Greek lottery deal could open door to €650m OPAP privatisation
Greece has secured a €190m deal with a consortium led by its gambling monopoly OPAP to run the state lotteries for the next twelve years, Reuters reports, citing a senior official involved in the talks.
The Greek government agreed in May to sell a 33 per cent stake in OPAP to Greek-Czech fund Emma Delta for €652m, but talks hit a roadblock when the fund asked for changes to be made to the lottery deal to reduce the fees paid to the Intralot and Scientific Games consortium for their services. It also objected to the companies' right to veto board decisions on the running of the lotteries.
Greece has already had its privatisation target for 2013 revised down to €1.6bn after it failed to find a single buyer for gas company DEPA earlier this year. The troika have set the country a cumulative target of €24.2bn for the period 2011 to 2020.