Lottomatica and CIRSA have signed a joint merger plan that folds the Spanish gaming group into its Italian counterpart, leaving Lottomatica as the surviving company and dissolving CIRSA as an independent business. The boards of both companies confirmed the signed plan in a joint statement on October 8, 2026, after the deal was first revealed in September.
The transaction gives CIRSA shareholders 0.668 ordinary Lottomatica shares for each CIRSA share they hold. CIRSA will also pay an extraordinary dividend of €1.56 per share before the merger takes effect, worth roughly €262 million in total. The merger plan further calls for a potential €744 million capital return to shareholders of the combined group, delivered through a special dividend, a voluntary partial tender or a combination of the two.
Once the liquidation of CIRSA is complete, the company will no longer exist independently and Lottomatica will take over all of its assets, liabilities and legal relationships. The combined group keeps the Lottomatica name and its Rome headquarters. Guglielmo Angelozzi will serve as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, with Laurence Van Lancker as deputy CEO and CFO. Antonio Hostench Feu remains CEO of CIRSA’s operations and Antonio Grau Folguera becomes CIRSA’s CFO.
Lottomatica’s board will grow from 11 to 13 directors, with Blackstone, the company’s reference shareholder, gaining the votes to nominate two of them.
Regulatory filings across four countries and the EU
Both companies have filed the necessary regulatory documents with the competition authorities in Italy, Spain, Mexico and Morocco, as well as with the competent European authorities for foreign subsidies. BDO Auditores, appointed as an independent expert by the Barcelona Commercial Registry, concluded that the proposed exchange ratio is reasonable and that the compensation offered to shareholders who exercise their withdrawal rights is sufficient.
CIRSA holds online gaming licenses in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Paraguay and Mexico, and is active in 11 countries. Lottomatica, which trades on Euronext Milan, recorded approximately €45 billion in betting stakes and €2.3 billion in consolidated revenue in 2025.
Shareholder meetings are planned for late November 2026, with the merger expected to become effective in Q2 2027. Once the deal has been completed and the necessary authorizations received, the company will also apply to list on the Spanish stock exchanges in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia.
Petra Vanhoof has spent the better part of a decade following the shifting tides of gambling regulation across Europe and beyond. She came up through the compliance side of the industry before pivoting to writing, which gives her a grounded, no-nonsense perspective on the rules, loopholes, and political maneuvering that shape how operators actually do business. She is particularly drawn to the gap between what regulators say and what the market ends up doing in response.