When Two Gambling Scandals Become One: Entain, 888 and a Takeover That Never Happened

Entain, the London-listed owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, has spent much of the past two years contending with the fallout from a bribery investigation into its former Turkish subsidiary. In December 2023, the company reached a deferred prosecution agreement with UK prosecutors, avoiding a criminal trial in exchange for a payment of £615m — settling HM Revenue & Customs' findings that Entain had failed to prevent bribery linked to the Turkish operation. The resolution has not closed the matter: related legal proceedings continue, and the episode remains a persistent drag on a company still working to restore investor confidence.

Two of Britain's biggest gambling companies — Entain and 888/evoke, owner of William Hill and 888 — have each spent the past few years fighting their own regulatory fires. On the surface they look like separate stories: one about bribery in Turkey, the other about lax controls in Britain and a legal fight in Austria. But in the summer of 2023, those two stories collided.

The Entain Side

Between 2011 and 2018, Entain's predecessor, GVC Holdings, ran an online gambling business in Turkey through a subsidiary called Headlong Ltd — despite online gambling being illegal in the country. Executives allegedly paid bribes to keep the operation running. HMRC opened an investigation, nicknamed Operation Incendiary, in 2019. It ended in December 2023 with Entain agreeing to pay £585m (£615m including legal costs) under a deferred prosecution agreement, and CEO Jette Nygaard-Andersen resigning. The company itself was shielded from prosecution by the deal — but the individuals weren't. In August 2025, 11 people, including former CEO Kenny Alexander, were criminally charged with bribery, fraud and tax evasion. Alexander faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted; the trial isn't scheduled until 2028.

The 888/Evoke Side

The UK Gambling Commission fined 888 £7.8 million in 2017 for letting thousands of self-excluded customers keep gambling, then £9.4 million in 2022 for anti-money-laundering failures. More recently, current CEO Per Widerström was named in a private criminal complaint filed in Vienna by an Austrian doctor trying to recover historic gambling losses — part of a wider pattern of European "grey market" litigation the company has chosen to fight rather than settle.

Where the Two Stories Meet

In June 2023, Kenny Alexander and Lee Feldman — Entain's former CEO and chairman, both later charged in the Turkey case — used an investment vehicle called FS Gaming to quietly buy a 6.5% stake in 888. Their plan was to take executive roles and help stabilise a company that had cycled through leadership. It fell apart almost immediately: the UK Gambling Commission told 888 it would review the company's licence if the two men were appointed, citing their ties to the ongoing HMRC probe. 888's board withdrew from talks within weeks, saying it couldn't get "the most basic assurances" it needed. That should have been the end of it. Instead, in December 2025, Alexander and Feldman sued the UKGC, arguing the regulator unlawfully disclosed private information and effectively colluded with 888 on the public statement that sank their bid — adding a fresh civil case on top of the criminal one already hanging over them.

Timeline

Strip away the company names and this is a familiar shape: aggressive expansion into legally murky markets, thin compliance controls, years-later reckonings once regulators and prosecutors catch up — and, in this case, the people at the center of one scandal trying to reinvent themselves inside a company already carrying its own baggage. The UK Gambling Commission ends up as the connective tissue running through both stories: it fined 888 twice, it blocked the Alexander/Feldman takeover, and it's now being sued over how it did that. Meanwhile Entain's Turkey case and evoke's Austria case grind on in parallel, unresolved, with the criminal trial for the Entain executives still three years away.