Evoke, the FTSE-listed gambling company that owns William Hill and the 888 online casino brand, has said it is considering a sale or breakup of the group, after warning of a £135m hit from tax increases announced in last month’s budget.
In a statement to the stock market, the heavily indebted company said it had appointed bankers at Morgan Stanley and Rothschild to explore potential options to secure its future.
The decision comes just four years after the business, then known as 888 Holdings, paid £2.2bn to buy William Hill’s network of 1,400 bookmakers, in an unexpected foray into bricks-and-mortar betting.
Shareholders have since watched the value of the company plummet by more than 90% to less than £100m as of Wednesday. The shares rose nearly 9% after news of the potential sale or breakup.
Last month, after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced significant increases in the duty levied on online sports betting and casino games, Evoke said it expected to pay extra tax of up to £135m a year.
It withdrew its medium-term financial targets at the time and said the decision would “drive customers to the black market, reduce overall tax generation, lead to thousands of job losses, and decrease investment in UK sports”.
On Wednesday, the company told investors it had “decided to undertake a review of the company’s strategic options, which will include the consideration of a range of potential alternatives to maximise shareholder value, including, but not limited to a potential sale of the group, or some of the company’s assets and/or business units”.
Reeves increased duty on online gaming from 21% to 40%, while duty on online sports betting was increased from 15% to 25%, with an exception for horse racing.
Evoke, founded in the late 1990s by a group of Israeli web tech specialists, said it would be hit hard by tax rises in the budget.
But its troubles have not been limited to external pressures.
In 2023, it removed its chief executive and suspended VIP customer accounts in the Middle East amid an internal investigation into a failure to follow anti-money laundering processes.
The company said certain “best practices have not been followed” in relation to “know your client” and anti-money laundering regulations, sending its shares down by more than a quarter on the day.
A year earlier, the company agreed to pay a £9.4m fine, then the third highest in the history of British gambling regulation, over multiple failings that led to customers racking up huge losses during the depths of the Covid pandemic.
In 2017, the Gambling Commission penalised 888 with a £7.8m fine, then a record, for “outrageous” failings, after more than 7,000 people who had voluntarily banned themselves from gambling were still able to access their accounts.
