A major row has blown up over FanDuel, the big US sports gambling company.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is taking on Flutter Entertainment, owner of FanDuel, through Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, claiming it is entitled to buy a big stake in FanDuel at a discounted price.
Flutter, owner of some big-name gambling brands such as Betfair and Paddy Power, suggests that Fox is trying to "lock in a windfall" worth anything up to $1.2bn and the matter has gone legal.
An agreement that Fox had with Stars Group - the previous owner of FanDuel - which merged with Flutter last May, saw Fox in a joint venture with Stars that entitled it to buy 18.6 per cent of FanDuel in July of this year.
Fox’s lawyers reckon that the company can pay Flutter the price that the stake was worth last December, but with the growth in the US sports betting business Flutter now believes that Fox should pay what it calls "a fair market valuation" for its stake.
