Turkey opens sports betting tender process
Ten-year contract up for grabs to run betting with SporToto
The Turkish government has published a request to tender for the chance to operate a national system for fixed-odds and pari-mutuel sports betting.
Published in the country’s official gazette, operators can bid for the right to run sports betting on behalf of the state-owned SporToto business for a period of 10 years, subject to certain criteria being fulfilled.
Designed to discourage smaller operators from applying, the tender requires any technology used to be based in Ankara province, with any trading team in operation likewise being based in Turkey.
The tender process calls for a 6,000-strong point-of-sale sports betting network, with preliminary government sales estimates of TRY17bn (£2.1bn) in the first year.
No remuneration for the operator is mentioned in the tender request, however reports state that operators will have to provide details of their expected remuneration in their tender submission.
Gambling is mostly illegal in Turkey, except for those games operated by SporToto and the national lottery administration (Milli Piyango İdaresi).
Interested operators have until 11 February to submit bids.