In Greece there are more than 8,000 Points of


Sale for the OPAP sales network including 3,025 OPAP stores and 359 PLAY stores with VLTs whilst Passive Lotteries and scratchcards are sold via a further 5,000 PoS kiosks and street ven- dors.


Te company has a 70 per cent market share


and has the largest retail network in Greece - larger than the two largest gas and petrol stations combined (Helleniq Energy has 1,631 and Motor Oil has 1,437) and three times more than the number of the four main banks. Propotzidika (a term derived from the Propo


game played at OPAP stores) can be found on every street corner. Many fear the country is drowning in betting shops. Meanwhile horseracing betting was run by Horse Races SA which was set up in 2014 under


parent company OPAP. Up until this point horse race betting had been operated by ODIE SA since 1968. However in January 2024 Horse Races ended


its lease agreement with Markopoulo Racecourse. Te company had been running racing at


Greece’s only racetrack in Athens for the last eight years However Greek Jockey club registration of


horses fallen consistently below 300 and at the time the closure was announced had dwindled to 172. GGR had dropped to €6.8m for 2024. Betting on Greek horse races and mutual betting


on Greek races has been declining over the last few years. Despite investments of over €32m by the company losses over the period of operation from 2016 to 2023 were said to more than €100m. Te agreement had given OPAP not only the


concession to offer pari-mutual betting on Greek races but on horseracing worldwide. Te OPAP will continue to offer betting on foreign horse racing via its OPAP stores network. Te racetrack will be handed to liquidators and the horses have been moved to Poland and Romania mostly. Te racetrack suffered after the economic crisis in 2008 and despite a number of initiatives to boost the racetrack, such as facility upgrades and increased prizes, the numbers have fallen. In 2019 Horse Races SA merged with parent company OPAP and this was supposed to enable the race- course’s losses to be absorbed. But the new gov- ernment who came in at the time revoked the law that enabled this whilst development plans to diversify the usage of the racecourse’s land fell by the wayside.


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