Betfred will be expanding

Betfred will be expanding following a recent merger that plays into their favor

Betfred is already lined up to purchase up to 360 new betting shops throughout the United Kingdom following the merger between Ladbrokes and Coral.

There was a lot of concern surrounding the Ladbrokes and Coral merger, and so in order to gain approval that is required to sell off a large chunk of the betting shops that they owned in the country. The idea behind this was to prevent the new combined company from holding a near monopoly on the industry and taking out any sort of competition and to prevent them from acquiring more shops that would put many others out of business.

Betfred was announced as being the highest bidder on the new betting shops that are now being offloaded by the merging companies. An actual figure wasn’t reported, so as of now, it is unknown just how much Betfred was willing to put down in order to acquire these new assets. However, there was a public counter bid made by Boylesports for as much as €118 million that was turned down, and so it’s

safe to assume that Betfred had placed something even higher than this amount that won them the betting shops.

Without these new shops Betfred already holds claim to 1,370 betting shops around the United Kingdom, while their opponent Boylesports has 200 shops that are mainly located in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Before a merger had been set up between the two giants, Ladbrokes had owned over 2,150 betting shops in the UK and had held another 77 betting shops over in Ireland. Coral had owned 1,850 betting shops in the UK. Combining these two giants together has created a sort of super power in the industry that has faced scrutiny and many worry that even with the sold shops they are going to completely dominate the market.

It was in July that the United Kingdom Competition Markets Authority had reached the decision that the merging companies would have to get rid of at least 400 betting shops in order for the merger to go through. The resolution was made in order to get rid of the worries that competitors had about the market. This was a great deal for the companies because it is only a fraction of the many shops that they own, and they get to pick and choose which ones to get rid of. This means that it’s very likely that they will be dropping the shops with the lowest earnings and picking up a pretty penny in the meantime.

Boylesports was one of the first companies to show an interest in the sell-off, which would have given them a major stake in the United Kingdom since they are mainly positioned in outside regions. However, due whatever major bid was placed by Betfred, they will not be claiming these new assets and will remain mainly within Ireland.

No news has been released regarding when the deal will go down or if anything has been officially signed off as of yet.