Acquiring PointsBet: into overseas betting (2025)

A third change of core business, with regulation as the premise

MIXI has swapped its core business from SNS to games and from games to sports. The PointsBet acquisition is an attempt to perform that swap a third time, abroad. Where the previous two turns were completed inside the domestic market, this one means operating, in a different jurisdiction, a business whose premise is a licensing regime and a regulator. The order of events — obtaining an Australian licence first, then proceeding to the acquisition — suggests a decision to accumulate experience of operating under regulation before buying. If what the Hunza acquisition tested was the governance of a subsidiary, what this one tests is a different kind of governance: how to keep a business sound in an unfamiliar regulatory environment.

On the numbers, too, the answer is still to come. The purchase price was raised from A$352 million to A$398 million, and A$289 million was ultimately spent to take control. In the first year, goodwill amortization pushed operating profit below the prior year’s. Management judges that the investment can be recovered, but that presumes PointsBet keeps growing in Australia and Canada. How far a business that has been confined to the frame of public racing at home can grow in markets regulated differently — unlike the 2015 acquisition, this decision will need several more years before it can be assessed.