SPORTS BETTING

US – Elys Game Technology to purchase US Bookmaking

Elys Game Technology, Corp., an interactive gaming and sports betting technology company, has entered into a definitive purchase agreement to acquire 100% of Bookmakers Company US LLC, a Nevada limited liability company doing business as US Bookmaking.

Elys will pay $12m on the Closing Date of which 50 per cent will be payable in cash and 50 per cent in shares of common stock of Elys.

Vic Salerno, President and founder of USB, said: “We started US Bookmaking with a vision to build a top ranked team of experienced bookmakers in light of the looming repeal of sports betting prohibition in the US. Since 2018, our team and customer network have been building quickly and we are very optimistic about the expansion and growth opportunities developing in the US sports betting market. We realised that to effectively compete and grow with this opportunity we needed a viable technology partner that knows the sports betting business extremely well. Having visited the Elys trading floor in Italy, we are very impressed with the work that the Elys team did to Americanize their sports betting technology. We believe the timing of this acquisition is ideal for USB since we have been vetting the technology field for the best sports betting technology while getting ready for the reopening of our clients as the COVID pandemic subsides. The addition of a proprietary sports betting platform will allow USB to customize features that our clients desire while having full control of our cost structure. We look forward to working with the ELYS team to complete the transaction as quickly as possible.”

Michele Ciavarella, Executive Chairman of Elys Game Technology, added: “Our team at Elys has worked diligently to prepare our leading-edge platform for the booming opportunity in the US market. Our focus has been to ensure that our future US clients are able to access a design-built solution for sports betting in the US that is locally supported with comprehensive trading, risk management, operations and maintenance teams for frictionless deployments. We are extremely pleased with the relationship that we developed with the founders and highly-experienced team at USB during our negotiations and the extensive synergies that we believe the combined entities have. We found great commonality between the family culture that Elys fosters in its Italian operations, as with USB and its business operations spanning a number of states in the U.S. We believe that our Elys Gameboard technology will give USB the tools they need to rapidly expand their current US footprint and potentially develop operations in the evolving Canadian sports betting market. The agreement with USB provides our shareholders with a compelling growth opportunity through the combination of our leading-edge betting technology and USB’s seasoned bookmaking expertise.”