Slight dip in revenue for World Poker Tour Enterprises
Friday 10th August 2007
The company behind the World Poker Tour (WPT) American television series, World Poker Tour Enterprises Inc, has reported a drop in revenue for the second quarter of 2007 when compared with the corresponding quarter last year.
WPT Enterprises stated that total revenue for the second quarter was $7.7 million compared with eleven million dollars for the same period of 2006. The American company said that the 30 per cent drop was down to delivering fewer domestic television episodes this year.
During the second quarter, WPT Enterprises delivered nine episodes of the WPT Season Five series but also signed a broadcast deal with GSN for Season Six as well as a partnership agreement with Grup Peralada, the largest operator of casinos in Spain. It stated that it has also entered into distribution agreements for Season Four and Five in The Netherlands and Australia.
Also affecting the bottom line over the second quarter was the re-launch of the company's online poker site at WorldPokerTour.com. WPT Enterprises had stopped internal development of the gaming platform and was forced to write-off $2.3 million in assets related to the online gaming part of the business. Aside from that, the net loss for the second quarter of 2007 was $1.1 million, or five cents per share.
This was compounded by a decrease in online gaming revenue as it ceased operations to switch to CryptoLogic with player activity down as a result.
WPT Enterprises stated that it is predicting revenues in the range of four to $4.5 million for the third quarter of this year with a positive outlook for the future in general.
'We set out several initiatives for 2007 and are pleased to report that we've made significant progress on each,' said Steve Lipscomb, President and Chief Executive Officer of WPT Enterprises.
'At the beginning of the second quarter, we announced a multi-year deal with GSN, setting the stage for the broadcast and promotion of Season Five of the WPT television series.
“In June, we successfully re-launched our online gaming site on the CryptoLogic platform.'
