The UK gambling industry’s concern over potential tax hikes in the coming days as part of the autumn budget has been highlighted once again, this time by evoke.
In its third quarter trading update, the William Hill, 888 and Mr Green operator noted that the closure of approximately 270 retail shops contributed towards its group revenue declining by 7% to £406m in comparison to the same period last year.
Per Widerström, Chief Executive Officer of evoke, stated: “On an underlying basis, the business continues to show resilience and reflects our continued emphasis on profitability and cash generation following the substantial increases in gaming duties, particularly in the UK.
“The closure of 270 shops over the past year shows the real impact on jobs and livelihoods from higher industry taxation, and we urge the UK Government to carefully consider any further increases ahead of its forthcoming Autumn Budget.”
Given evoke’s portfolio of machines in William Hill shops across the UK, an increase in machine games duty (MGD) would impact operations. It’s unclear if the UK government will listen to those warnings, as well as how much MGD will rise by – 40%, 25%, or no increase at all.
With the UK’s autumn budget scheduled to be read out by Chancellor John Healey in Parliament next Wednesday, industry stakeholders will not have to wait much longer to find out what the future holds in store for them.
Bally’s Intralot acquiring evoke
Customer-friendly sports results at the beginning of the football season also played a role in evoke’s Q3 results, as they were ‘an approximately 1-2ppt headwind to year-over-year revenue growth on a group basis, meaning revenue was broadly stable on a normalised basis’.
However, since evoke is still in the process of being acquired by Bally’s Intralot as the latter seeks to create a global gaming and lottery champion with scaled pan-European B2C, it didn’t go into any further detail regarding its Q3 performance.
Back in June, Bally’s Intralot’s acquisition process of evoke began with the offer’s terms being laid out. Investors would be entitled to receive 0.537 new Intralot shares for each evoke share, equating to a value of 52p per evoke share based on Intralot’s share price of €1.12.
On this basis, the acquisition values the entire and to be issued ordinary share capital of evoke at approximately £243.1m at an £2.2bn enterprise value. The operator noted in its Q3 trading update that the acquisition ‘remains on track’ following both sets of shareholders passing the required resolutions at the relevant shareholder meetings and most required regulatory approvals being received.
Widerström added: “We remain focused on disciplined execution and operational efficiency as we progress towards completion of the acquisition, which continues to progress as planned towards completing in late Q4 2026 or early Q1 2027.”