OPAP

OPAP – Greek Organisation of Football Prognostics S.A. () is a Greek company organizing and conducting games of chance. It is headquartered in Athens and for many years OPAP was a state-owned gambling monopoly. The company holds the exclusive rights to organize and manage numerical lotteries and sports betting in Greece. In 2013 the privatization of the company was completed through the sale of the State's remaining 33% stake to the Emma Delta investment scheme.

==History== thumb|A betting shop managed by Opap in Argos, Peloponnese|Argos, Greece. In the 1950s, an effort to upgrade Greek sport and improve its infrastructure began. In this framework, the General Secretariat for Sports (Greek: Γ.Γ.Α) was established in 1957. In order to secure funding, the idea to utilize revenue from football prognostics - following the example of other European countries - came to fruition. With this aim, OPAP was established in 1958 as a private legal entity under the umbrella of the General Secretariat for Sport. At the same time of its establishment, a Royal Decree institutionalized the first game OPAP introduced named PRO-PO (the Greek Acronym for Football Prognostics) which was organised along the lines of Italy's Toto Calcio. PRO-PO was launched in March 1959, a few months before the introduction of the Football League First Division and part of its revenues contributed to funding the newly created division. Initially there were no exclusive agencies and games players at partner corner-shops/kiosks, dairies, e.t.c while geographically the game was limited to Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus.