Member Info for CJ39

Mr Magorium, it is a fair opinion, the debt certainly is huge here, for many months I was very negative here due to the financial trouble they are in and they still are in, however they have now got two of the best financial advisors working with them to try and find a solution here. Evoke made £103.5m profit before interest and tax for the first 6 months of this year, it is a fantastic business, they have two superb assets in 888 and WMH, you would like to think that this is a great challenge for financial experts to turn this around.

Evoke has a £0.098bn market cap right now, Entain have a market cap of £4.7bn and are only making 3 times the revenue of Evoke. This has enormous potential for the share price to rocket from here if they can turn things around.

I personally am hoping that Evoke will not sell any of their assets and will find a way to manage the debt effectively. It is in the interest of the creditors for this to succeed if they want to get their money back. I am optimistic that Evoke will turn this around and for me this is too good an opportunity to pass up on. 22p is unbelievably low, this was at £4.50 four and a half years ago. High risk here but the rewards will be huge if they succeed.

You are new to this share aren’t you? It’s an absolute dud.

5 years ago today this was trading at £2.85 per share, it was the days of covid and sports returning. Back then 888 were just themselves and they were going along nicely making profits over £10m a year after tax. The acquisition of WMH was a disaster, they vastly overpaid for it, the board were really obsessed by growing 888 into a major player. It has saddled them with enormous debt and the finance costs of that debt is just costing too much but making a £103m profit over the first 6 months of this year before interest and tax shows that they can resolve this. The budget has not helped but horse racing is exempt from the tax rises as are bets placed inside betting shops. The increase in tax on online slots is not the worst problem as they can just reduce the % return. In the US FanDuel were hit by increased taxes in Illinois and they added a 50 cent surcharge on all bets placed, I wonder if UK bookmakers may agree to doing this to help combat the increase in taxes they must pay.

As someone who does bet a lot on the football primarily I know how hard it is for punters to make money, bookmakers will always make long term large profits, it is a brilliant business.

Question for me is how much money to put into this? I believe if Evoke turn this around we will see this share price reach £2.50 for sure, it is a 12 times return at this share price. £10k would turn into £120k before CGT. But there is of course significant risk, the debt is enormous and I don't want to lose too much if I am wrong.

I agree with you Iain. A market cap of £0.095bn when it was £1.5bn before they acquired WMH. They can turn this around, they made £103m profit in the first 6 months of the year before interest and tax which shows how good a business they have got. They just need to find a way to manage this debt. 888 and WMH are two fantastic assets. Their 6 month revenue was a third of Entain's, yet Entain's market cap is £4.5bn. This is to good a chance to miss out on. If they can turn this around the share price here will easily surpass £2 a share. Of course there is a chance too that it may fail and I'll lose my whole investment but I believe this can and will recover.

Tuan, I don’t believe the tax rises will kill off the whole industry whatsoever. Sports betting is just enormous, hence why betting companies make billions of pounds profit between them each year. Horse racing is seeing no increase in taxes as well as all bets placed in betting shops. Online games will just see lower payout percentages. I’m sure online football betting will see some change too, whether it be larger margins or imposing a tax on the customer like in the old days.

If Evoke find a way to turn this around the share price will rocket. I think they will find a solution.

For the first six months this year Evoke made £103m profit before interest and tax. That is brilliant. Finance costs were over £90m. When you have a company that is making such good profit it would be crazy for the creditors to not help the company succeed in order to pay the debt off that works both.

The debt is a huge problem but there can be solutions to this which they really now seem to be exploring.

If you did have the resources to buy Evoke and pay the debt off you then have acquired a company who are making over £100m every 6 months before tax.

888 and William Hill are a huge brand, this is a brilliant asset. I hope personally Evoke can keep 888 and WMH together and can prosper as they are. Entain’s first half year revenue was three times more than Evoke but their market cap is £4.5bn. Evoke’s market cap is £0.1bn. This is ludicrously cheap if Evoke turn things around.

There is a lot of risk here of course, I know there is a chance I could lose all my investment but I am definitely comfortable investing in Evoke and even if I end up being wrong I still feel like this was worth taking a chance on. I only recommend investing what you would be ok losing if it fails but I do feel this is one you should not miss out on.

Nice to see you kingalf. Did xxxproinvestorxxx, TrickyMatters or K3VMC ever apologise to you? They all called you a troll for your negative views on TCF, I bet they had listened to you now.

I agree with your chambersiain, this is not over by any means, Evoke do have a profitable company but the finance costs is what is causing the losses. There are a lot of options still remaining for Evoke, Evoke have some brilliant assets in 888 and WilliamHill, it may be that they will need to sell part of the company off to raise enough capital to pay off a chunk of debt but if they can do that they will be able to grow and learn from mistakes. 888 was going along brilliantly by itself and had a market cap of £1.5bn in 2021 and had a share price of £4.50 a share. 888 should have used its profits on improving their sportsbook and marketing to attract more customers. If Evoke can turn this around this share price in the 20 pences is a steal. There is definitely a lot of risk but this could be one of those shares that could make you a fortune. I have put £7k in it, I know there is a real chance I may lose it but if Evoke turn things around I could make some really good money.

No one is more critical of the decision to acquire WMH minus their American arm of their business for £2,000,000,000 plus all of the finance costs that came with it than me. It was ludicrous and I cannot understand how intelligent businessmen and women could think that was a good deal. I still believe Caesers would have sold this for a heavily discounted price, they had no interest in the UK and Europe betting side of things, they only bought WMH because they wanted the American side.

