Football pools operator Sportech, is selling £41.4 million worth of new shares to fund its £51 million acquisition of rival Vernons. The owner of the Littlewoods pools offering, which most us remember from using a piece of paper to predict the results of soccer matches, has moved significantly in to online gaming in recent years, taking the Littlewoods brand online with a range of paid electronic soccer, casino, poker, bingo and other gaming sites, as well as the online version of Zetters pools.
In a regulatory notice, Sportech said it had “conditionally approved” buying Vernons from Ladbrokes, giving it 99 percent of the UK pools sector and 700,000 weekly players thanks to clearance last month by the Competition Commission. It said it had a strategy to use “digital routes to market”. Vernons itself runs lottery, bingo and other games as well as online pools.