Flutter, the gambling company that owns [FanDuel,] Paddy Power and SkyBet, has agreed to buy the Italian operator Sisal in a £1.6bn deal [US$2.1 billion] that could have a significant bearing on the competition to run the UK’s national lottery.
In a statement to the stock market, Flutter said it had struck a deal with the private equity group CVC Partners to buy Sisal, a major Italian gambling and betting firm which also operates lotteries in Italy, Turkey and Morocco.
The Flutter chief executive, Peter Jackson, said buying the Milan-based firm would give the company a “gold medal position” in Italy, the second-largest regulated gambling market in Europe, after the UK.
