Entain

The company was founded in Luxembourg in 2004 as Gaming VC Holdings. In 2010, it was reorganised as GVC Holdings.In 2012 GVC and William Hill bought Sportingbet, with William Hill taking the Australian and Spanish markets, and GVC taking the rest of the world.GVC acquired Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment in 2016 for £1.1bn after a bidding battle with rival gambling group 888 Holdings, leading to a marked recovery in GVC's financial situation. Since the acquisition, bwin.party has returned to growth after many years of falling sales.In December 2017, GVC Holdings agreed to buy Ladbrokes Coral in a deal which could be worth up to £4 billion. The acquisition was completed in March 2018.In mid-2018 a shareholder rebellion forced out GVC director, Peter Isola, after reports showed that two executives at the company earned a disproportionate £67 million in salary.In July 2018, the UK owner of Ladbrokes and Coral agreed a $200 million deal with MGM Resorts to capitalise on the newly liberalised US sports betting market.On March 22, 2019, GVC confirmed that chairman Lee Feldman would leave the company on or before the company's annual general meeting on June 5. While Feldman was overdue to leave under UK corporate governance code that recommends chairs of listed companies not stay in position longer than nine years, the news came two weeks after Feldman sold £6m worth of his GVC shares and CEO Kenny Alexander sold shares worth £13.7m, which led to GVC's share price falling nearly 14% in a single day. Barry Gibson took over as Chairman upon Lee Feldman's departure.In July 2020, Shay Segev, GVC's chief operating officer , succeeded Alexander as CEO following his "surprise departure" after 13 years in charge. Also In July 2020, the UK tax authority HM Revenue and Customs announced that it was widening the scope of its investigation into “potential corporate offending” by an unspecified entity or entities within the GVC group related to the company’s former Turkish-facing online gambling business, which GVC sold in December 2017. GVC dismissed public reports that the HMRC probe was related to insolvent payment processor Wirecard, saying there was “no evidence of any link between the HMRC investigation and the payment service providers mentioned in the newspaper report.”In September 2020, GVC announced that it would be changing its name to Entain plc and that it was committing to only operate in regulated markets by 2023.On 9 December, GVC Holdings plc changed its name to Entain following a shareholder vote.In 2021, Entain's joint venture partner MGM Resorts made an offer to buy Entain, valuing the business at $11 billion. The board and Segev rejected the offer saying, that it "significantly undervalues the company and its prospects". MGM Resorts subsequently withdrew the offer.On 11 January 2021, Shay Segev announced he was stepping down as Entain CEO to become co-CEO at video streaming service DAZN. On January 20, Entain appointed Jette Nygaard-Andersen as its new CEO, making her the first woman to lead a UK-listed gambling company. Rob Wood was promoted to become Deputy CEO while still retaining his CFO duties.In August 2021, Entain acquired US-based esports betting company Unikrn for £50 million.In November 2021 it was reported that Entain had sold the Betdaq business back to original founder Dermot Desmond. The sale came eight years after the business was acquired by Ladbrokes , and although the amount of the sale is unknown, reports suggest it is substantially less than £25 million the company was originally acquired for.In February 2022, Entain announced it has acquired the Canadian sports betting operator Sports Interaction from Avid Gaming for £175 million.In November 2022, it was announced Entain had acquired the Croatian sports betting company, SuperSport.