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About Top Dawgs
Nor are regulatory breaches unique to gambling. Waugh notes that Tesco was fined more than £8 million for food hygiene failings in 2021, without parliamentarians demanding that it should be prevented from selling cornflakes.
“There are valid arguments to be made in relation to raising the barriers to licensing, but this may come at a cost of diminishing competition and entrepreneurship,” he says.
In any event, successive regulatory tightening and tax increases have already created a “reasonably effective deterrent” to market entry.
How to play Top Dawgs
Great Britain’s gambling industry generated £17.5 billion ($23.4 billion) in gross gambling yield (GGY) during FY2026, a 4.4% increase from the previous year.
Excluding lotteries, the Gambling Commission reported that GGY rose 4.7% to £13.2 billion ($17.7 billion) between April 2025 and March 2026.
Growth was strongest online, where remote casino, betting, and bingo GGY climbed 6.9% to £8.3 billion ($11.1 billion), compared with a modest 1.1% increase across land-based sectors.
What is Top Dawgs?
Casigrangi currently holds approximately 4,135,434 shares in SFC, amounting to 81.2% of its capital and voting rights based on figures from 31 October 2025.
Merkur has agreed to pay an effective price of €6.19 per SFC share for the stake, representing a substantial premium over recent market valuations.
The premium reflects both the control premium paid to the sellers and Merkur’s valuation for majority ownership.
