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SportingBet Posts Substantial Profits

Online gaming giant moves into the black

Friday 26th November 2004

SportingBet, now widely considered the world’s biggest internet gaming company, have posted impressive first quarter results this week, confirming they moved into to the black well before the recent £162 million acquisition of ParadisePoker.com. Results to the end of October revealed a pre-tax profit of £2.6m, compared with a £400,000 loss over the same period a year ago, which included £1m of exceptionals.

Sportingbet, who delayed the publication of their financial results until after the announcement of the Paradise deal, said that returns from its sports betting arm were lower than could normally be expected because of an unfavourable string of results which saw a higher than normal percentage of favourites winning – a trend that affected the UK industry across the board. However, an increase in the volume of bets taken (Sportingbet say they are now taking approximately ten bets per second) meant that the cost per bet fell to its lowest level of £1.93. In Europe, the cost per bet fell by ten per cent, from £1.80 to £1.62.

Sportingbet’s poker and casino operations, however, proved to be in robust health, with a massive 89% rise in gross profits, from £1.8m to £3.4m. This figure will increase substantially following the acquisition of Paradise Poker, which is the third largest online poker room in the industry.




Source: OnlineCasinoNews