focus on the hotel business, which had come to represent over 80 percent of the company's assets. In August 1999, Hilton Group decided to dispose of its gambling operations outside of Europe due to disappointing results. Most of the assets, including racetracks and casinos in the United States and bingo and betting businesses in South America, were sold by 2001. In addition, the company sold its twenty-seven casinos in the United Kingdom to the Gala Group in December 2000 for £236 million. In February 2006, the company sold its hotel operations to Hilton Hotels Corporation for £3.5 billion, and once more rebranded itself as Ladbrokes plc. In March 2007, the Vernons brand was sold to Sportech. Following the introduction of the Gambling Act 2005 in the United Kingdom and the subsequent relaxation of advertising laws for gambling companies in 2007, a television campaign by Ladbrokes that included a host of ex professional footballers was the first to result in complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA); the ASA eventually cleared the campaign. The company once again came under fire from the ASA in January 2009, due to complaints relating to an advertising campaign. Since 2007, Ladbrokes operated in Spain through the LBApuestas brand, but in April 2014 it terminated its licence for LBApuestas and created a website, Sportium, in a joint venture with the Spanish gaming and leisure operator Cirsa. The company entered the online betting market in Australia with its acquisition of Bookmaker.com.au for £13 million in September 2013, followed by a purchase of Betstar for £12 million in April 2014. In June 2015, Ladbrokes announced that they were in talks with the board of Gala Coral Group over a possible merger. The combination of the two companies created Britain's biggest bookmaker, with over 4,000 betting shops and 30,000 employees. In July 2016, the Competition and Markets Authority identified 642 areas where the merger would harm local competition, and said 350 to 400 shops would need to be sold off for the merger to be approved. The merger was completed on 2 November 2016. To effect the merger, Ladbrokes acquired the Coral Group and then changed its name from Ladbrokes plc to Ladbrokes Coral Group plc. In December 2017, GVC Holdings agreed to buy Ladbrokes Coral in a deal that could be worth up to £4 billion. In January 2018, Ladbrokes Coral and the Scottish Professional Football League agreed