William Hill owner agrees £243m takeover by Greek casino and lottery firm

Evoke had been in talks for two months with Bally’s Intralot, which has extensive international operations

The owner of William Hill and the 888 online casino brand has agreed a £243m takeover by the Greek casino and lottery operator Bally’s Intralot.

Evoke has been locked in talks with the Athens-listed Bally’s Intralot, which has extensive international operations including in the US, for the past two months .

The deal comes four years after the heavily indebted Evoke, previously known as 888 Holdings, paid £2.2bn to buy William Hill’s network of 1,400 high street bookmakers. Since then, Evoke’s shares have fallen by 90%.

The companies said the government’s announcement in November of a significant increase in remote gaming duty, from 21% to 40%, triggered a “material shift in the UK operating environment” that will “create meaningful dislocation across the competitive landscape”.

Shares in London-listed Evoke soared by more than 12.5% in early trading as investors welcomed the takeover deal.

“Intralot continues to believe that the UK is a highly attractive geography and the current market dislocation presents a significant opportunity for consolidation,” the company said on Friday.

Evoke, which is headquartered in Gibraltar, has net debt of about £1.8bn and a market value of just over £180m.

The Evoke chief executive, Per Widerström, has previously said that the changes in gambling tax would cost the business up to £135m a year.

In December the company appointed Morgan Stanley and Rothschild to conduct a review of strategic options in an attempt to “maximise shareholder value”.

Mark Summerfield, the chair of Evoke, said: “Following the announcement of the strategic review in December, we have been resolutely focused on how best to maximise value for our shareholders in light of the significant UK duty changes and the constraints posed by the Evoke Group’s existing capital structure.”

He said the deal represented “the most attractive and deliverable outcome for Evoke shareholders”.

Last month Evoke said it would close about 200 William Hill betting shops from May, blaming cost pressures including the government’s tax rises.

Soo Kim, the chair of Bally’s, said that Intralot was confident the deal would “deliver substantial benefits for both Intralot and Evoke shareholders”.

Intralot provides technology for 12 state lotteries in the US and has operations in Europe , South America, north Africa, south-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Evoke has also had a series of management issues that have weighed on the business: in 2023, it removed its chief executive and suspended VIP customer accounts in the Middle East amid an internal investigation into a failure to follow anti-money-laundering processes.

That came after the company agreed to pay a £9.4m fine in 2022, then the third highest in the history of British gambling regulation, over failings that led to customers amassing huge losses during the Covid pandemic.