Greek OPAP, Turk partners to bid for national Milli Piyango lottery

As betting markets around the world are liberalized, Greece's OPAP is looking for expansion opportunities to offset any loss of local market share after its monopoly rights expire in 2020.Â

 

'We want this project, we want to get into the largest market in southeast Europe, we have the ability to take over (the lottery) but we are not 'rabid' to do it at any cost,' OPAP Chief Executive Christos Hadjiemmanuil told Kathimerini newspaper.

 

Milli Piyango made sales of 459.8 million YTL ($388.2 million) in 2008 and net profit of $331.8 million.

 

Apart from OPAP, other companies interested in the tender include Lottomatica unit GTech, Greece's Intralot, Turkey's Koc Group, Austrian Lotteries and U.S. firms Scientific Games and Camelot, sources told Reuters.

 

The sell-off is part of a wide privatization program Turkey is implementing to bring in much-needed foreign revenue to help ease a bloated current account deficit.

 

OPAP's CEO told the paper Turkish authorities were open to the idea of the Greek gaming group possibly taking over the lottery. 'The climate we met was positive ... there was a friendly mood and open doors,' Hadjiemmanuil said.

 

The paper said OPAP picked Turkish groups Dogus, which owns Garanti Bank, FIBA and contractor Alarco as its local partners and will set up a joint venture to bid in the tender next month.

 

'We chose excellent partners both from a business and financial adequacy perspective. Their participation by 50 percent (in the jv) will have a political and psychological weight.'