[F I N A N C E
NEWS
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VIEWPOINT
LEE ASHBY
campaign and content team manager, Sportingbet
Inviting the customer to join a debate that you have sparked creates a unique bond to a brand and gives the customer access to other fans of that brand, seeing who else is in the gang appeals to customers that are brand-loyal. The true value of content to the customer is relevancy and frequency, social media gives brands the perfect platform to achieve this. Where betting content used to be reactive it is now as proactive with social serving it directly to the customer under their terms. Content on a social platform needs to find the right balance between enhancing brand and offering a direct route to your product for sales. It needs to work on both levels to bring in the money; merely lifting copy from your website would beg the question for the consumer of “why am I here”, whereas offering a glimpse of what your brand culture is will create a tighter bond and increase lifetime value. 2013 is the year of more empowerment for the consumer. New privacy settings on Facebook mean that when you do get it wrong on social, you can be shut out forever and risk missing out on connective information about your ‘fans’. Consumers losing patience with brands is another issue the betting industry will have to contend with. A Dazeinfo survey said that 50% of consumers give a brand a week to reply to an inquiry via Twitter before they stop doing business with it. A customer enquiry is a buying signal on the real-time platform of social media; the industry has to be dynamic to turn this into pennies and pounds.
SCIGAMES AGREES $1.5BN WMS TAKEOVER
Scienti?c Games pays $26 a share for slots manufacturer
Lottery and gaming software provider Scienti?c Games Corporation has agreed to acquire slot game manufacturer WMS Industries for US$1.5bn in cash, the equivalent to $26 a share. The deal represents an EBITDA multiple of six times WMS’s adjusted EBITDA of $246m for the 12-month period ended 30 September 2012, excluding synergies the ?rm said it “expects to achieve”. Shares in WMS closed on 31st January at $16.37 a share, while news of the deal sent WMS’s share price up 56% in pre-market trades to $25.60. The acquisition will “combine two leading companies in the gaming industry to create an organisation that will supply
an extensive range of products and services to public and private sector lottery and gaming customers throughout the world”, the companies said in a joint statement. “The [merged] company [will] deliver innovative content, world-class technology and industry-leading services”, it said adding that the transaction is expected to be “accretive to Scienti?c Games’ earnings per share”. The transaction was “unanimously” approved by both Scienti?c Games’ and WMS’s boards of directors. Scienti?c Games is a leader in the supply of lottery instant tickets, lottery and video gaming systems and server-based gaming with the majority of its client base in the US and an emerging business in Europe.
888 CONTINUES REVENUE GROWTH
Poker improves, while casino also strong in full-year outlook
eGaming Review poker
operator of the year 888 continued its strong performance in the vertical, recording a 44% year-on-year revenue increase for the year ended 31 December. Growth in the fourth quarter came in 31% above the Q4 2011 total at US$24m, while the operator’s other core offering, B2C casino, rose 6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter and 12% for the full-year, with its $165m total representing half of the company’s FY B2C revenues. Strong comparatives in H2 2011 meant percentage growth in Q3 and Q4 was not as high as in Q1 or Q2, however the Q4 totals for both casino and poker represented record quarterly revenues for the company. B2B revenues from the Dragon?sh offering remained ?at and bingo revenues
fell 4% compared to FY 2011, however 888’s emerging offering, including sportsbook and social, experienced a 16% year-on-year rise to $25m for the 12-month period. The impact of the launch of 888’s realmoney bingo offering on Facebook, which went live in December, will not be fully seen until Q1 2013, while there remains potential for the operator to launch further products on the social network. Chief executive Brian Mattingley [pictured] spoke glowingly of the quarterly revenues, which also contributed to a record yearly total, and also praised the operator’s strength in regulated markets. The company’s performance in newly licensed jurisdictions prompted analyst Nick Batram of Peel Hunt to issue a ‘Buy’ recommendation, noting: “The company is one of a select few that has proven that it can deliver a credible performance in newly regulated markets.”
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