BWB: Admiral Acquisition Approved with Conditions

The Federal Competition Authority (BWB) has approved the acquisition of Admiral by the sports betting provider Tipico under conditions. During the examination of the merger, the BWB identified competitive concerns regarding the resulting concentration in the market for betting services in "betting shops," the authority announced on Friday. The conditions include, for example, the sale of 20 betting shops owned by Tipico.

Investigations by the BWB showed that the companies involved would have very high joint market shares in many regional markets after the merger, which would harm competition, the statement said. For this reason, in addition to the sale of the 20 Tipico betting shops, 14 franchise betting shops previously operated under the Tipico brand must also be continued under a new name and with new technical equipment in the future.

Admiral belonged to Novomatic

Admiral was previously owned by the gambling group Novomatic and operates not only betting shops and sports bars in Austria but also has gaming machines with state concessions at 150 locations in Lower Austria, Burgenland, Upper Austria, Styria, and Carinthia. Tipico has, among other things, 1,000 betting outlets in Germany and Austria.

(APA/Red)

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