888 Holdings: From Tel Aviv to William Hill
Founded 1997 in Tel Aviv by the Shaked and Ben-Yitzhak brothers, 888 became one of the original online-gambling pioneers. The Antigua licensing arc. The £2.2 billion William Hill non-US acquisition. The evoke plc rebrand.
888 Holdings was founded in 1997 in Tel Aviv by four men — two pairs of brothers — who built one of the first scaled online casinos in the world and never substantially diluted their family stakes through the first two decades.
The Shaked brothers — Avi and Aaron. The Ben-Yitzhak brothers — Shay and Ron. The company operated initially as Cassava Enterprises, licensed in Antigua and Barbuda, with engineering in Tel Aviv. By 2000, 888 was already one of the largest online casinos by revenue globally.
The IPO and the UIGEA Shock
888 went public on the LSE in 2005 at a market capitalization of roughly £550 million. The IPO came eighteen months before the October 2006 UIGEA legislation in the United States, which banned American players from depositing into offshore gambling operators. A meaningful share of 888 revenue at the time came from US players. The stock collapsed.
Unlike PartyGaming — which exited the US market entirely and never fully recovered — 888 used the next decade to consolidate its European business and continue serving select grey-market segments through Cassava-licensed structures. The Shaked and Ben-Yitzhak families maintained roughly 50% of the equity through most of the post-IPO period.
The Diversification
Through the 2010s, 888 expanded into bingo (888 Ladies), into poker (888 Poker — at one point the second-largest online poker network in the world), into sports betting (888sport), and into B2B services. The company also acquired smaller European operators, including Wink Bingo and Costa Bingo through the Daub Alderney acquisition.
The 888 Holdings revenue base by 2020 was over $750 million annually, with operating margins consistent with a mature gambling holdco. The Shaked family had stepped back from operations but remained the largest single shareholder bloc.
The William Hill Acquisition
In 2021, Caesars Entertainment acquired William Hill plc for £2.9 billion — but Caesars wanted only the US business. The non-US business — primarily the UK high-street betting estate plus the William Hill online operation outside the US — went to 888 in 2022 for £2.2 billion.
The deal more than doubled 888's revenue base overnight. It also more than doubled the company's leverage. The integration was complex: William Hill's UK retail estate operated under a different regulatory and labor framework than 888's online business, and the back-end systems were not compatible.
The Leadership Turnover
CEO Itai Pazner — who had risen through the 888 ranks since the mid-2000s — left in 2023. The departure followed an investigation into 888's Middle East customer base, which led to a temporary suspension of certain operations and a regulatory penalty. He was replaced briefly by interim leadership and then by Per Widerström, the former CEO of Fortuna Entertainment Group, in late 2023.
The rebrand to evoke plc in 2024 reflected the new leadership's effort to consolidate the holding-company identity beyond the 888 consumer brand and the William Hill brand. evoke plc — LSE-listed as DI EVOK — now operates 888.com, 888sport, 888 Poker, 888 Ladies, William Hill in the UK, Mr Green, and several smaller brands.
The Shaked and Ben-Yitzhak Position Today
The founding families have substantially reduced their positions over the past decade, but the Shaked family remains a material shareholder bloc. Avi Shaked has invested across Israeli technology and real estate. Aaron Shaked has focused on financial services and venture investments. The Ben-Yitzhak brothers have kept lower public profiles.
The Institutional Question
888's two-decade arc — from Tel Aviv start-up to LSE-listed consolidator owning Britain's largest high-street betting chain — is the longest-running success story in the Israeli iGaming category. It survived UIGEA. It survived the Brexit transition. It survived the leadership turnover after the William Hill acquisition.
What it has not yet had to survive is the AI-search transition. evoke plc's brand portfolio — 888, William Hill, Mr Green — is one of the most heavily SEO-invested gambling estates in Europe. The transition to AI engines as the primary product-discovery layer is the most consequential structural shift the company has faced since UIGEA.
The Israeli founding families built 888 to survive regulatory rupture. Whether the consumer brands they built — 888.com and now William Hill — survive the answer-engine rupture is the next test.
