Bally’s Intralot Given Three-Week Extension to Firm Up Evoke Takeover Bid

The deadline for Bally’s Intralot to make an official bid for William Hill parent company Evoke came to an end on Monday.

However, rather than walking away from the deal, the firm – created by a merger between Bally’s and Intralot last year – has been granted a three-week extension to continue negotiations.

That means that they now have until Monday June 8 to launch a formal takeover of the British betting giant… or end their interest.

In Pursuit

It was revealed back in April that Bally’s Intralot was interested in pursuing a deal for Evoke and their brands William Hill, 888 and Mr Green.

It was reported that an offer of 50p per share, which values the group at around £225 million, was being discussed, with all-share combinations and a partial cash alternative both proposed.

Such a valuation will be incredibly tempting to Evoke shareholders, who have witnessed the value of the holding plummet by as much as 90% since Evoke completed the purchase of William Hill for £2.2 billion back in 2022.

To facilitate the takeover, Evoke took on an enormous amount of debt – in the form of loans and credit. That will mature in January 2028, with the group seemingly very keen to offload one or all of its brands beforehand.

A spokesperson for Evoke told shareholders that there’s ‘no certainty that an offer will be made or as to the terms on which any offer might be made’, although the three-week extension would insinuate that Bally’s Intralot are still interested in pursuing a sale.

As part of the update on Monday, the two parties revealed that ‘constructive discussions’ had taken place, with the extension viewed as a possibility to discuss the ‘price and form’ of any takeover bid that is forthcoming.

The Albatross

It would be fair to describe William Hill as an albatross for Evoke.

As well as shouldering the burden of huge debt, the company has had to watch on as a series of regulatory changes – including maximum stake limits in online slot games – have impacted the profitability of their brands.

And then, in November, came the bombshell announcement from the UK government that they were hiking gambling tax – with remote gaming duty almost doubled from 21% to 40% as of April this year and betting duty increased from 15% to 25% as of April 2027.

That has proven to be a hammer blow to Evoke, who have already announced that they will be closing 270 William Hill betting shops in the UK as part of a cost cutting exercise.

Evoke will have lost around 90% of their investment equity in William Hill in the space of just four years if they sell for £225 million.

One of the potential stumbling blocks in a deal being completed is that Bally’s Intralot is also feeling the weight of heavy debt.

They revealed their quarterly results this week, revealing that revenue had risen by some 28.3% in the first quarter of 2026 – of course, the October 2025 merger means that the financials are skewed somewhat in a year-on-year comparison.

Despite the revenue gain, Bally’s Intralot posted a net loss of some £120 million between January and April of this year, with a huge chunk of that due to the debt consideration taken on when completing their merger.

Even so, their balance sheet is not going to scupper any deal for Evoke going forward; that’s per Bally’s Intralot CEO Robeson Reeves. He commented:

“We see a compelling opportunity to bring our operating model to a significantly larger business, and the potential to transform its financial performance through massive synergies that we are uniquely positioned to deliver.”