid for that interest in December 2020”.

Under the December 2020 price, FanDuel as a whole would be valued at $11.80bn, and the 18.6% share would cost $2.09bn.

Read the full story on iGB North America

In the first episode of iGB Affilipod Conor and Robin welcome the founder of affiliate compliance specialist Rightlander, Ian Sims, to the show for a discussion on best practices for affiliates to safeguard their businesses, the possibility of an affiliate licensing regime for the UK, and considerations for affiliates looking to enter US markets.

Read the full report below.

The effect of the £2 stake limit imposed on B2 gaming machines at the start of April 2019 was immediate and dramatic.

Gaming machine revenue for the year to March 2020, as tracked by the UK Gambling Commission, tumbled by 41% to £1.075bn, while betting revenue fell in sympathy, dropping to £1.28bn or 5.2% down on the previous year.

Combined, retail shop GGY fell to a new low of £2.36bn, or 26% down on the B2-driven high of £3.22bn in 2017.

For the public, the most visible sign of the downturn was in shop visibility. From a peak in 2014 of more than 9,100 shops, by March 2020 that number had fallen by almost 16% to 7,861. It will shrink further once the data is collected for the year to this March following the effect of the pandemic lockdowns. 

The latest data from the listed operators shows the extent of the impact, with the retail operations of both William Hill and Entain tipping into operational losses for 2020. Net revenue at William Hill plunged 50%, Entain suffered a 4% decline and the Flutter-owned Paddy Power was down 28%.

The future is unsurprisingly less than obvious. The complicating factor of the sale of William Hill to Caesars Entertainment confuses matters even more, with the future of its retail estate yet to be decided. Still, sector watchers are confident that once the UK betting shop estate reopens for business in the spring/summer, consumers will return. 

However, long-standing trends towards different products – football and SSBTs in particular – could be exacerbated, while the extent to which B2 play has disappeared is yet to be fully played out. 

What is certain is that the UK retail betting estate will have shrunk or as many have suggested, been right-sized. The question then turns to whether this smaller cohort of shops can manage to hold its own in a UK high street that is suffering from historic changes in consumer behaviour.

Bengtsson has been CEO of William Hill since September of 2019, having initially joined the bookmaker as chief digital officer in April 2018.

Prior to this, he was president, chairman and chief executive of Betsson Group, and also spent time as CEO of the emerging markets pay-TV business at Modern Times Group.

Raketech’s nomination committee proposed appointing Bengtsson as chairman, and should this be approved, the appointment would come into effect from the affiliate’s annual general meeting on May 17.

“With his profound knowledge, connections and experience from the global scene of igaming combined with first-hand experience from large scale international transactions, Mr Bengtsson is perfect for the job to further accelerate our growth,” Raketech nomination committee chairman Tobias Persson Rosenqvist said.

Rosenqvist also paid tribute to the outgoing Lundberg, who has served as chair of Raketech since 2017.

“I wish to express my warmest thanks to Mr Lundberg for his hard work with regards to creating a well-balanced mix between entrepreneurial creativity and well-functioning governance and structure,” Rosenqvist said.

Lundberg added: “When I was appointed as chairman, I had a clear mission. This was to lead the work with creating structure and processes to ensure Raketech would successfully be able to operate in a listed environment, on Stockholm Nasdaq First North.

“Looking back, I am proud and happy to be able to conclude that Raketech now is a stable listed company with a strong and confident management in place, guided by a clear strategy. My mission is thereby done, and it is time for me to hand over to someone else who can take Raketech to the next level.”

Raketech’s nomination committee also proposed the re-election of Fredrik Svederman, Annika Billberg, Johan Svensson and Erik Skarp, as well as the new appointment of Magnus Gottås.

The committee’s complete proposal will be presented at the annual general meeting next month.

In February, Raketech said the impact of its acquisitions during the past year helped to drive revenue up 23.0% year-on-year in its 2020 financial year.

Entain last week announced that it had completed its acquisition of the operator, with 94.2% of the shares and votes in Enlabs backing the deal.

During the extended acceptance period that expired on 1 April, the offer was accepted by a further 1.7% of Enlabs shareholders, thus increasing Entain’s overall holding to 95.9%.

Settlement of shares tendered during the extended acceptance period is due to occur on or around 13 April, with Entain confirming that it will not extend the acceptance period further.

Entain also acquired all warrants to purchase shares that Enlabs had issued, but not any shares or financial instruments that give a financial exposure to Enlabs shares outside the offer.

In relation to this, Entain has initiated a compulsory acquisition proceeding in respect of the remaining Enlabs shares it had not yet purchased.

Entain set out to acquire Enlabs in January with an offer of £250m (€290.3m/$344.9m), but this was later increased to £314.6m after Entain raised its acquisition share offer from SEK40 (£3.36/€3.91/$4.64) to SEK53 per share.

The bill was introduced in February by six state representatives and two senators. 

Under the bill, Wyoming’s Gambling Commission will regulate betting, with licenses available to vendors operating in at least three US jurisdictions.

Initial sports betting operator permits would cost $100,000 and remain valid for five years, after which licensees would need to pay a renewal fee of $50,000.

Read the full story on iGB North America

Senate Bill 1352 was introduced by Senator Louis Luchini and calls for authorization of a sports wagering license for the state under the Department of Public Safety Gambling Control Unit.

Sports betting licensees must be either a commercial racetrack, an off-track betting facility, a slot machine or casino operator or a federally recognised tribe. Each operator may receive one licence, with the fee set at $20,000.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

While this figure is still shy of the $1.7m posted in January, it is a 40.9% increase compared to March 2020.

Though revenue increased, Delaware saw a handle decrease for a second consecutive month; the figure posted was $6.7m which represents an 8.8% decrease from February and a 42.8% decrease from January.

Read the full story on iGB North America.