Turkey to launch sports betting tender

According to Turkey’s Official Gazette, the Turkish is going to launch a tender to attract businesses to run a centralised system and risk management office for both fixed-odds and pari-mutuel betting.

The winner of the bidding process will have to sign an agreement for 10 years with the state-owned SporToto. The last date for submitting tender will be February 11. Businesses with proven track record in managing at least 500 betting outlets are eligible to apply. The government is planning to start 6000 points-of-sale across Turkey.

The central betting system must be based in Ankara Province, while the trading team would have to set its headquarters in Turkish land. The government has projected that first-year sales would total €2.7 billion, and interested applicants have to explain how much of the revenue the operator would claim.

The report also details that companies are not allowed to form consortiums to apply for the tender, although bids from joint venture companies will be accepted. This opens the door for the current operator of SporToto, Inteltek (joint venture of Intralot and local Turkcell) to make a bid.