How Casino Merges are Changing.

[Garf79]

Casino Mergers

The current top 5 betting companies in the UK are changing relatively rapidly. The big companies are always looking to strengthen their portfolios, the easiest way of doing this being to buy up smaller operators that offer something they don’t already have. Although the various niches offered by a new company are getting lees and less.

The lack of niche areas means that competition is in decline and of course the  Competition and Markets Authority which is a Government organization has to keep an eye on. Its responsibility is to keep a look out for the market and to ensure that there is plenty of competition within it, which is generally designed to benefit the consumer by stopping one company setting prices for things.

In the past mergers have either been stopped by the CMA or else something has had to happen in order to allow the merger to go ahead. In 2016, as an example, the body said that Ladbrokes and Coral would have to sell as many as 400 of their shops if they were hoping to get their merger to go through. This was due to a ‘substantial loss of competition’ in 659 areas by the merger.

 

Entain PLC (GVC Holdings)

Entain remain to this day the biggest operator in the UK, with a massive overall profit in 2019 and to this year. Their profits increased during the pandemic and still are way ahead of William Hill, Flutter Group and Bet365 who are among the other big top 5 Players in the UK.

The parent company of Ladbrokes, Coral, Bwin, Party Poker and more, it was founded in Luxembourg in 2004 and has gone on to become one of the biggest betting companies in the world. Their Net Gaming Revenue, or NGR, for 2019 was £3.6 billion, which is the biggest on the list be some distance.

I will add more on casino mergers at a later point but like in the Highlander film "there can only be one" 🙂