Sportingbets’ Australian gambling business is wanted

William Hill and Sportingbet are back in the Irish gambling news after tabling a new proposal for an increased offer which seems to satisfy the Sportingbet board. Irish gambling news has learned that the proposal which is not yet a firm offer comes from William Hill and GVC Holdings which is the UK Aim listed company which bought the Turkish business from Sportingbet last year and is believed to be some  16% higher than the previous offer which was rejected. Previously reported in the Irish gambling news was the fact that Ladbrokes have already been in talks with Sportingbet but decided against proceeding to an offer due to concerns about the Turkish business but since GVC has taken this part of the business, Ladbrokes may well be interested again. This is still far from a done deal despite the Takeover Panel being quoted in the Irish gambling news as only giving until November 13th to complete and some brokers are in the Irish gambling news as saying they thought it may take months to complete. Sportingbet could be of interest to others apart from Ladbrokes and William Hill due to the Australian online gambling business which provides some 90% of the profits and where they are market leader in both telephone gambling and online gambling. Australia is a huge online gambling market and has frequently been in the Gambling news in Ireland and it looks likely that it will continue to be so until this deal is eventually settled. Gambling.ie believes that William Hill or whoever ends up buying Sportingbet will have to apply for a new license from the Australian Gambling authorities which may take up to 3 months so there is plenty of time for things to go wrong. We shall continue to monitor the situation and report through our Irish gambling news pages.