Sportingbet in the general casino news

A recurring theme in the general casino news recently surrounds what is happening to Sportingbet which although not a big player in the Irish online casino market is of interest to several of the major online casino providers as it has a major presence in Australia. Ladbrokes casino were reported in the general casino news last year as being in discussion about a purchase but eventually backed away due to what they called regulatory reasons which we believe referred to the Turkish operations where online casinos are illegal but now it appears that William Hill are a front runner among a group of possible bidders which include the Swedish group Betsson, the well known Genting group who run several casinos in the UK and the Indonesian family group Sampoerna. According to general casino news reports the regulatory issues have not gone away but William Hill casino believe that a joint bid with a group known as Gaming VC who will purchase the bits that William Hill does not want will remove the problem. GVC incidentally bought the Turkish operations of Sportingbet days after Ladbrokes walked away from the deal. We have previously reported in the general casino news about William Hill and Playtech which have an online casino joint venture where the former has rights to buy out Playtech which mature later this year so if both deals were to go through it could cost close to €1 billion which would require William Hill to do some form of fund raising so it is no surprise to read in the general casino news that William Hill are considering issuing new shares so if you fancy gambling on a gambling company maybe this is something for you. Casinos.ie will continue monitoring the situation and will report further in our general casino news section.