Unibet to take over Stan James online business

Some more moving and shaking in the online gambling world, with today’s announcement from Unibet that they will be acquiring the online business of StanJames(.com).

Under the terms of the deal, Unibet will pay £19 million (around 6x EBITDA) cash in return for full rights and ownership of the Stan James’ online brand. The deal does not include Stan James’ 90 odd betting shops across the UK.

Stan James online business generated revenues for the 5 months to 31 May this year of £10.5 million, and EBITDA for the same period of £1.4 million.

Unibet has a limited presence in the UK market, so the purchase will give them a much sought after leg up there. As Unibet boss Henrik Tjärnström puts it,

“We have long been looking at strengthening our position in the UK online market…. Stan James has had a long presence in the British market where there are few companies of this size available for acquisition.” 

Of more interest are Unibet’s plans for Stan James.

“Over time, we see a significant potential to increase the breadth of the Stan James product range, such as live streaming, casino and improving the mobile offering.”

Lets focus on the words, such as live streaming, casino.  This likely means live streaming of sports, and general online casino games. But it could also be a reference to live streaming casino. Either way Stan James presently has online casino games. It doesn’t have live casino games – a niche that Unibet is very bullish on so that could well be an area where product range breadth is increased.