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Lottomatica and Cirsa have agreed a blockbuster merger that would create the second-largest listed gaming and sports betting operator in the world.
Announced on Wednesday, the all-share deal is expected to close in Q2 2027, forming a combined group with a pro forma adjusted EBITDA of around €2 billion ($2.3 billion).
Cirsa’s implied pro forma value, before synergies, corresponds to an multiple of approximately 6x its expected 2026 EV/EBITDA which will be between €800 million and €820 million, according to the operator’s most recent earnings.
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Yet Dan Waugh, partner at Regulus Partners, pushes back against the idea that enforcement notices reveal a fundamentally non-compliant sector.
“Operators failing compliance checks is never a good look,” he says. Campaigners often claim that financial sanctions are priced in and that the Commission should revoke more licences, although Waugh does not believe operators view settlements merely as a cost of doing business.
Nor are regulatory breaches unique to gambling. Waugh notes that Tesco was fined more than £8 million for food hygiene failings in 2021, without parliamentarians demanding that it should be prevented from selling cornflakes.
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“If the tax burden alone makes it impossible to establish the occupation of slot machine operators as the economic basis of one’s livelihood within the municipality,” the ruling said.
Braun also argued that the public had been excluded from the preparatory finance committee meeting without justification.
But the court said that point did not affect the validity of the by-law, adding that it saw no evidence of a tax that would choke businesses.
