Turkey opens tender for sports betting
The government has opened a tender for the operation of sports betting state-owned operator SporToto.
Turkey.- Turkey’s Official Gazette has reported that the government is looking to open the sports betting industry by launching a tender to find businesses to operate a centralised system and risk management office for both fixed-odds and pari-mutuel betting.
The winner of the bid will sign a new contract to power state-owned SporToto. The government said that it will accept offers until February 11. In order to obtain the ten-year contract, the applicants must prove that they have enough experience to run a sports betting network of at least 500 outlets, as the government plans to have 6000 points-of-sale across Turkey.
The central betting system must be based in Ankara Province, while the trading team would have to set its headquarters in Turkish land. The government has projected that first-year sales would total €2.7 billion, and interested applicants have to explain how much of the revenue the operator would claim.
The report also details that companies are not allowed to form consortiums to apply for the tender, although bids from joint venture companies will be accepted. This opens the door for the current operator of SporToto, Inteltek (joint venture of Intralot and local Turkcell) to make a bid.
