Playtech buys £10m stake in UK football pools company

Software business Playtech have bought a £10 million stake in the UK football Pools company Sportech in order to allow the Pools business to invest in Playtech’s new business partner, Scientific Games.

Playtech decided to buy the stake as part of Sportech’s massive fundraiser which will allow the UK Pools business to acquire Scientific Games Racing (SGR), a US based company which is part of Playtech’s new business partner Scientific Games Corporation.

Sportech recently joined up with the management business division of SGR to form Sciplay, which is a gaming venture aiming to target the international market of government backed lottery providers.

The deal will see Sportech providing the technology to the tote-betting operators at half of the US racetracks and will also directly operate the tote betting in US state Connecticut and in the Netherlands.

Sportech is looking to expand its football pools and horseracing gaming business into the international arena. The deal between Sportech and Playtech will see Playtech providing the software for both Sportech and SGR.

Sportech’s chief executive Ian Penrose has strongly denied that the new business venture will in any way affect their relationship with their existing software supplier Dragonfish, which is 888’s business-to-business (B2B) arm.

He said: "We have bingo provided by G2, bingo and soft games provided by Virtue Fusion - we have lots of providers."

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