UK- Based Entain Aims to Acquire OEG for $1 Billion

By Todd Winkler,
Editor at online-gambling.com

Todd Winkler Editor at online-gambling.com

Todd Winkler is another one of our highly professional editors at online-gambling.com. The expert has been part of our team for 6 years, during which time he contributed articles regarding poker, blackjack, and DFS. Winkler is also knowledgeable about New Zealand's legal gambling market.

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Last updated: December 6, 2021

The UK-based gambling company, Entain, aims to acquire Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG), one of the biggest gambling companies in the Baltic Sea region. The offer they have for the acquirement is $1 billion. Entain’s proposal includes a prepayment for the purchase of Olympic and online events in Croatia and Lithuania and an increase in the price payable based on results at the beginning of 2023.

Entain evolved into a hunter after being an acquisition target for most of 2021. American betting company DraftKings Inc. determined not to make a final proposal to buy Entain until the end of October, which was led by an offer from MGM Resorts International in January, it failed.

More about Entain

Commonly famous as GVC Holdings Plc, Entain has developed independently through acquisitions such as Ladbrokes’ acquisition of Coral Group Plc in 2017 and Bwin.Party’s acquisition of Digital Entertainment Plc in 2015. Entain purchased the Swedish gaming organization Enlabs AB to grow into Baltic Bang and to focus on the acquisition of the Australian gambling company Tabcorp Holding.

According to Bloomberg, Entain makes a proposal of over $1B to the OEG, a partner of the NBA.

British company Entain has made a cash offer to one of the largest gambling companies in the Baltic States, which operates online betting sites under the MaxBet and OlyBet brands and claims that it has over a hundred casinos.

Bloomberg also said that Entain’s proposal covers upfront payment for the purchase of OEG’s online operations and businesses in Croatia and Lithuania and a performance-related surcharge for early 2023. In addition to Entain, the company holds brands; for example, Ladbrokes, Bwin, and Coral will be looking for an opportunity to acquire the remaining OEG assets in different countries as early as 2023.

NBA and OEG have been partners since August 2020 and have signed long-term contracts in particular with Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The deal also stipulates that OEG may use official NBA gambling information on OlyBet and at its casinos.

More about OEG

OEG is one of the last remaining properties in the portfolio of London-based Novalpina Capital. Earlier this year, the private property company crashed following a conflict between the 3 CEOs and a dispute over their stakes in the NSO group, which produced the suspect Pegasus inspection technology. This technology has been utilized on mobile devices by several people, including reporters and human rights defenders, to pull out SMS and record conversations.

Since then, Novalpina sponsors have decided to transfer the remaining shares to the Berkeley Research Group.

Olympic has offices in countries such as Italy, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, and Latvia and is among the few surviving organizations of the London-based NSO Group Novalpina Capital, which went bankrupt at the beginning of 2021. The private equity company went bankrupt this year after a scandal regarding its ownership of NSO Group which was responsible for developing the controversial Pegasus surveillance technology.

OEG was acquired by Novalpina for $ 325 million just three years ago, in 2018.