OPAP is expecting five bidders for its IT modernization
Gaming company OPAP expects five firms to bid for a 195-million-euro ($235 million) upgrade of its information technology systems, its chief executive said yesterday. CEO Vassilis Niadas said US, Italian, Swedish and Greek lottery systems operators are likely to participate in the tender which will start next month. «Intralot, GTech, Scientific Games, EssNet and Lottomatica (are likely to put in bids),» Niadas told Reuters in a telephone interview. GTech Holdings Corp is the world’s largest lottery systems operator. Scientific Games is a US lottery services company, while Italian lottery operator Lottomatica early this month expressed interest in Turkey’s privatization of its state lottery. EssNet is a Swedish lottery system operator. Niadas said details of a recently ended public consultation on the tender for terminals and other IT equipment and software will be published on the company’s website in early August. OPAP will allow up to three months for bidders to put in offers, he added. The company expects to announce the successful bidder in the first quarter of 2006, with the IT upgrade completed in a year. Analysts said the IT upgrade is necessary due to OPAP’s overloaded network following the rollout of numerical betting game Kino in October.
