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NEWS IN BRIEF
Betfair pro?ts slide after “transitional” year
Betfair witnessed its underlying pre-tax profits decrease by 27% yearon-year after what chief executive Breon Corcoran has called a “transitional” year. The business recorded a pre-tax loss overall of more than £49m, with revenues flat at £387m and underlying EBITDA down 15% year-on-year, in part due to regulatory developments, with the company withdrawing from Germany, Greece and Cyprus.
BET365 PROFITS SOAR TO £179M
Operator's egaming pro?ts rise 54% as amounts bet on website nears £20bn
bet365 egaming operating pro?ts soared to
£179m and amounts wagered grew 57% to almost £20bn for the year ending 31 March 2013. Figures seen by eGaming Review reveal that pro?ts from egaming operations rose 54% to £179m, aided by 150% growth in the ?rm’s mobile channels and expansion into regulated markets including Spain, Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. Amounts wagered via mobile channels increased by 150% during the period, with net revenues growing by 158%. Overall, active users exceeded two million in the period with the number of sign-ups and new depositors over 2.7m and 1.3m respectively. bet365’s own headcount also rose during the period, up 19% year-on-year to 2,596.
All four verticals posted growth in the period with poker and bingo net revenue growing by 10% and 25% respectively, while a strong casino performance saw gaming revenues in total grow by 35%. Coates added that the group has continued to “invest heavily” in IT infrastructures and technology, to ensure it has both the “?exibility and scalability” to evolve with internal and external developments. Overall group pro?ts rose by 35% to £148m as the operator was hit with a loss of £31m from its controlling interest in Stoke City football club. CEO Denise Coates said the ?rm would look to reduce the club’s reliance on the group and, over the medium term, to “make it self-sufficient”.
IG Group pledges increased investment
IG Group announced that it will increase investment in the business after projecting a 1% fall in first year earnings despite recovering from a difficult H1 to post strong revenues for the quarter ending 31 May 2013. Revenue for H2 2013 grew 13% to £192.9m, up from £171.3m in 2012, but despite this strong growth, the group predicts full-year revenues will decline marginally, after takings from core markets like the UK and Australia fell.
SPANISH EGAMING MARKET DECLINES IN FIRST QUARTER
Country’s regulator attributes decline in GGR to “stagnation” of the market
Gross gaming revenue (GGR) and turnover declined in the Spanish egaming market in the ?rst quarter of 2013 as the country’s economic crisis continues. GGR across all products fell to €60.84m for the three month period, a quarteron-quarter decline of 1%, while turnover dropped 0.7% to €1.37bn. In the same period, official ?gures released by the government said the economy shrank by 0.5% and unemployment hit 27%. Spanish regulator La Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) said that with no comparable quarter, as the market officially opened in June last year, it was unable to evaluate the effects of seasonality on results. But it said the decline showed “a stagnation” of the online gambling market. This was attributed in part to a slowingdown of new player sign-ups following
initial rapid growth after the market opening. The number of registered players in Q1 grew 15.2% from Q4 2012 to reach 1.16m by the end of March, though average monthly registrations fell 29% to 51,343 in the ?nal quarter of 2012. Sports betting remained the marketleading vertical, responsible for 49.7% of GGR and 34% of amounts wagered. Despite a number of poker operators looking to hand back their licences citing tough operating conditions, cash game poker’s share of GGR rose to 19.6% with tournaments’ revenue share growing to 9.9%. Casino games accounted for 20.6% of amounts wagered, and 13.8% of total market GGR with the launch of online slots expected later this year. But after a 22% fall in GGR, the bingo vertical made up just 2.9% of total market GGR for the quarter.
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