Retail

Pacific Consortium the special vehicle of London private equity firm Macquarie Group and New York hedge fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) will no longer pursue its AUS $7.3 billion (£4.5 billion) acquisition of Australian gambling operator Tatts Group. The deal withdrawal follows Tatts’ board decision not to review Pacific’s latest takeover bid of $4.21-per-share combined with an investor ‘dividends add-on’ which the investment firm …

FTSE-listed Ladbrokes Coral has informed that it will extend Ladbrokes title sponsorship of all Scottish professional football divisions, by agreeing on further terms with the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL). Ladbrokes has acted as SPFL lead sponsor since 2015. The bookmaker detailed that it wanted to extend its existing £2 million a year sponsorship agreement with SPFL for the upcoming 2017/18 …

UK National Lottery operator Camelot Group has informed the media that Chief Executive Andy Duncan has resigned as leader of the company. The resignation of Duncan as Group CEO, will see Nigel Railton leader of Camelot’s international business division ‘Camelot Global’ act as interim Chief Executive whilst the board of governance considers its best options for corporate leadership. Camelot informed …

Updating the market, international betting integrity body ESSA reported 27 cases of suspicious betting to the relevant authorities during the first quarter (Q1) of 2017. The sport of tennis accounted for 45% of those alerts with 12 cases; the sport has now had the highest number of alerts in the last nine consecutive quarters. The remaining 55% of cases were split …

The UK government will not introduce a tax on industry ‘free plays’ and customer bonus incentives, as Parliament shuts down and prepares for the 8 June General Election. Last December, HMRC introduced new provisions accounting for duties on customer free plays issued by operators which would be attached to the 2017 Finance Bill. Updating industry stakeholders, the government has chosen …

Updating the market, FTSE-listed Playtech Plc has confirmed that its new subsidiary sports betting division Playtech BGT Sports (PBS) has finalised the restructure of its senior management team following the division’s acquisition of leading betting technology firm  BGT last year As previously announced, heading up the team as PBS Chief Executive will be Dr. Armin Sageder, who led BGT to …

Burnley midfielder Joey Barton has returned fire on the FA after it banned him from all professional football activity for a period of 18 months with immediate effect for breaching Rule 8 of its code of conduct, by placing wagers on a number of football matches. Writing on his website, Barton commented: “I think if the FA is truly serious about …

Intralot Polish market subsidiary Totolotek has partnered with Betradar’s Virtual Sports division, bringing the first set of Virtual Games to Poland’s newly reformed gambling market. Updating stakeholders, Betradar informed that it would supply Totolotek betting retail points with initial Virtual Sports simulations of its popular content for football, horseracing and greyhounds. New provisions attached to Poland’s reformed Gambling Bill which …

Ladbrokes Coral governance has confirmed the departure of veteran employee Lee Drabwell as Retail Operations Director. Drabwell has served Ladbrokes operations for 29-years, taking on numerous executive positions within the bookmaker’s retail betting division. Moving forward Ladbrokes Coral retail operations will be led by Andy Hicks former retail betting lead for Gala Coral Group. The enlarged bookmaker informed stakeholders that …