Things have ‘never been better’ for online bookmakers
Friday 30th April 2004
Sportingbet has announced that it’s been taking an extraordinary eight bets per second, allowing the online bookmaker to post record results. The group has moved its year-end to July 31 to smooth out quarterly figures and according to the Financial Times turnover has risen from £979m to £1,086m, while pre-tax profits jumped from £1.4m to £9.2m.
Nigel Payne, the chief executive said: 'Things have never been better. The number of bets is going up and at more than 200m that's eight bets a second. The customers are going up and the cost of bets is coming down. I'm finally getting my blue water.'
It’s great news for Sportingbet which has had a hard time with U.S. regulations in the past. Payne said that the cost of providing an offshore bookmaking service was £2.87 a bet as opposed to £1.60 in Europe and that the market continued to punish the group because of the regulatory problems in the US.
