UK taxman widens probe into GVC’s former Turkey online gambling ops

UK gambling giant GVC Holdings is facing renewed scrutiny from the UK taxman over the company’s former Turkey-facing online gambling operations.

On Tuesday, GVC announced that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was “widening the scope of its investigation” into GVC’s former Turkish operations, which the company offloaded in 2017 in an apparent bid to smooth UK regulatory approval for its then-pending takeover of rival Ladbrokes Coral Group.

Last November, HMRC sought information from GVC regarding the Turkish business, a request that GVC says it understood as being “directed at a number of former third-party suppliers, relating to the processing of payments for online gambling in Turkey.”

GVC said Tuesday that HMRC had recently informed the company that it was now “examining ‘potential corporate offending’ by an entity (or entities) within the GVC group which HMRC has not yet identified.”