Image credit: Source: Fortuna Entertainment Group company announcement.
Fortuna Entertainment Group closed its purchase of a 70% majority stake in TOPsport on August 17, 2026, handing Lithuania's leading online sports betting and gaming operator to a Czech group that had never before run a business in the Baltics. The deal was signed in March and took five months to clear regulatory approval. Terms were not disclosed.
TOPsport, founded in 2002 and based in Kaunas, holds more than half of Lithuania's online betting and gaming market, runs 54 retail outlets and employs over 200 people. The company reported 2025 EBITDA above €65 million at margins over 50%, with roughly 30% annual EBITDA growth since 2020. Fortuna and TOPsport put the brand's assisted recognition among Lithuanians at 97%, built in part through sponsorship of Euroleague club BC Žalgiris, the domestic top football division TOPLYGA and the Lithuanian Football Federation.
Fortuna Entertainment Group, owned by investment group Penta Investments, already operates across Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Romania and Montenegro. TOPsport is its first Baltic asset, and the acquisition logic differs from most of the group's prior moves: rather than buying a challenger and building share over years, Fortuna bought the outright market leader in a country it had no presence in at all. It inherits TOPsport's dominant position on day one instead of competing for it.
The purchase lands months after Fortuna raised CZK 1.7 billion, roughly €70 million, through a bond sale on the Prague Stock Exchange in June as part of a broader growth push. The company has not stated that the bond proceeds were earmarked specifically for TOPsport, and this desk found no filing tying the two directly, but the timing puts a debt-financed acquisition strategy on display at a group that has historically grown market by market rather than through leveraged buys.
"TOPsport is the undisputed leading operator in Lithuania with a highly trusted brand and a track record of growth and excellence," said Dieter John, Fortuna Entertainment Group's chief executive, on completion of the deal. "This milestone marks another important step in FEG's ambitious growth journey, strengthening our presence in the CEE/SEE region." Gintaras Staniulis, TOPsport's co-founder and now a strategic consultant to the business, said Fortuna "brings global scale, technological strength and responsible gaming standards that will elevate the business to new heights."
What TOPsport gets in return is less obvious than what Fortuna gets. A 50%-plus share in a market its own size rarely needs an owner's balance sheet to keep growing, and Lithuania's channelisation into licensed operators is already high by regional standards. The clearer near-term tell is deployment: whether Fortuna's shared platform and content licensing, the tools it already runs across six other CEE markets, show up inside TOPsport's product within the next few quarters, or whether the acquisition stays a holding-company line item.
A market leader bought, not built
Most Baltic and CEE gambling consolidation this year has run the other way, incumbents like Veikkaus preparing for competition as monopolies end, or regulators like Austria's tightening the field competitors can enter. Fortuna's move is a foreign operator buying its way to number one on day one. Whether that model repeats elsewhere in the region depends on how many more Baltic-sized, dominant, family-founded operators are willing to sell at all.
Related: Finland's Gambling Licence Regime Ends the Veikkaus Monopoly | Austria's Online Gambling Monopoly Ends | Channelisation Is the Metric That Decides Whether Regulation Worked