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Playtech announced an agreement this morning with NetX Betting Ltd. NetX is a subsidiary of pferdewetten.de AG, which trades on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
The deal covers HAPPYBET’s remaining German operations. Playtech already closed the Austrian HAPPYBET business in the second half of 2024.
Back in March 2025, Playtech said it wanted to sell what was left of the German business. That process has now reached an agreement.
This sale fits Playtech’s shift toward being a “predominantly pure-play B2B operator.”
Getting out of retail betting shops isn’t surprising. The company wants to focus on its core software business instead of running consumer-facing operations.
Playtech’s been moving away from direct gambling operations for a while. The HAPPYBET sale continues that trend.
The German operator gets the chance to contract with franchise partners who run HAPPYBET shops. But they’ll need to negotiate with each franchise partner individually.
pferdewetten.de also takes ownership of certain hardware associated with the shops.
However, it’s not a straightforward takeover. The franchise partners have to agree to work with the new operator.
Any HAPPYBET assets that don’t get transferred will just shut down. Playtech will wind up those parts of the business.
There’s going to be a transition period now. pferdewetten.de needs time to talk with all the franchise partners.
They also need regulatory approval from German authorities. That’s standard for any gambling business change in Germany.
The process isn’t automatic – franchise partners could say no to working with pferdewetten.de. In that case, those shops would probably close.
Playtech will shut down and wind up any remaining pieces that don’t transfer over.
The timeline isn’t clear yet. Regulatory approvals in Germany can take months, and individual franchise negotiations could drag on.
But for Playtech, this gets them out of the German retail betting business completely. That’s exactly what they wanted when they started this sales process earlier this year.
The deal arrives only days after Playtech finalised the sale of its Italian business, Snaitech, to Flutter Entertainment for €2.3bn. The move marked a milestone for Playtech in its ongoing effort to realign the company toward B2B operations, with Playtech expected to return €1.8bn to shareholders through a special dividend next month.
Playtech’s financial performance has shown a strong start at the beginning of 2025, with expectations met for trading growth from January to April, driven predominantly by Live Casino and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) performance in markets such as the US and Mexico.
The company has experienced headwinds in Latin America, acknowledging that the reason was due to ongoing regulatory changes in Brazil and a temporary VAT charge in Colombia.
