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Two London-listed gambling groups are involved in a £500m bidding war for PlanetWin365, a major Italian rival.
Sky News has learnt that Flutter Entertainment, which owns Paddy Power and Betfair, and Playtech, which trades under the consumer-facing brand Snaitech, have both lodged bids for PlanetWin’s parent, SKS365.
City sources said the auction was expected to fetch in the region of £500m, and potentially as much as £600m.
Lottomatica, an Italian gaming group, is also said to be interested.
A takeover of that scale would be material for Playtech, which has a market capitalisation of £1.4bn, but not for Flutter, which is valued at nearly £24bn.
Both Flutter and Playtech already have existing operations in Italy.
PlanetWin365 trades online and also has a significant physical retail presence with around 1,000 betting shops.
Its consumer brands include PlanetSpin.
Bankers at Lazard are handling the auction process.
Earlier this week, Flutter announced the 141m Euro purchase of a controlling stake in MaxBet, a Serbian gaming group.
The FTSE-100 company is in the process of shifting its primary listing to New York in a move perceived as a blow to the London stock market.
Flutter and Playtech declined to comment.
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