Gambling.com Group Limited, a provider of player acquisition services for the online gambling industry, has completed its planned acquisition of Roto Sports Inc, the operator of RotoWire.com, a provider of expert fantasy sports news and advice.
Back in December, Gambling.com entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Roto Sports Inc for the aggregate purchase price of $27.5m, $7.5m of which is deferred over two years following closing. The aggregate purchase price is expected to be approximately four times Roto Sports’ estimated 2021 revenue.
The group will pay $20m at closing, consisting of $15m in cash and $5m in newly issued, unregistered ordinary shares, valued on a volume-weighted average price over the preceding 10 trading days.
A further $2.5m and $5m will be payable on the first and second anniversaries of the closing, respectively. Gambling.com can elect to pay up to 50% of each of the deferred amounts in unregistered ordinary shares.
Upon completion of the acquisition, Elias Mark, Chief Financial Officer at Gambling.com Group, commented: “We completed the acquisition according to our internal timelines on January 1st, 2022, and thank the RotoWire team for their professionalism and availability through the holiday period. We will consolidate Roto Sports into our Group Financial Statements from January 1st, 2022.”
Gambling.com says the acquisition will “immediately expand” its US presence and is expected to create immediate accretion to fiscal 2022 earnings. The group said it will leverage RotoWire’s existing audience, content library, workforce, media partnerships, and trust with US sports fans to further accelerate its growth in the US online sports betting space.
It added that RotoWire’s digital assets – when combined with the group’s digital expertise and technology platform – will drive substantial, incremental affiliate revenue in the rapidly expanding sports betting environment.
CEO Charles Gillespie noted when the acquisition was initially announced: “Over the past 25 years, Peter and the RotoWire team have produced some of the best fantasy sports content in America and have, in turn. embedded their business into the heart of the American sports experience.
“Commercially, the RotoWire business has three different revenue streams, each generating over $1m per year, which give it significant reach into sports media organizations as well as with advertisers and individual sports fans. These deep and long-lasting customer relationships are an ideal platform from which to capitalize on the new era of American sports – the betting and gaming era.
“We will commence work on expanding sports betting content and tools across RotoWire’s digital assets straight after closing. We believe that the combination of these two complementary businesses creates immediate accretion to our fiscal 2022 earnings and establishes a foundation for a leadership position in US sports betting which will drive near-term, and especially long-term, value creation for our shareholders.”
