Shares of the Isle of Man’s Online Gambling Operator GVC Go Down

The famous online gambling operator GVC Holding took a hit on the stock market. After they’ve announced that the government of Greece taxed them for £175 million their stocks went down by 2.8%. The Isle of Man’s operator is a well-known name in the gambling industry, owning some popular betting sites like Bwin and Sportingbet, as well as some PayPal casinos like partypoker and PartyCasino, just to name a few.

The tax money that Greece demands is for the trading done by GVC’s subsidiary Sportingbet in 2010 and 2011. However, GVC Holding got the hold of them in 2013. As it usually happens with these types of things, the GVC officials are disputing this tax demand. They claim that the amount asked is significantly higher than the Sportinbet’s revenue for those years.

Here is a small excerpt from the GVC’s statement. “The board strongly disputes the basis of the assessment calculation. However, given the group subsidiary has to go through an appeal process, the board believes it prudent at this juncture to make a provision of approximately €200m in GVC’s 2017 financial accounts to cover the period and up to the end of 2017.”

For all interested, you can read the entire statement here.

However, the tax demand comes at a particularly interesting time. GVC Holding is currently in negotiations to take over the British gambling company Ladbrokes Coral. This purchase can cost them up to £4 billion. Sure, the Greek tax demand probably won’t affect this deal at all. However, there is no doubt that it creates an unpleasant situation for the two parties.