Per Widerström’s position as Chief Executive of Evoke plc (LON: EVOK) may no longer be secure, with sources indicating the embattled gambling group’s board is losing confidence in his leadership, according to a report by GamblingNews.uk.
Evoke plc did not respond to a request for comment sent on Friday by the iGaming publication.
The news arrives at a critical juncture for one of Britain’s most recognisable betting businesses, with Evoke navigating what analysts have described as an existential financial challenge.
Evoke plc, listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker EVOK, is the parent company of William Hill, 888 and Mr Green, operating one of the largest combined online and retail gambling networks in the United Kingdom.
The company has its origins in 888 Holdings, a Gibraltar-based online gambling pioneer founded in 1997 that spent two decades building a reputation as one of Europe’s leading digital betting operators.
Its transformation into its current form came in 2022, when it acquired the non-US assets of William Hill from American casino giant Caesars Entertainment in a deal worth approximately £2.2 billion.
That transaction gave the group a dominant footprint on the British high street but loaded its balance sheet with debt that has haunted every subsequent financial report.
The rebranding to Evoke plc followed in May 2024, a cosmetic overhaul that did little to alter the underlying financial reality the company was facing.
Widerström was brought in as CEO in October 2023 to lead the group’s recovery, arriving with a well-regarded industry pedigree having spent eight years running Fortuna Entertainment Group across Central and Eastern Europe.
He inherited a company already scarred by the abrupt dismissal of his predecessor, Itai Pazner, who was pushed out with immediate effect in January 2023 after an internal investigation uncovered serious anti-money laundering and know-your-customer failures in the group’s Middle East VIP business.
Pazner’s exit wiped as much as 14 per cent off the company’s share price in a single day and left 888 Holdings scrambling to contain the reputational damage ahead of a protracted CEO search.
Widerström’s early tenure saw him launch a wide-ranging value creation plan, strip back the senior management structure and redirect the group’s focus toward its most profitable core markets.
Yet the numbers have continued to move in the wrong direction under his stewardship.
The group’s net debt stood at £1.76 billion when he took charge, climbed to £1.79 billion by the end of 2024 and reached £1.86 billion by December 2025.
Full-year results published last month showed a post-tax loss of £549.1 million, a 149 per cent deterioration on the prior year’s figure of £220.9 million.
The share price, meanwhile, has fallen sharply since Widerström and CFO Rob Wilkins joined the business, a point made bluntly by at least one analyst during the FY2025 earnings call who demanded to know when shareholders would see any return on their investment.
Widerström responded by pointing to consecutive years of adjusted profitability growth and progress on EBITDA margins, but critics argue those metrics obscure a balance sheet that remains dangerously stretched.
The pressure on management has been amplified by a seismic shift in the UK regulatory landscape, after Chancellor Rachel Reeves used last November’s Autumn Budget to announce sweeping increases to gambling duties.
Remote Gaming Duty is set to rise from 21 per cent to 40 per cent while the levy on remote betting climbs from 15 per cent to 25 per cent, changes that Deutsche Bank characterised as a hammer blow to the sector.
Evoke, deriving the bulk of its revenues from the UK, is considered more exposed to these changes than diversified rivals Flutter and Entain, which carry greater international revenue buffers.
The company responded by suspending its financial guidance, announcing the closure of around 230 William Hill retail shops and launching a formal strategic review in December 2025 with Morgan Stanley and Rothschild and Co engaged as advisers.
That review has since produced one concrete development: a takeover approach from Bally’s Intralot, an Athens-headquartered gaming group created through a €2.7 billion merger between Greece’s Intralot and the international digital arm of US operator Bally’s Corporation.
The proposal values Evoke’s equity at 50 pence per share, implying a market capitalisation of roughly £225 million, a figure that starkly illustrates how far the company’s perceived value has collapsed relative to the debt it carries.
Evoke’s shares surged nearly 16 per cent on the day the talks were confirmed, a reaction that spoke more to the depths to which the stock had fallen than to any enthusiasm for the offer itself.
