Description
Evoke plc, formerly 888 Holdings Limited, is an international sports betting and gambling company. It owns brands such as 888casino, 888poker, 888sport, Mr Green, and William Hill. Business operations are led from its headquarters in London, alongside satellite offices in Bucharest, Ceuta, Gibraltar, Leeds, Malta, Sofia, and Tel Aviv. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The company's core markets are the UK, Italy, Spain, Romania and Denmark, all of which account for 90% of its revenue.
The business was founded in May 1997 by Israeli entrepreneurs Avi and Aaron Shaked and Shay and Ron Ben-Yitzhak, two sets of brothers, as Virtual Holdings Limited. The company's first website, Casino-on-Net was launched at that time, and the administrative centre was established in Antigua. In 2002 Reef Club Casino and Pacific Poker followed. In 2003 its administrative center was moved to Gibraltar. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2005. Talk of listing began in mid-2005, as other private online gambling companies began to make the move to public ownership, 888 Holdings owned several subsidiaries and brands, which it began to bring under the singular "888.com" brand in early 2006.
Until 2006, 888 Holdings operated Pacific Poker in the US, before online gambling became illegal in that country. In late 2006 Ladbrokes and 888.com announced merger discussions. However, in April 2007 the companies announced that due to recent changes of Tax laws in the UK and fears of legal actions by the US government, both parties had amicably agreed not to continue discussions. In March 2007 888 announced its acquisition of Bingo business of Globalcom Limited for up to $43.4 million in cash. In its first half-year, the company's bingo business earned $14 million in revenues.
888.com overtook the 4th place on the poker network list in April 2012 after almost having tripled their peak number of players from July 2010 to February 2012. In February, 2015, 888 Holdings confirmed it is in "advanced talks" over a reported US$1.47 billion (£750 million) takeover by William Hill. This prompted an 18 percent jump in its share price. The company operates under a gaming licence granted by the government of Gibraltar. Under the terms of the gaming licence 888 owns and operates a number of gaming sites (both for real money and educational sites). In 2014 888 Holdings turned down an offer to acquire the company for 700 million pounds. That year the company revenues began to increase due to mobile customers on its websites, and the company's sites had 17.8 million paying users.
In March 2018, 888 revealed that it had applied for a gaming licence in Malta, due to uncertainty over the UK's exit from the European Union (Brexit) on Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory.
On 2 May 2020, founder Shay Ben-Yitzhak died in an ultralight plane crash near Yakum, Israel at age 52. His 11-year-old son sustained minor injuries.
On 3 March 2021, 888 Holdings appointed Lord Jonathan Mendelsohn as Chairman.
In May 2022, 888 announced that shareholders had approved the acquisition of international bookmakers William Hill. 888 said the deal was scheduled to close in June 2022: the company will pay £1.95 billion: the acquisition includes all of William Hill's UK assets. The deal marked 888 Holdings’ entry into the retail sports betting market with a network of over 1,400 betting shops in the UK.
In May 2022, 888 announced the launch of its Sports Illustrated Sportsbook (SI Sportsbook) in Virginia. Following the launch of the SI Sportsbook in Colorado, in September 2021, the company plans on expanding the brand in more states within the year.
In March 2024, 888 announced its intention to change its name to evoke to "better reflect the strength of the group's multi-brand operating model and its vision and mission to make life more interesting by delighting players with world-class betting and gaming experiences". The proposed change of name will need shareholder approval.
