Tipico targets Malta talent with national team deal
Table of contents
- Tipico Group has partnered with the Maltese men’s national football team to drive recruitment on the island.
- The deal centres on Tipico’s careers portal and follows Banijay Group‘s majority acquisition of the operator, valued at €4.6bn.
- Tipico has been headquartered in Malta for more than 20 years and employs over 450 people there.
Tipico Group has signed a sponsorship agreement with the Maltese men’s national football team, using football’s reach to attract iGaming talent in Malta as the operator integrates into Banijay Group’s wider gaming portfolio following a majority acquisition valued at €4.6bn.
Recruitment at the centre
The partnership will focus on Tipico’s Careers portal, with the group already employing over 450 people in Malta. All digital activation under the deal will direct audiences to the careers platform rather than Tipico’s betting products, making this a deliberate employer branding exercise rather than a conventional commercial sponsorship.
Tipico made its branding debut with the Maltese national team on Thursday, 26 March, when Malta lost 2-0 to Luxembourg. As part of the agreement, Tipico’s logo is appearing across training tops, training sweatshirts, polo shirts and walk-on anthem jackets.
Kajetan Strini-Brown, director of sports brand and marketing acquisition at Tipico, said:
“The brand Tipico is strongly rooted in professional football and so are our sponsoring activities. Furthermore, Tipico is more than 20 years headquartered in Malta and employs more than 450 people on the island. That’s why we are absolutely delighted to enter this new partnership with the Maltese national team.”
Malta’s status as a hub for iGaming talent makes the sponsorship a natural fit. The island hosts a dense concentration of licensed operators and suppliers, with competition for skilled staff driving increasingly creative recruitment approaches.
Tipico’s use of football sponsorship as a talent acquisition tool, attaching its careers portal to national team visibility, could establish a template for other Malta-based employers facing similar hiring pressures.
Post-acquisition expansion
The Malta sponsorship comes as Tipico completes its integration into Banijay Gaming, the gaming arm of Banijay Group.
Banijay acquired a 65% stake in Tipico from private equity firm CVC Capital Partners in October 2025, with the transaction on track for full completion in H1 2026 pending regulatory approvals.
The deal will see Banijay combine its Betclic sports betting brand with Tipico and Admiral, creating the fourth-largest European sports betting and gaming operator.
On a pro forma basis, the combined entity is expected to serve close to 6.5 million unique active players annually and operate more than 1,250 betting shops across Germany and Austria.
The acquisition adds a significant omnichannel dimension to Banijay Gaming’s operations, with Tipico and Admiral providing the retail infrastructure and Betclic bringing digital scale across France, Portugal, Poland and Côte d’Ivoire.
The Tipico-Admiral deal completed in September 2025, having seen Tipico acquire Admiral from Novomatic to expand its retail footprint across Austria. Banijay’s integration of Betclic, Tipico and Admiral now positions it as a multi-brand, multi-channel operator competing across online and land-based segments in Europe.
Industry implications
This Malta deal illustrates how operators with a significant island footprint are investing in long-term workforce development.
Tipico is also reinforcing its commitment to the German market, having recently joined the European Gaming and Betting Association to strengthen its engagement with pan-European regulatory and policy discussions.
As Banijay Gaming moves toward closing the Tipico transaction, the group’s priorities are clear. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup on the horizon, Banijay CEO François Riahi has placed a great importance on the tournament as a major revenue opportunity for the combined business.
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