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DraftKings and Entain have agreed to extend negotiations over the U.S. sports betting powerhouse's $22.4 billion offer to buy the British gambling company until November 16.
Prior to the extension announced, DraftKings had until Tuesday October 19 to formalize its offer or walk away.
Entain is one of the UK's largest sports betting firms with brands that include bwin, Coral, Ladbrokes, PartyPoker, and Sportingbet.
Entain said in a statement that it "has carefully considered" DraftKings offer—which represented a 46.2% premium over Entain's share price before the acquisition talks became public—and that it was still in discussions with the company about the exact terms of the buy-out proposal.
The delay is mostly a result of concerns over the exact management and board composition as well as whether such a merger would past muster with anti-trust authorities in the U.S. and the U.K.
The real obstacle standing in the way may be MGM Resorts Interational however. They are Entain's joint venture partner in online gambling brand BetMGM, and a major rival of DraftKings.
Bill Hornbuckle, MGM's CEO, has said that he would like to gain more control over BetMGM in return for allowing Entain to tie-up with DraftKings and that BetMGM would also need to retain access to Entain's technology, which is known to be among the best in the industry and has made the company a highly-coveted prize for U.S.-based gambling companies.
Entain's stock jumped 4.6% in late day trading Tuesday in London.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
