Nine-month results show the deal on schedule and put a figure on what Britain’s higher remote gaming duty is costing: about €68m of AEBITDA.
Bally’s Intralot says its takeover of evoke, the owner of William Hill and 888, is on schedule. The remaining gaming regulatory approvals and the Gibraltar court sanction hearing are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2027. The Athens-listed group gave the update on 10 November 2026 in its results for the first nine months of the year. The same results show how much the UK’s higher online gaming tax is costing the business evoke is about to join.
What the company said
“The proposed acquisition of evoke plc, announced in June 2026, continues to progress as scheduled,” Bally’s Intralot said in its results release. It said shareholders of both companies had approved the transaction and that “a number of competition and regulatory conditions have already been satisfied”. The remaining gaming approvals and the court hearing in Gibraltar, where evoke is incorporated, are expected to conclude “by the first quarter of 2027”.
The company did not say which regulatory approvals are still outstanding.
The deal in brief
The terms are set out in the scheme document published for evoke shareholders in July 2026. The acquisition is being carried out through a scheme of arrangement under Gibraltar company law. Under the scheme, evoke shareholders receive 0.537 new Intralot shares for each evoke share. Based on an Intralot share price of €1.12, that is worth 52 pence per share and values evoke’s entire share capital at about £243.1 million.
The document says the price is a premium of about 138% to evoke’s closing share price of 21.9p on 9 December 2025, the last business day before evoke announced a strategic review. It is also about 77% above evoke’s three-month volume-weighted average price of 29.4p up to 17 April 2026. Shareholders can instead choose a cash alternative of 52p per share, but total cash is capped at about £117.1 million. If more shareholders choose cash than the cap allows, their elections will be scaled back. The long stop date, by which the deal must be completed unless the parties agree otherwise, is 5 September 2027.
According to the scheme document, evoke reported revenue of £1,782 million in 2025. It owns brands including William Hill, William Hill Vegas, 888casino, 888sport, 888poker, winner.ro and Mr Green, and averaged 1.7 million monthly players in 2025. Intralot says the combined group would rank second in UK iGaming and fourth in UK online sports betting by gross gaming revenue. It also expects about £180 million of pre-tax cost and capex savings by the end of the second year after completion, mainly from marketing, operations and IT infrastructure.
The results behind the update
Bally’s Intralot’s own figures have changed shape since it consolidated Bally’s International Interactive (BII), a business with a large UK online presence, from 8 October 2025. For the first nine months of 2026, group revenue was €830.3 million, compared with €263.9 million a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA (AEBITDA) was €273.6 million, compared with €90.1 million, a margin of 33.0%. BII contributed €579.2 million of revenue and €195.6 million of AEBITDA.
In the third quarter alone, group revenue rose 3.6% from the second quarter to €286.1 million, and AEBITDA rose to €88.9 million. UK online revenue grew 12.2% year on year in constant currency, up from 11.6% growth in the second quarter, which the company said happened “despite lower marketing investment”. Spain’s online business reached a quarterly record of €13.3 million, up 18.9%, which the company linked to a larger active player base.
The legacy Intralot business was weaker. Its business-to-business revenue fell 8.1% to €191.0 million over nine months. The United States, its largest market, was down 11.0% in constant currency to €119.6 million, which the company attributed to lower lottery revenue after the previous year’s record jackpots and to reduced equipment sales.
The UK tax effect
The most useful figures for the wider UK market concern Remote Gaming Duty. The release says the rise in the duty from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026 had a gross negative impact of about €68 million on AEBITDA in the first nine months. The company says “nearly half” of that was offset through revenue growth, marketing efficiency and cost control. In the third quarter, the gross impact was about €34 million, in line with the second quarter, and about 55% was offset year on year. Excluding the duty increase, BII’s AEBITDA would have grown 14.4%, the company said.
These figures cover Bally’s Intralot’s existing business only. The release does not estimate the duty’s effect on evoke, which will add its own UK revenue to the group once the deal completes.
Balance sheet and financing
At 30 September 2026, total liquidity was €472.4 million, up from €287.3 million at the end of June. That figure includes an undrawn €160 million revolving credit facility. Adjusted net debt was €1,629.9 million, and adjusted net leverage was 4.33 times on a pro-forma basis. In July the group signed a three-year senior secured sterling term facility of £261.8 million, partly to support its acquisition plans. It drew the first tranche of £157.1 million in July. The release attributes most of the rise in net debt since the end of 2025 to an €85 million investment in a 15-year gaming monitoring licence in Victoria, Australia.
Who is affected
For evoke shareholders, the update means more waiting rather than any change to the terms. For customers of William Hill and 888, the release announces no changes before completion. Staff and suppliers will watch how the planned £180 million of savings is achieved: the scheme document names marketing spend, operational efficiencies and IT infrastructure as the three main areas.
What happens next
The next milestones are the remaining gaming regulatory approvals and the sanction hearing at the Supreme Court of Gibraltar. Bally’s Intralot expects both by the end of March 2027, well before the September 2027 long stop date. Its full-year 2026 results will give the next update.
Sources
- https://ballysintralot.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/PR_3Q26_EN_Final.pdf
- https://ballysintralot.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/1__Scheme_Document.pdf
- https://sbcnews.co.uk/sportsbook/2026/11/10/ballys-intralot-q3-results/
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