As most people reading this will be casino players rather than sports bettors, you might not already know that Mr Green closed the betting side of their business to the UK in 2022.
It is still operating in other jurisdictions, but British players are no longer allowed to bet with them.
When this news was announced, many people thought that the same fate would befall the Mr Green Casino too, but a year later it was still operating and people assumed it was therefore here to stay.
This week though, the news came, later than expected, but as accurately as predicted.
Mr Green casino is to close in the UK as of April 2nd 2024, following its’ sports betting side out of the door, but why? What has happened to this once popular brand?
Why Did Mr Green Casino Close Down?
The casino hasn’t technically closed down, it has stopped offering its services to UK customers – it is still available in Europe, for example, which is actually where the brand began back in 2007, in Sweden.
As for why this has happened, I can only assume that this is yet another brand that has been deemed not profitable enough to continue operating in the increasingly tightly regulated British market.
The company have released a statement explaining that it is a “strategic decision”, but roughly translated, that basically means they can’t justify keeping the brand open over here.
This is a decision that 888 has taken, since they have been the owners of Mr Green since 2022, and they obviously have bigger fish to fry.
Players should be able to use their Mr Green casino accounts until then, but my advice would be to either spend or withdraw whatever you have left in there, and find somewhere else to play.
There is no point hanging around, and there will be no rewards for sticking with them until the final days.
Rest assured though, the business is not in any financial difficulty, so your funds are safe; the parent company simply doesn’t want to offer the brand to UK customers anymore.
888 Uninterested in Mr Green UK
Mr Green was actually owned by William Hill, who bought the brand back in 2019 for £242 million.
Not long afterwards, William Hill went through a very complicated process where they were sold to Caesars in the US, who took the bits they wanted from the company, then put all of the UK and European assets back up for sale.
888 were the top bidders, and bought William Hill for £2.2 billion in July of 2022. They got Mr Green as part of the package, but their interest was in Hills, not Mr Green.
The sportsbook closed in the UK just 2 months after 888 took control, indicating that it probably wasn’t doing roaring trade in this country, but since the brand started as a casino, that side of things was probably healthier.
Perhaps 888 let it run a while to see if things picked up, but eventually came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t worth bothering with. They have certainly not shown much interest in Mr Green since they took over.
It’s a shame, because at one time, Mr Green was a genuinely exciting online casino that had a very unique style, and despite expansion in other countries, it has been left to go a bit stale in the UK in recent years, which may explain why it is being closed down – because you can be sure if it was making enough money it would still be around.
