Ed Pownall looks at the typical gambling fair of M&A, advertising bans and more M&A.

Tabcorp who firmly caught in the crosshairs of a bidding war are playing hard ball…and have rejected offer of around £1.6 billion pounds. Given the status of the current Mergers & Acquisitions market; namely, at level; hungry piranhas round a piece of bleeding meat – this seems a reasonable, even standard response to any initial offerings. What price will they sell at?

With online gambling figures across the globe seemingly on a never ending upward spiral it was a surprise to see the UK post a near 20% dip for the first couple of months of 2021. But today’s lesson is brought to you by the letter V… shaped recovery. With March having Cheltenham neatly nestled among some big football fixtures and April boasting the Grand National the UK will , in the immortal words of Arnie The Terminator himself, “be back”.

With FanDuel having the might of Flutter behind them what of their big rival DraftKings? Well fear not they are also making in-roads on the long and often winding, er, road, that is acquisitions and mergers…they have announced the purchase of Vegas Sports Network so they can provide increased content. If content is king, then this could be a smart move.

Italian operator SNAI has come out all guns blazing against the gambling advertising ban saying it will lead to a growth in black market operators. That’s one view, but look on the bright side – you can save a fortune in marketing costs that you could put elsewhere, or indeed, invest it in making your product betting value to the customer negating any need to even look at another operator whether in the black market or otherwise.