Lottomatica Group History and Acquisitions

From Gamenet to today's Lottomatica Group

Gamenet S.p.A. was established in 2006. Guglielmo Angelozzi joined Gamenet in August 2014 as chief executive. His role belongs to the group's development and subsequent acquisitions; it is not evidence that he founded the business. The starting point is Gamenet Group, not the present holding company's incorporation date. Gamenet had already developed an Italian gaming and betting business before the ownership structure now associated with Lottomatica Group was created.

Its earlier expansion included the integration of Intralot Italia in 2016, which helped broaden its presence across Italian distribution and gaming activities. These events belong to the history of the operating business that later became part of Lottomatica, rather than to a parent company that did not yet exist.

On 6 December 2017, Gamenet Group listed on the STAR segment of Borsa Italiana. That admission to trading is the first of two distinct stock-market events in this history. The next notable acquisition was GoldBet: the agreement was signed on 24 July 2018 and the transaction completed on 9 October 2018. GoldBet gave the developing group another established name in Italian betting. It is tempting to describe the later Lottomatica Group as having acquired GoldBet in 2018; strictly speaking, the transaction was carried out in the earlier Gamenet era.

The holding-company architecture began to change in 2019. According to the group's 2022 annual report, Gamma Midco S.p.A. was incorporated on 15 October 2019 on behalf of funds managed by Apollo. On 16 December 2019, it indirectly acquired control of Gamenet Group S.p.A. The report states that Gamenet's results were consolidated from 1 January 2020. This is an accounting starting point, not a substitute for the December legal acquisition date.

Apollo's involvement reshaped control of the business and its relationship with public markets, including the subsequent end of Gamenet's earlier listing. It did not erase the operating history accumulated by Gamenet. To understand the ownership chain after Apollo and its eventual exit, see our separate Lottomatica Group ownership and leadership analysis.

The IGT deal that changed Lottomatica's identity (2021)

The transaction with International Game Technology, or IGT, is the most easily misunderstood event in Lottomatica's modern history. On 10 May 2021, Gamenet completed the purchase of IGT's interests in specific Italian betting and gaming businesses, including Lottomatica Scommesse S.p.A. and Lottomatica Videolot Rete S.p.A., with the Big Easy business included in the perimeter. The group's 2022 annual report also identifies 10 May 2021 as the effective date on which Gamenet Group S.p.A. changed its name to Lottomatica S.p.A.

Some company communications and retrospective timelines refer to 11 May 2021, reflecting the announcement of the completed transaction. For the legal closing and effective name change, we use the annual report's 10 May date. These are different documentary milestones, not evidence of two separate purchases.

The reported consideration was €956 million, excluding approximately €10.3 million of advisory costs. Of that purchase price, €731 million was paid at completion and €225 million was deferred. The deferred amount was subsequently settled in two instalments: €100 million on 5 August 2021 and €125 million on 13 July 2022. Calling the entire amount an immediate cash payment would therefore misrepresent the financing timetable.

Just as importantly, Gamenet did not acquire the whole of IGT. Nor did this transaction transfer every business historically associated with the Lottomatica name into the new Italian group. The older lottery-company lineage ran through Lottomatica's former connection with GTECH and IGT. The contemporary Lottomatica Group acquired an identified Italian gaming and betting perimeter and the associated name; it is a different corporate entity from the wider international lottery lineage.

The older lottery lineage and today's Italian betting group must be traced through different legal entities. The current brands and subsidiaries therefore require a separate legal-entity map.

Two corporate histories: not one continuous company

Betflag and the shift towards online betting (2022)

Lottomatica's next acquisition brought a distinctly digital betting business into the group. Through GBO S.p.A., it completed the purchase of 100% of Betflag S.p.A. on 22 November 2022, as recorded in the 2022 annual report. Betflag was already associated with online gaming and sports betting in Italy. Its addition complemented the group's earlier retail and machine-based activities without making those businesses disappear.

The stated transaction economics deserve more precision than a single headline price. The annual report describes a base purchase price of €310 million, adjusted for Betflag's net financial position, together with a possible earn-out ranging from €0 to €50 million, linked to its 2023 performance. A cash-flow figure appearing elsewhere in the accounts is not automatically the total enterprise value or the final acquisition consideration. Equally, the maximum earn-out was contingent, not an amount that should be treated as certain on the closing date.

There is a documentary wrinkle. The same annual report identifies the acquisition as completed on 22 November but refers to competition-authority clearance dated 6 December 2022. That apparent sequence is internally awkward. We retain the report's explicit acquisition date without inventing an explanation for why the stated clearance date appears later; any definitive legal interpretation would require the relevant competition-authority record and transaction documents.

The group consolidated Betflag's operating contribution for only the final part of 2022. This is why a simple comparison of full-year earnings before and after the announcement would not measure the acquisition's complete annual effect. The full revenue, profit, purchase-price-allocation and debt implications belong in the Lottomatica financial results analysis.

Why Lottomatica had two different IPO stories

References to a “Lottomatica IPO” can conceal two separate issuers and market periods. Gamenet Group listed in December 2017, before Apollo acquired control and before the 2021 IGT transaction introduced the Lottomatica name into this operating group. That was the stock-market story of the earlier Gamenet business.

