Bally's Intralot Evoke Takeover Clears Both Shareholder Votes
Bally's Intralot shareholders have waved through the £243.1m takeover of Evoke. At the company's annual general meeting on 17 September, 99.585% voted in favour. Only 0.415% voted against. The deal puts a price of 52p per share on the owner of William Hill and 888.
That result mirrors Evoke's own AGM vote almost exactly. Published on 17 August, it showed 99.63% of shareholders backing the same deal. Two near-unanimous votes, one on each side. That tells you where the institutional money sits. Nobody with size is fighting this.
What's left is regulatory sign-off. A judge gives the final green light to the scheme of arrangement at the court sanction hearing, pencilled in for either Q4 2026 or Q1 2027, depending on how the other approvals move. Once that clears, Evoke delists from the London Stock Exchange and the deal closes.
Evoke's market position has slipped in recent years. The company sat in the FTSE 250 until a downgrade in late 2023, when it still traded as 888 Holdings, before the 2024 rebrand. It now sits in the FTSE SmallCap and FTSE All-Share indices.
The sale process kicked off in December 2025. Evoke launched a strategic review and told investors it was looking for a buyer. Tax was the trigger. The UK government's increase to Remote Gaming Duty, from 21% to 40%, took effect on 1 April this year, and Evoke expected the hit to land hard on its bottom line. William Hill retail has already paid part of the price, with 200 more shops confirmed for closure back in March as the company accelerated its estate reduction.
Bally's Intralot knows the UK market. It also knows how to close a big acquisition. The business itself was formed through the 2025 merger of Bally's Corporation and Intralot, after Intralot picked up Bally's International Interactive. Evoke's brands are betting that combination gives them the right owner at a rough moment for British betting.
The debt stack is the talking point that won't go away. Evoke reported £1.89bn in H1 2026. Bally's Intralot declared over €1.6bn (£1bn) in net debt for the same period. Bally's Corporation, the 58% majority shareholder of Bally's Intralot, carries its own heavy load, and there are questions about whether that entity can continue as a going concern.
CEO Robeson Reeves and his team have said publicly the debt won't stand in the way of the post-merger strategy. For operators and affiliates watching this one, the number that matters next is the court sanction date. Once that's fixed, Evoke's delisting timeline becomes concrete, and the combined group's leverage position becomes the story for 2027.