Company plans to bid again on renewed Turkish national lottery tender

The company was one of the partners of the consortium that won the previous tender, which was later canceled.

Turkey formally advertised a new tender to privatize its national lottery on May 6 and plans to take an initial bid for the tender on Aug. 5.

Turkey’s past attempts to privatize the lottery have so far been unsuccessful. 

A Turkish consortium of two experienced gaming companies had emerged triumphant from a fierce competition to earn the 10-year operational rights of Turkey’s national lottery after placing the highest bid of $2.755 billion in the privatization tender held on July 15, 2014.

The consortium of Net Holding, which already owns several entertainment and gambling businesses, and Hitay, which owns Turkey’s first online gambling platform bilyoner.com, were supposed to operate four games and scratch card tickets, which are currently operated by the National Lottery.

The consortium later said an agreement for the lottery privatization could not be signed last year.

The Finance Ministry then said the country’s national lottery privatization tender process would probably continue with the second highest bidder, rather than giving more time to the top bidder to sign a deal. 

The second highest bidder, a joint venture of a Central Anatolian company owned by jeweler Ahlatcı and a Turkish company, ERG, also run by Turkish Lottery Holding, however, could not make the payment on time.

Therefore, the government announced that a new tender would be held.