The present parent, Lottomatica Group S.p.A., began trading on Euronext Milan on 3 May 2023. The 2023 flotation followed the 2019 holding-company formation, the 2021 acquisition and renaming, and Betflag's addition in 2022. It was therefore not simply the continuation of a ticker from the 2017 Gamenet listing.

Historical share data for Gamenet should not be treated as the price history of the modern Lottomatica Group; see its separate shares and chart.

SKS365 and Planetwin365: agreement to completion

The acquisition of SKS365 extended the pattern of buying an established Italian-facing betting operation. Lottomatica announced an agreement to acquire SKS365 on 2 November 2023. The target was associated with the Planetwin365 brand. Signing was an agreement to pursue the transaction, not the date on which SKS365 was already part of the consolidated group.

The completed deal followed on 24 April 2024, when GBO acquired 100% of SKS365 Malta Holding Limited, according to Lottomatica's 2025 annual report. The same report states that the acquired business was consolidated from 30 April 2024. These three milestones (signing, completion and accounting consolidation) answer separate questions. They should not be compressed into an undated statement that Lottomatica “bought Planetwin365 in 2023”.

The values quoted for the transaction can also look inconsistent unless their definitions are retained. The announcement described an enterprise value of approximately €639 million. The later annual report records €621.5 million as acquisition consideration. Enterprise value and recognised consideration are not interchangeable measures. They may reflect different treatments of financial position and completion adjustments; the published numbers should be attributed to their respective documents rather than presented as competing estimates of an identical item.

Selected deals: comparing like with like

Later corporate simplification changed some legal names without creating another third-party acquisition. The former SKS365 Malta Limited was renamed PWO Limited, subsequently PWO S.p.A., while the acquired holding entity was merged into GBO during 2025. These reorganisations matter to anyone tracing which company holds an operation today. They are not proof that Lottomatica purchased the same business again.

What changed after the acquisitions?

Taken together, the 2021, 2022 and 2024 transactions made Lottomatica's present business more diverse than the pre-2019 Gamenet footprint. The IGT acquisition expanded its Italian gaming and betting activities; Betflag added an online-focused operation; and SKS365 brought another established betting brand and business structure. GoldBet's earlier place in Gamenet's history is a reminder that this process began before the group adopted its current name.

The challenge after each closing was integration. Adding businesses on paper is easier to document than combining technology, distribution, compliance, reporting and customer operations. It would be unjustified to assign every later increase in revenue or earnings to one deal without separating organic performance, acquired contributions and the timing of consolidation. Our analysis of Lottomatica's online and retail business model deals with how those operations fit together.

The ownership story also moved on. The group's 2025 annual report records that Gamma Intermediate S.à r.l. sold its remaining 21.3% stake on 17 June 2025, marking a further exit by the Apollo-linked shareholder. That is a historical ownership event, not evidence that Apollo retained that percentage afterwards. Shareholders, directors and operating subsidiaries should be assessed on their own dated records, rather than inferred from a private-equity sponsor's earlier involvement.

CIRSA in 2026: an announced merger, not a completed acquisition

The proposed transaction with CIRSA Enterprises S.A. could change Lottomatica's geographic reach far more fundamentally than its previous Italian-focused purchases. But as at 11 November 2026, CIRSA remained a separate company for the purpose of describing Lottomatica's completed acquisition history. The transaction was a proposed cross-border merger, not an already completed takeover or a current subsidiary relationship.

The agreement was signed on 1 September 2026 and announced the following day. On 8 October 2026, the respective boards approved a common merger plan. That plan provided for an exchange ratio of 0.668 newly issued Lottomatica shares for each CIRSA share. A board's approval of a plan does not eliminate the need for subsequent corporate and regulatory steps, and the exchange mechanism should not be mistaken for an immediate issue of all the contemplated shares.

CIRSA transaction status: PROPOSED / NOT COMPLETED (11 November 2026)

The formal milestones below are dated, but the shareholder vote and completion remained in the future:

The envisaged timetable depended on shareholder approvals, regulatory authorisations and other transaction conditions. Consequently, the proposed combination's potential future scale or ownership structure must not be reported as a realised result for 2026. Nor should CIRSA's assets be inserted into a list of Lottomatica-owned subsidiaries on the strength of the September agreement alone.

The distinction prevents proposed CIRSA operations from being mistaken for already consolidated assets. See the group’s risks and opportunities and its markets, operators and licences for these separate questions.

What the acquisition history reveals

Lottomatica Group's modern history is best understood as the construction of a business through successive changes in control, assets and legal identity. Gamenet supplied the operating foundation; the IGT deal supplied a larger perimeter and the Lottomatica name; Betflag and SKS365 strengthened the online betting side. The 2023 flotation and later Apollo-linked exit mark a separate evolution in public ownership.

Our Lottomatica Group overview provides the wider corporate context. In our view, the most revealing feature is not the number of deals but the importance of their different stages. An agreed purchase is not a completed acquisition; acquisition consideration is not necessarily enterprise value; and an accounting consolidation date is not always the closing date. The same discipline applies to CIRSA: it may become the next defining chapter, but on the evidence available on 11 November 2026, that chapter was still being negotiated through formal approvals.