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, …
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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 …
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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, …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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Reform of the Czech Rep gambling marketplace appears to be further than ever before, as the nation’s Ministry of Finance publishes 2019 plans to increase taxes across all ‘vice sectors’. On 4 April, the Czech Finance Ministry submitted its proposals to the Senate, seeking to implement new tax plans ‘increasing public budget revenues’. The mandate hits Czech gambling stakeholders hardest, …
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Czech private equity firms KKCG and EMMA Capital have confirmed that they will move to split the ownership of assets in pan-European betting and lottery operator SAZKA Group. SAZKA is the Czech national lottery operator, which holds majority/significant holdings in European operators – OPAP Greece (33%), Casinos Austria (30%), LOTTOITALIA (33%) and SuperSport Croatia (67%). Agreeing on undisclosed terms, the …
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