What Entain owns
Entain, formerly GVC Holdings, owns Ladbrokes, Coral, bwin, partypoker and a range of bingo and international brands, and holds half of BetMGM in the US. Here is what sits inside the group and how it came together.
Entain is a London-listed gambling group whose best-known brands are Ladbrokes and Coral, two of the oldest names in British bookmaking. It also owns bwin, Sportingbet and partypoker, the bingo and casino brands Gala and Foxy Bingo, and Eurobet in Italy, and it holds a 50% stake in BetMGM, a US joint venture with the casino company MGM Resorts. Unlike most of its large online rivals, it also runs a big estate of high-street betting shops.
The group took its current name in 2020. Before that it was GVC Holdings, a company that grew from a relatively small online operator into one of Europe's largest gambling businesses through a series of acquisitions.
From GVC to Entain
GVC's growth came in three main steps. It bought Sportingbet in 2013, in a deal shared with William Hill. In 2016 it acquired bwin.party digital entertainment, which brought the bwin sports betting brand, popular in continental Europe, and the partypoker brand. Then, in 2018, it bought Ladbrokes Coral, the product of an earlier merger between the two high-street bookmakers, adding thousands of UK betting shops and their online businesses.
The rebrand to Entain in December 2020 reflected a group that had outgrown its original identity. Since then it has bought businesses in markets it saw as growing, including Sports Interaction in Canada in 2022. In 2023 Entain CEE, its central and eastern European joint venture with the investment group EMMA Capital, bought STS, Poland's largest betting operator; that business also includes SuperSport in Croatia. In 2026 Entain agreed to sell a 20% interest in Entain CEE to EMMA Capital and said it intended to exit the business fully over time. In Australia it operates the Ladbrokes and Neds brands.
The brands and what they do
Entain's portfolio is organised around a mix of retail and online, sports betting and gaming. Ladbrokes and Coral operate both shops and websites in Britain, which gives the group a presence on the high street that purely online competitors lack. bwin is its main sports brand in several European markets. partypoker is its poker brand, while Gala and Foxy Bingo serve the bingo and casino audience, a customer base that is often quite different from sports bettors.
Eurobet gives the group a significant position in Italy, one of Europe's largest regulated markets. Other brands serve particular countries, reflecting the fact that gambling is licensed nationally and that local names often perform better than international ones. Our explainer on how gambling operators enter new markets covers why acquisitions of local brands are such a common route in.
BetMGM
In the US, Entain's interest is its half share in BetMGM, a 50/50 joint venture with MGM Resorts formed in 2018 after the Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to legalise sports betting. The division of labour is typical of the US market: MGM brings a famous brand, land-based casinos and relationships with state regulators, while Entain provides technology and online expertise. BetMGM competes with FanDuel, owned by Flutter Entertainment, and other operators, and is particularly strong in online casino games in the states where they are legal.
Joint ventures of this kind share risk, but they also share control. Strategic decisions require both partners to agree, and the relationship between Entain and MGM has periodically been the subject of market speculation. For investors, BetMGM's performance is one of the most closely watched parts of the group.
Why the structure matters
Owning many brands allows a group to target different audiences and markets while sharing costs such as technology platforms, pricing, payments and compliance. That is the same logic followed by other large operators; the notable exception is the privately owned Bet365, which has concentrated on a single global brand.
A broad portfolio also brings broad regulatory exposure. Entain's British shops are affected by rules on gaming machines, its online brands by stake limits, affordability checks and advertising codes, and its international businesses by local tax and licensing regimes. The group has faced enforcement in the past. In 2022 it agreed to pay £17 million to the Gambling Commission over social responsibility and anti-money laundering failings at its British online and retail businesses. In December 2023 it entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the Crown Prosecution Service over a failure to prevent bribery connected to its former Turkish business, agreeing to pay £585 million in a penalty and disgorgement of profits. Our explainer on how regulation affects gambling operators sets out the wider picture.
For customers, the practical point is that a bet placed with Ladbrokes, Coral or several other brands is ultimately placed with the same group. Separate brands can have different offers and prices, but the ownership, and the licence obligations that come with it, sit in one place.