Tipico Sportsbook Possibly For Sale

In the online sports betting world and horse betting world, we've seen some pretty incredible changes to the overall landscape in the past six months. Different buy-outs and bidding wars have heated things up. There was a massive bidding war that led to the purchase of Bwin.Party by GVC, and there was also the big Paddy Power-Betfair deal that was accidentally spoiled on Twitter by a joke from a social media worker who didn't even know there was a deal in place to begin with. Tipico could be the next in this line of sports betting purchases.

Tipico Looking for Buyers

According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, German online sportsbook Tipico has send inquiries to JP Morgan and Rothchild looking for people who might want to purchase the company. Something that the WSJ spectulates on, and something that industry experts have been saying for quite a while, is that the combination of new sets of regulations in different European countries is making it a better deal to sell out than to try to compete in the new marketplace.

A Changing Landscape

The landscape for online sports betting is changing rapidly, and we've seen huge deals from Amaya, 888 Holdings and William Hill fall through in the past six to 12 months, so any of those three companies could end up buying. In terms of privately-owned sports betting sites in Germany, Tipico is the largest, and purchasing this company would give any business a definitive foothold on the industry in that country. They turn over about €500 million in profit each year on around €2.5 billion in bet receipts. That's around half of all bets placed in the country.

Regulatory Issues

One problem for Tipico looking for a buyer is that the laws in Germany are pretty atypical and often in conflict with the European Commission. This creates a situation where the future of Tipico is somewhat unstable, and that could honestly be one of the big reasons that they're looking to sell. A discounted price is probably going to be in order because of this, and that will add yet another confusing factor to the already interesting potential for another big bidding war like the one we saw between 888 and GVC over Bwin.Party in recent months.