SAZKA Group has hired London public affairs consultancy Flint Global to serve as a ‘special advisor’ as the Czech gambling conglomerate bids to become the new operating firm of the National Lottery in 2023. This story featured in today’s SBC News 90. To view the latest round-up, watch today’s edition here. Co-founded by Sir Simon Fraser, the former Head of the …
Read More »
Mateusz Juroszek, owner and Chief Executive of STS, Poland’s biggest bookmaker tells SBC that his company is coming out of lockdown stronger having completed key management objectives in expanding the firm’s proprietary technology capacity acquiring long-term Czech IT partner Betsy. Accelerating STS European expansion projects and initiatives, Juroszek states that his firm will be the one-to-watch for the remainder …
Read More »
SIS will expand its racing broadcast and data gathering services within Eastern Europe after confirming that it has secured new agreements with the Czech Republic’s LAB racetrack operator and Hungary’s Kincsem Park racecourse. The new partnerships will see SIS broadcast ‘at least 300 races across the year’ from LAB Czech racecourses in Prague, Most, Pardubice, and Karlovy Vary regions. Meanwhile, …
Read More »
Citing novel coronavirus impacts across its European network, Czech gambling and lottery conglomerate SAZKA Group saw its consolidated Q1 revenues decline by 11% to €405m (Q1 2019: €458m). In an overview of Q1 performance, the group cited trading under unprecedented circumstances, in which subsidiaries OPAP Greece, Casinos Austria and LOTTO Italia have been forced to suspend their entire retail presence …
Read More »
Leading CIS markets bookmaker Fortuna Entertainment has completed the full migration of its Polish sportsbook property onto the Playtech ‘IMS platform’. Optimising its group omni-channel capacities, Fortuna has sanctioned Playtech to deploy new systems integrations across its active market portfolio, which sees Poland join Fortuna’s home markets Slovakia and the Czech Republic in upgrading to IMS. Completing its Polish deployment, …
Read More »
SAZKA Group Chief Executive Robert Chvátal has confirmed that the growth-hungry gambling conglomerate will launch an official 2020 bid competing to win the UK’s fourth National Lottery contract starting in 2023. Stating SAZKA’s intent, Chvátal underlined that ‘investing in the UK is the next stop’, following a busy 2019 in which the Czech gambling fund secured majority shareholdings in OPAP …
Read More »
Czech gambling conglomerate SAZKA Group has clarified its intentions to secure ‘full control’ of Athens-listed OPAP SA, Greece’s largest lottery and sports betting operator. On Monday, the Athens Securities Exchange temporarily suspended OPAP’s listing, announcing that the gambling group anticipated a ‘major imminent corporate event’. This morning, Reuters disclosed that SAZKA governance had submitted a formal Athens Exchange filing detailing …
Read More »
The Athens Securities & Exchange Commission has this morning moved to temporarily suspend the listing of OPAP SA, in light of speculation of a ‘major imminent corporate event’. Greek business news sources this morning report that Czech gambling conglomerate SAZKA Group seeks to significantly expand its holdings in OPAP, the former state-owned enterprise and Greece’s largest lottery and sports betting …
Read More »
The Football Association of the Czech Republic (FACR) has moved to strengthen its match integrity provisions after renewing its partnership with leading sports data, content and intelligence provider Sportradar. Securing an extended data agreement, the Czech football association will have all syndicated FACR ‘tier-3’ and youth level matches monitored by Sportradar’s ‘Fraud Detection System – FDS’. In addition, the partnership …
Read More »
Industry strategic consultancy Regulus Partners reflects on another week of UK and European setbacks for gambling incumbents. Despite broader regulatory frameworks in-place, political relationships appear more complicated than ever before… ___________ Sweden: online regulation – losing the war… Most online gambling operators that comment on their regulatory strategy or policy tend to state that they favour growing domestically regulated markets …
Read More »
SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry