Why is Entain folding its winning hand in Poland and Croatia?

Four years ago, Entain arrived in Central and Eastern Europe with the swagger of a company buying the future. It paid roughly €690 million for 75% of Croatia’s SuperSport in 2022, and £750 million for STS , Poland’s sports-betting champion, in 2023. It folded both into a joint venture with Czech firm EMMA Capital called Entain CEE. Mikolaj Cymerman, the unit’s head of corporate development, called the strategy a home for regional “local heroes”.

“The long-term vision is to be in every single one of those markets,” he said of the dozen countries then on Entain’s wish-list.

That vision has been shelved. On 25 June Entain agreed to sell a 20% stake in Entain CEE back to EMMA Capital for around €425 million, the first instalment of a planned full exit. Entain has declined to comment for this article.

Numbers don’t explain the Entain CEE sale

The reversal is striking given how the unit has performed. Entain CEE generated £522 million of net gaming revenue in 2025 , up 7% year-on-year, with EBITDA rising the same amount to £183.7 million. STS and SuperSport have each held their number-one positions throughout.

Reuters, which broke the story on 18 June , said Entain was under pressure to cut costs after Britain raised remote gaming duty from 21% to 40% and sports betting duty from 15% to 25%, both from April. Entain’s shares have fallen around 30% since the tax rise was announced, and the effective tax rate on its UK profits will now exceed 80%.

Analyst Andrew Tam of Rothschild & Co Redburn put the CEE sale’s implied enterprise value at £1.83 billion – 9.3x EBITDA – and flagged Italy as a likely next disposal. He argued a leaner balance sheet would let investors properly value BetMGM as “the main prize” in the group, in his words.

An existing put-and-call structure with EMMA and the Juroszek family made CEE the easiest asset to move first. Entain’s stake falls from 67.5% to 47.5%, EMMA’s rises to 42.5%, and the Juroszeks’ 10% stays put but its voting rights pass to EMMA, giving it effective control from completion, which is expected in Q4 2026 . CEO Stella David called the deal “a decisive first step towards Entain fully exiting Entain CEE”, reflecting “robust capital allocation discipline”. Proceeds will cut debt, saving an estimated £20 million a year in interest.

Growth with strings attached

None of this points to a business in decline. Marek Plota, a Wrocław-based gambling lawyer at RM Legal, calls Poland “a paradoxical market”.

“The licensing model for sports betting works relatively well despite the unfavourable tax regime,” he says. “The market has grown strongly since the 2017 reform, local operators have built very competitive products, and channelisation in betting is estimated at around 78%, which is a solid outcome by European standards.”

Online casino tells a different story: channelisation there “remains significantly lower, at around 61%, highlighting the structural limitations of the current monopoly model.” Even so, Totalizator Sportowy, the state operator, “has built its online casino position from zero within just a few years” he notes. It has managed to capture a meaningful share of the market despite operating under strict constraints, including a ban on advertising and a relatively one-dimensional product offering.

Poland’s tax impact in Entain CEE

On tax, Plota is blunt: “The key burden is the 12% betting tax calculated on stakes and this rate has remained unchanged since the Gambling Act of 2009,” he says. “A 12% tax on turnover fundamentally changes the economics of the business. It compresses margins, limits pricing flexibility and forces licensed operators to be extremely disciplined and creative in marketing, CRM and product development.”

Paradoxically, he argues, “this is one of the reasons why the Polish betting product has become so strong”, and the same regime “protects the status quo to some extent” since incumbents like STS, Betclic, Superbet and Fortuna “have learned how to operate