The parent company of Bally Bet accepted an offer Thursday from its largest shareholder that will add four casinos to its portfolio.
Soo Kim‘s Standard General is merging with Bally’s, acquiring the unowned Bally’s shares for $18.25 per share. Kim is the chairman of Bally’s and owns more than 26% of BALY.
The offer is up 23.3% from the offer of $15 on March 9, but Bally’s shareholders might not feel like that is much of a victory. In 2022, Bally’s turned down an offer from Standard General to take the casino and sports betting operator private at $38 a share.
Bally’s stock opened Thursday at $16.70, up 23.5% from Wednesday‘s close, and should continue to approach that $18.25 purchase price until the deal closes in the first half of next year.
Details of new entities
Standard General is the owner of Queen Casino & Entertainment, which owns four casino properties:
- Belle of Baton Rouge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Casino Queen Marquette in Marquette, Iowa
- DraftKings at Casino Queen in St. Louis, Illinois
- The Queen of Baton Rouge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The partnership with DraftKings to brand the property is in response to Illinois sports betting rules that require the app name to include the casino brand.
The merger gives Bally’s ownership of 19 land-based casinos, as well as partial ownership of a sports betting operator and supplier. Bally’s will still hold its conference call Wednesday but will not comment on the transaction.
Can Intralot help Bally Bet?
The merger also brings together two sports betting companies: Bally Bet and B2B/B2C operator Intralot.
Kim owns 162.3 million shares in Intralot, or 26.9% of the company. He is also on the board of directors.
Unfortunately for Bally’s, neither really boosts the other in terms of the US sports betting market. Bally Bet runs on Kambi technology after the company gave up on its own platform into which it dumped billions of dollars.
Intralot, meanwhile, is fresh off one of the biggest US sports betting failures, as its contract to offer betting in Washington DC officially ended this month. Intralot removed itself from operations in April and subcontracted FanDuel in an ultimately failed attempt to extend the deal.