In 2008, Inteltek won the Iddaa tender to run the Turkish licensed betting monopoly for a period of 10 years.  Inteltek is a joint venture between Turkcell and Greek lottery operator Intralot.  2018 will be the year for the new tender.   I wanted to summarize my thoughts on the process. The biggest change for the new period would be that the payout rate will be increased to 70% from the current 50%.  The higher payout rate will allow the Operator to offer more single bets as well as live betting.  Legally single bets and in:play betting has been legal in Turkey for many years.   But Inteltek has been offering them rarely for risk management concerns. Turkey is a very big market for any operator.  With a population of 80 million, the annual turnover of Iddaa was about 11 billion TL in 2017.  That figure corresponds to around 3 billion Euros with 2017’s exchange rate.  Additional 40-50 billion TL turnover is fleeing to the offshore black market operators.  The black market operators attracted great interest from Turkish punters mainly due to their ability to offer in live betting, single bets, higher odds and alternative payment methods.

What will change with the new Iddaa tender?

The new law allowing a payout rate of 70% is the right step to minimize the share of illegal betting in Turkey.  Even there was no increase in the NGR, the turnover of Iddaa would still rise about 66,5%.  With additional NGR coming from the illegal betting operators, we can easily say that the turnover of Iddaa will at least double during the new period. Clearly, a licensed monopoly opportunity in such a big market is very interesting for any operator.  Inteltek is interested in the Iddaa tender and has an advantage as the incumbent.  But we also know that its partner and technology provider Intralot is having technical problems in some markets.  Also it may face difficulties in the new era with a more challenging risk management and much higher volume. Surely with the new payout rate, Turkish punters will start enjoying a world class product.  Also it will maximize the share of legal and licensed betting’s share in the country, hence the tax revenues for the country as well.  We expect that Spor Toto will issue the RFP documents in September 2018 with actual tender date in November.  The tender would be definitely an interesting event to watch !