Light & Wonder pulls $850M Grover Gaming deal
Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
Slot machine maker Light & Wonder has agreed to buy Grover Gaming's charitable pull-tabs business for $850 million in cash.
Why it matters: The gaming business is aces, and continues to generate deal flow as buyers consolidate and sellers divest at high prices.
Zoom in: The business is called Grover Charitable Gaming, and it makes electronic pull-tab devices that help raise funds for local charities. Light & Wonder is a roughly $9 billion company that trades on the Nasdaq and the Australian Stock Exchange.
- Pull-tabs are a combination of bingo and scratch lottery tickets. Players win if they get the right mix of numbers or symbols.
- Grover Charitable Gaming operates more than 10,000 leased electronic pull-tab units across five U.S. states.
- Grover said in 2021 that it had raised more than $200 million for charitable organizations like the Loyal Order of the Moose, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. "The devices are typically located in the lodges of fraternal groups, but some states allow them in bars and restaurants," Bloomberg reports.
By the numbers: Light & Wonder says it's paying 7.7 times EBITDA for the business. The deal includes a provision allowing Light & Wonder to pay up to $200 million more for the business based on a four-year earnout tied to the pull-tab unit's performance.
Grover is owned by founder and chief executive officer Garrett Blackwelder, a North Carolina-based entrepreneur.
