Ding News

SBC Stock Ticker: Flutter to delist from London while evoke acquired and Entain sells CEE arm

SBC News takes a look at some of the biggest moves in June for gambling PLCs in June, which saw big developments at evoke, Bally’s Intralot, Flutter Entertainment and Entain, among others.

It was a relatively quiet month in terms of big share price changes for gambling PLCs, but June still saw the confirmation of a multi-million pound takeover of one of the UK’s most iconic brands, while another is set to delist from the London Stock Exchange.

Elsewhere, another of London’s biggest gambling businesses confirmed the sale of its CEE operations, and the start of the 2026 World Cup brought hype for many of the industry’s businesses which are involved.

Bally’s Intralot confirms takeover of William Hill owner evoke

First, it’s the big one. After nearly two months of negotiations and an even longer period of speculation, on 5 June, evoke confirmed it had reached an agreement for an all-cash acquisition worth £243.1m from Bally’s Intralot.

The deal, a 2p per-share upgrade on Bally’s Intralot’s initial proposed offer of 50p per-share, creates a combined entity which racked up FY25 pro forma net revenue of €3.2bn (£2.75bn) and FY25 pro forma adjusted EBITDA of €856m, adjusted for UK tax increases.

One concern which has arisen has been the combined debt that the group will take on, expected to be standing at around £3.4bn, but a plan is in place with debt facilitators, and Bally’s Intralot Chief Executive Officer, Robeson Reeves, was both confident and ambitious when addressing the media.

Of course, the deal has pushed evoke’s share price closer and closer to the 52p mark, with its stock rising by over 21% in June to 46.5p.

Investors are able to receive 52p in cash for each evoke share. If they do not take this offer, these will be transferred to new Intralot shares on the Athens Stock Exchange.

Flutter to delist from the London Stock Exchange

Another big development in London was the news that Flutter Entertainment – the world’s third-largest gambling PLC behind Las Vegas Sands and Aristocrat – would be delisting from the London Stock Exchange.

Flutter has been listed in London for over a decade, since the merger between two of its brands, Paddy Power and Betfair, in February 2016, and it rebranded as such in 2019.

But this will come to an end at the end of July, with Flutter’s shares set to be solely traded on the New York Stock Exchange, where it switched its primary listing to two years ago.

While Flutter remains one of the biggest PLCs on the LSE, with a market cap of over £13.7bn, its stock has taken a huge hit in the last 12 months, dropping by 62%.

It bucked that trend in June though, with Flutter shares rising slightly by 1.25% from £75.06 to £76.

Movement around the company’s shares shows no signs of abating, however.

American billionaire Ken Dart has increased his control in the company yet again, now holding almost 29%.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, American investment giant BlackRock has dropped its Flutter shareholding below 5%, having only increased it in May.

Investors back Entain’s CEE sale

Staying in London, Ladbrokes and Coral owner Entain decided to call time on its CEE operations.

Last week, the gambling conglomerate agreed to sell its 20% stake in the Entain CEE business to its joint venture partner EMMA Capital for a total cash consideration of around €425m, valuing the CEE business at £1.9bn.

Chief Executive Officer Stella David said that this was in an attempt to “maximise value for shareholders”, with whom the announcement seemed to go down well.

Entain’s shares rose from £5.54 on the day before the announcement to £5.91 by the time two working days had passed since the announcement, hinting that investors had seen the benefits of the sale.

However, yesterday, shares dropped again and Entain closed the month out with its stock trading at £5.59 – representing a 0.68% decline for June.

Other notable gambling PLC movers in June

Aristocrat Leisure – AU $61.27 (+21.91%)

Gambling.com Group – $1.90 (-20.5%)

Rush Street Interactive – $29.74 (+17.13%)

Kambi Group – SEK 153.2 (-13.15%)

Sportradar – $14.97 (+8.71%)

Playtech – £3.12 (-8.33%)

FDJ United – €21.45 (-6.17%)

MGM Resorts International – $47.81 (-5.68%)

Betsson AB – SEK 84.7 (-5.36%)

Evolution AB – SEK 665.2 (-4.97%)