Ciao Bella, Flutter Adds Tutti-frutti To Its Palette of Flavours, Buys Italy’s Sisal for €1.9 Billion

Despite growing fiscal headwinds, Flutter Entertainment, one of the world’s largest betting companies, has completed its €1.91 billion (£1.61bn/US$1.94bn) purchase of Italian lottery and iGaming operator Sisal.

“The acquisition of Italy’s leading online gaming operator, in an attractive and fast-growing online market, is aligned to [our group] strategy of investing to build leadership positions in regulated markets,” the FTSE100 gaming Omnichannel confirmed in a press statement.

Sisal was sold to Flutter by private equity CVC Capital Partners.

The company is the licensee for Italy’s SuperEnalotto national lottery, runs lotteries in Morocco and Turkey and has operations in Spain.

Hitherto, Sisal may be best known to British punters as one of the four shortlisted bidders in the competition to run the UK National Lottery, which was won earlier this year, amid some controversy, by Czech-owned Allwyn Entertainment.

Sisal has performed strongly since its sale to Ireland native Flutter was first mooted in December last year.

Its revenue for H1 2022, for example, increased by almost 60 per cent, year-on-year, to the equivalent of £402 million (US$485.29m/€476.68m); while its EBITDA over the half surged to £120 million (US$144.86m/€142.29m) – a rise of 51 per cent compared to 2021.

Sisal’s 1,700 shops and 39,000 retail points, which help to mitigate the impact of existing and anticipated advertising bans, add lustre to the deal.

With Flutter’s Betfair and PokerStars brands already established in the ‘Bel Paese’, the new combo will now have a tasty 20 per cent slice of Italy’s growing iGaming market.

Meantime, iGF and other gambling industry observers await the publication of Flutter’s Interim Trading Results, promised for this Friday, August 12, with excitement and more than a little curiosity.