But anyway, right now Evoke's market cap is valued at just over £100m and it seems a fair price given the debt of the company. But in September 2021, 888 before any rumours of acquiring William Hill, 888's market cap was valued at £1.57 bn and they were a great business and as a betting and poker fan I could see lots of room for improvements to get bigger and better. It just shows what a disaster the William Hill acquisition has been that the value of the company has plummeted like it has. Entain who are the closest similar company to Evoke currently has a market cap of £4.75 bn. Rank which owns Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo has a market cap of £517m. Evoke still has some valuable assets and if they can turn things around even if they have to sell off assets, £100m market cap for Evoke has the potential to be crazy cheap. This is not dead, Evoke can turn this around and this latest RNS advising of the start of a strategic review is definitely what was needed.

I think it is worth a speculative investment. For that reason I am going to invest a decent sum and see how it goes.

The latest RNS is a mix of good and bad news. In terms of bad news well we all knew the WMH acquisition was a disaster and it was only destined for failure if they continued as they were. The strategic review is a step in the right direction, if they can find a solution this can recover and is an amazing price. I remember Thomas Cook once in this same situation and their share price rocketed. I may be tempted to buy in here, will have a look tonight.

I am up to my eyeballs in debt and making huge losses each year. Also found out I’m going to have to pay a lot more tax next year. Anyone interested?

I don’t even believe this share is worth 1p. The most recent accounts said that the net debt is £1.8bn and the company is making heavy losses each year. Even if you bought evoke for £1 you’d have debts of £1.8bn and I don’t believe it’s worth anything like £1.8bn. I think the share price should be a negative figure but of course that can’t happen.

100% agree. 888 were going along nicely making over £10m in profit after tax each year. They could have invested in their own sports book and used profits on marketing to attract new customers. To pay £2000 million for William Hill minus their American arm of the business was beyond ludicrous. Look at that figure £2,000,000,000 for William hill. How many years of profits from William hill would it take to recover that outlay on top of all the finance costs? And now the budget means UK bookies must pay tens of millions of pounds more tax each year. This is doomed. Last year they carried out huge restructure and tried to cut costs but the debt still increased by almost £100m to over £1.8bn. How can they ever pay this off?

I know the share price is low here and you can never know how a share price will move, after all it went up to 77p in Jan 2025 but this is going to fold. There are no positives at all here so don’t expect some nice bounce.

Wolfman, forget about what this was valued at in the past, Evoke made a loss of £64m in the first half of this year and that’s after trying to cut costs and streamline the business. With the news that they have to pay higher taxes how on earth can Evoke stop making losses and start to reduce the debt? This is going to fold. I cannot stress enough be careful investing here, the situation is beyond grim.

It is a disaster. Evoke recorded a £64m first half year loss this year, they have got to stop the losses and become profitable in order to start reducing the debt. This increase in taxes just makes it an impossible task to become profitable. I wouldn’t dare touch this share even at this price. The reality is that the William hill acquisition destroyed this share. This is going to end up going into administration and fold. Be careful.

Do they even mention SFX-01 any more?

If you can get in at the bottom there will be money to be made. 20% profit from here if it bounces back to 42p. I’m not convinced though myself, I don’t see this increasing between now and the budget.

Lord Jon Mendelsohn should be issuing an apology for what he did with this company. This share was valued at almost £5 in August 2021 and now it’s 40p. 888 we’re making tens of millions of pounds profit every year after tax and now it’s making huge losses each year. The incompetence of the people running this company is staggering.

Well the share price just keeps falling and with talks of gambling companies facing increased taxes, betting shops closing and the losses Evoke are making it is not really a surprise that the share price keeps tumbling.

I have said it many times here but the board should be held criminally accountable for the disastrous acquisition of William Hill minus its American part of the business for £2bn. They paid £2,000 million pounds for William Hill, a gambling company who operate in such a challenging and competitive UK market and now Evoke’s market cap is just £191m. They didn’t need to pay anything like £2bn for William Hill, their American owners did not want the UK part of the business, they would have got rid of it for anything they could get for it. They are so saddled with debt now that the finance costs are just drowning Evoke into enormous losses.

Last year Evoke tried to cut costs but still made a £64m loss for the 6 months to 30/06/2025. Why would anyone invest in a company that is making such enormous losses? If they keep making such enormous losses this company will fold.

The share price is so low that they cannot even raise significant capital by a share placement.

But I said the same things earlier in the year and the share price increased from these levels to over 70p so what do I know?

But I really don’t know how Evoke can ever turn losses of £60m into a profitable business, especially if faced with increased taxes.

I also don’t see anyone coming in wanting to acquire Evoke, the UK market is just terrible and if Flutter or Entain wanted to grow then they can do so themselves by acquiring foreign gambling companies and attracting more customers on their own platforms rather than buy Evoke and taking on it’s debt.

If Evoke can turn this around and stop the losses and pay off debt then this has potential to increase tenfold and the rest but can they do it? I don’t think so but if there are signs that they can I will be investing heavily here. Interesting share!

I was holding this share for years, it was forever bouncing between 360p and 470p when I held it. I knew it was a good share but everyone agreed it was never going to do much in terms of share price increase, so I sold out around 510p. Well seeing this now not far from 700p is a real kick in the teeth. Anyone else had the same experience here?