Gambling.com Finalizes RotoWire Acquisition Worth $27.5 Million

Gambling.com and Roto Sports, operator of expert fantasy sports news and advice provider RotoWire.com, entered into an agreement last month under which terms the former would acquire the latter for an aggregated price of $27.5 million. As projected, the deal has been reported closed at the start of 2022.

Following the announcement, 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."

According to the terms, the acquisition finalizes with the buyer paying an initial $20 million - $15 million in cash and $5 million in unregistered ordinary shares.

The remaining $7.5 million will be deferred over the following two years to create immediate accretion for the next set of annual financials. Gambling.com will pay $2.5 million on the first anniversary from closing the deal and $5.0 million on the second.

Expanding US Footprint

Gambling.com is a leading provider of player acquisition services for the regulated global online gambling industry. With this deal, it plans to use RotoWire's digital assets to drive substantial, incremental affiliate revenue in the expanding US betting market. The Group will be leveraging RotoWire's market reach as well as its content library, talented workforce, media partnerships, and trust with US sports fans to further accelerate its growth within the country.

When the proposed acquisition was initially announced, Gambling.com CEO Charles Gillespie affirmed that work would commence on expanding the sports betting content and tools across RotoWire's digital assets straight after closing.

The Group is confident that these assets, combined with their digital expertise and technology platform, will set the foundation for a leadership position in US sports betting, which will drive near-term, and especially long-term, value creation for all stakeholders.

Gillespie also said, "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.

On the other hand, President of RotoWire, Peter Schoenke, also said at the time of the agreement, "The United States is entering a whole new world of sports fandom and combining forces with Gambling.com Group will accelerate RotoWire's growth. Gambling.com Group's resources and experience will help RotoWire rapidly advance its sports betting offerings to take full advantage of this new era."