Huge week for sports betting news in America: The Caesars William Hill buyout for $3.7 billion leads the headlines, while the popular 5Dimes sportsbook based in Costa Rica was busy paying off the US Department of Justice!
Hello friends! How the hell are ya? J.Todd here with this week’s gambling headlines! We’ve got stories from the United Kingdom to Costa Rica all the way to Las Vegas, Nevada! And we start with this week’s big story!
Last week we told you that Caesar’s Entertainment was attempting to buy British bookmaker William Hill for $3.7 billion. Then, less than 24 hours after we released that video, the Caesars William Hill buyout deal was done. You see Caesar’s approached this deal with a certain strategic advantage: having worked with William Hill since 2012, they had given them access to 60 of their casinos in 16 different states.
Realizing the power of their position, Caesars made William Hill… oh, let’s call it “an offer they couldn’t refuse”. You see, William Hill, there… you need to accept our generous offer to buy you out. Or you could risk losing your lucrative American market through some unforeseen circumstances. Capiche?
Yes, Caesar’s actually threatened William Hill by telling them that if they chose not to accept their buyout offer… if they chose to, in fact, go in a different direction… let’s just say that the agreement they have in place to have access to Caesar’s US sports betting market could be terminated. Obviously, William Hill isn’t stupid. So they decided to accept the Caesars William Hill buyout offer.
So the biggest gambling company in America has purchased one of the biggest British bookmakers in existence. Now what? Well, believe it or not it looks like Caesars could sell off William Hill piece by piece for scrap! So it appears that Caesar’s was really after William Hill’s US facing sports betting assets. As far as their UK assets go, Caesar says they could be sold to the highest bidder and then they could just pocket the money or pay off some of their enormous debt.
Now, when we come back from the break a story about more wheeling and dealing from Central America where a Costa Rican sports book just struck a deal with the US Department of Justice! You’re going to want to hear about that!
As I mentioned before the break, there was an interesting deal out of Central America this past week involving the US Department of Justice. More on that in just a second. First, I wanted to quickly tell you that we have two new game reviews to share with you this week.
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Finally this week, in a deal that took many people by surprise Costa Rican based 5Dimes sportsbook announced they had reached an agreement with theUS Department of Justice to pay over $46 million in fines. Surprising because 5Dimes had operated for years successfully well beyond the reach of US authorities. So what gives?
The obvious reason (if you haven’t figured it out yet) is that 5Dimes would love to have access to the regulated, legal American sports betting market. And the only way they could ever do that is to pay off the feds! I mean, ‘pay their fines’. You know, settle up with Uncle Sam! So technically, at the end of the day, I guess you could say that the US Department of Justice realized the power of their position, and they made 5Dimes an offer they couldn’t refuse!