888Holdings Could Be Acquired By Las Vegas Sands Corp
There are market rumours doing the rounds that Gibraltar based 888Holdings could soon receive an acquisition proposal from Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS). 888Holdings is one of the biggest brands in the EU gaming market and is registered on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
888Holdings Portfolio
888Holdings has an impressive online gaming portfolio operating a number of popular brands including 888sport, 888casino, 888poker, 888ladies, 888bingo and 777.com. All of these sites have done well for the 888 brand which derives 60 percent of its revenue from online casino games, 18 percent from sports betting, 16 percent from the third biggest online poker site in the world and another 8 percent from Bingo.
Apart from an impressive online gaming portfolio, 888Holdings also runs Dragonfish which is a tech company that focuses on software developing, game development, marketing campaigns and payment options. Dragonfish contributes 10 percent to 888Holdings overall revenue.
There is no indication as of now if LVS is interested in acquiring 888Holdings in its entirety or only looking at its online casino and sports betting division. There is also no information on how much LVS will offer to complete the acquisition as it is too early in the process to get precise numbers.
LVS Venturing Into iGaming Market
LVS for years has resisted the urge to jump into the lucrative online gaming market and that cost the company dearly during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the coronavirus hit, all land based casinos suffered millions of dollars in losses but those operators who had their hand into iGaming were able to offset some of those losses as the online gaming and sports betting market did well during the pandemic.
LVS under the leadership of its chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson decided not to venture into iGaming. This was because Adelson was the biggest opponent of online gaming and used his billions to fund the Coalition To Stop Internet gambling. This campaign was designed to stop the legalization of online gambling which Adelson felt was not regulated and would cause more harm than good.
His critics laughed at his stance and claimed that his stance against online gaming was because he was afraid that iGaming would eat into land based casino revenues and hurt LVS in the long term.
Adelson passed away last week at the age of 87 and was laid to rest in Jerusalem on 15 Jan. Interim CEO Robert Goldstein has wasted no time in focusing on the online gaming market. LVS could become a big player in the iGaming space if it successfully acquires 888Holdings.