Three deals stand out as the biggest mergers and acquisitions in iGaming history, measured by disclosed deal value: Flutter Entertainment's $12.2 billion merger with The Stars Group in 2020, Paddy Power's roughly €8 billion merger with Betfair in 2016, and GTECH's $6.4 billion acquisition of IGT in 2015. Two of these already have full write-ups on this site. The third, GTECH buying IGT, does not, even though it may be the most interesting of the three: an Italian lottery company bought a Nevada slot machine pioneer, then let the smaller American brand's name take over the combined business.
What are the three biggest M&A deals in iGaming history, ranked?
Ranked by disclosed value, the order is Flutter and The Stars Group first, Paddy Power and Betfair second, and GTECH and IGT third.
| Rank | Deal | Value | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flutter Entertainment × The Stars Group | $12.2 billion | May 2020 |
| 2 | Paddy Power × Betfair | About €8 billion | February 2016 |
| 3 | GTECH × IGT | $6.4 billion | April 2015 |
The three deals were structured differently. Flutter and The Stars Group combined in an all-share merger, and Paddy Power and Betfair called their deal a merger of equals along similar lines. GTECH's purchase of IGT was the odd one out, mixing cash, new shares and assumed debt rather than trading stock alone. What they share is timing and scale: all three closed within a five-year stretch, and each one was among the largest transactions the betting and gaming industry had seen up to that point.
How big was the Flutter Entertainment and Stars Group merger?
It was the largest of the three, an all-share deal worth about $12.2 billion when Flutter Entertainment and The Stars Group agreed to merge in October 2019. Flutter shareholders ended up owning about 55% of the combined company, Stars Group shareholders the remaining 45%, and the deal closed in May 2020. It brought PokerStars, the world's biggest poker brand, together with Paddy Power, Betfair, Sky Betting & Gaming and the fast-growing FanDuel under a single company, creating the largest online betting and gaming business in the world by revenue at the time. Read the full story of that merger, including why the timing lined up so well with the US sports betting boom.
What happened when Paddy Power merged with Betfair?
Paddy Power and Betfair combined in an all-share merger of equals valued at about €8 billion when it was announced in 2015, closing on February 2, 2016. Paddy Power shareholders ended up owning 52% of the new company, Betfair shareholders the remaining 48%. The deal combined Paddy Power's large retail network and attention-grabbing marketing with Betfair's peer-to-peer betting exchange, a technology platform that let customers bet against each other instead of against a bookmaker. The combined company, Paddy Power Betfair, kept both consumer brands running side by side rather than forcing a rebrand, and in 2019 it renamed itself Flutter Entertainment, the same company that went on to buy The Stars Group the following year. Read the full story of that merger for the regulatory clearances and the record-breaking ad complaint that shaped its early years.
What was the GTECH and IGT deal, and why does it matter?
GTECH's purchase of IGT was a cash-and-stock transaction worth about $6.4 billion in total, made up of roughly $4.7 billion in cash and stock paid to IGT shareholders plus about $1.7 billion of IGT's net debt that GTECH agreed to take on. Under the terms, each share of IGT was exchanged for $13.69 in cash plus 0.1819 shares of the newly combined company, worth about $18.25 a share when the deal was signed in 2014. Nevada gaming regulators approved it in February 2015, and the deal closed that April. What makes the deal worth a full write-up on its own is what happened to the name: rather than the buyer's brand winning out, as is usually the case, the combined company took IGT's name instead of GTECH's, becoming International Game Technology PLC.
Where did GTECH and IGT come from before they merged?
GTECH's own history loops back on itself in a way that makes the 2015 deal stranger than it first looks. The company began as GTECH Corporation, a lottery systems business founded in Rhode Island in 1980. Italy's Lottomatica bought GTECH Corporation in 2006 for about $4.5 billion, and nearly a decade later, Lottomatica renamed itself GTECH, adopting the American brand it had bought as its own corporate identity. It was that renamed Italian company, GTECH S.p.A., that went on to buy IGT in 2015.
IGT's roots sit firmly in Nevada and go back further. William "Si" Redd founded the company in the 1970s to build video poker machines, and under later leadership it grew into the dominant slot machine maker of its era, run out of Reno. IGT launched Megabucks in 1986, the first wide-area progressive slot machine network, with a starting jackpot of $1 million, and later licensed the rights to Wheel of Fortune for one of the most recognizable slot cabinets in casino history. When GTECH's acquisition closed, IGT's headquarters left Nevada for the first time in the company's history.
What did the combined GTECH and IGT company become?
The new International Game Technology PLC was incorporated in the United Kingdom, on paper a fresh company rather than a continuation of either GTECH or the old IGT, though it kept IGT's name and stock ticker. At announcement, the two companies expected the combined business to generate more than $6 billion in annual revenue and over $2 billion in EBITDA, with about $280 million in projected cost savings from combining their operations. Instead of running from one headquarters, the new company split its operations across three cities: Las Vegas, Providence, and Rome, home to IGT's old slot machine business, GTECH's original US operations, and Lottomatica's Italian lottery business respectively. In practice, that built an omni-channel gaming company spanning physical lottery terminals and slot machines on one side, and the licensing and digital platforms behind real-money casino games on the other, all under one roof for the first time.
Do you know these three deals apart?
Answer 5 questions to see how solid your grasp of these three mergers really is. Nothing is sent anywhere, this runs in your browser.
The bottom line
These three deals show two different ways a company can get bigger through M&A. Paddy Power and Flutter both merged with a rival that had what they didn't, Betfair's exchange and The Stars Group's poker network, and split ownership close to down the middle rather than one side buying the other outright. GTECH took the other route: it bought the biggest name in an adjacent category, IGT, and let that name lead the combined company instead of its own.
Neither path is the only way the industry has consolidated. Amaya Gaming's 2014 purchase of PokerStars' parent company is the deal that quietly made the Flutter and Stars Group merger possible six years later, and Evolution's acquisition of NetEnt reshaped who supplies the live casino and slot content behind many of these same brands. See how Amaya built the company Flutter eventually bought, read the personal story of the man who sold it, or read about Evolution and NetEnt for the supplier side of the same consolidation story.
Deals at this scale take years and billions of dollars most operators will never touch. If you want to see what running a modern casino or sportsbook brand looks like without merging two giants first, compare pricing for a white label platform built to launch in weeks instead.
Key takeaways
- Flutter Entertainment's $12.2 billion all-share merger with The Stars Group, completed in May 2020, is the largest of the three deals and created the world's largest online betting and gaming company by revenue at the time.
- Paddy Power and Betfair's merger of equals was valued at about €8 billion when it was announced in 2015, and closed in February 2016.
- GTECH's acquisition of IGT, completed in April 2015, was worth about $6.4 billion, made up of roughly $4.7 billion in cash and stock plus about $1.7 billion of assumed net debt.
- GTECH itself began as an American company, Rhode Island's GTECH Corporation, before Italy's Lottomatica bought it in 2006 and later renamed itself GTECH, the same name that then bought IGT.
- When GTECH's deal with IGT closed, the combined company took IGT's name rather than GTECH's, becoming International Game Technology PLC, and IGT's headquarters left Nevada for the first time in the company's history.
- Together, the three deals moved more than $25 billion in disclosed value across five years, from 2015 to 2020.
