British gambling company William Hill is going after the Greek betting market.
The group commenced efforts last week to obtain a license for sports betting in Greece, although Hellenic betting monopolist OPAP S.A. says it will not happen.
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"They will spend time and lots of money, but they will never be able to enter the Greece market. No way."
- Nikos Polymenakos
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OPAP, whose chief executive, Basile Neiadas, and head of the IR, Nikos Polymenakos, are both in London for a road show, feels secure because it has an exclusivity guarantee from the Hellenic Government through 2020.
"There is no way at all that we will give up our state monopoly," Polymenakos told IGN. "They will spend time and lots of money, but they will never be able to enter the Greece market. No way."
William Hill's bid for a license comes 15 months after Stanleybet, another British betting group, appealed to the Council of State to overturn the Greek state's refusal to break OPAP's monopoly on games of chance and betting. In doing so, Stanleybet asked the government to permit competition--particularly Internet gambling--within the sector. The case is still pending in the Supreme Court.
Stanley has already won key cases in the European court system--most notably the Gambelli case concerning the company's right to do business with a betting agent based in Italy.
As far as Polymenakos is concerned, neither William Hill nor Stanleybet will "get its feet in the door."
"Even when the two biggest bookmakers are knocking on the door," he said, "we do not even open the post because the internal gaming market belongs to us."
OPAP is Greece's most important lottery and gaming company and is one of the world's biggest betting groups by market value. Its revenues have steadily increased over the years, from 2 billion euros in 2002 to 4.6 billion euros in 2006. As of 2006, it controlled more than 50 percent of Greece's legal betting market.