Betsson shrugs off football malaise with Q3 income up 17%
Betsson has shaken off the unfavourable football results that have hit competitors, posting a 17% increase in third quarter pre-tax income to SEK79.6m (£6.8m), from SEK68.2m last year.
BETSSON HAS SHAKEN OFF the unfavourable English Premiership football results that have hit competitors, posting a 17% increase in third quarter pre-tax income to SEK79.6m (£6.8m), from SEK68.2m last year.
As reported on EGRmagazine.com, rival sportsbooks Ladbrokes, Unibet and William Hill Online posted year-on-year falls in third-quarter profit after sportsbetting margins were squeezed by a string of bad results for bookies, including just 6% of the first 66 English Premier League football matches in August and September ending in draws, down from a five-year seasonal average of 25%.
However the Swedish sportsbetting, poker and casino operator’s strong bottom-line performance to the end of September 2009 survived intact, driven by a 26% year-on-year rise in quarterly revenues of SEK316.7m, up from SEK252m for the comparable quarter last year.
Betsson chief executive Pontus Lindwall said: “We are happy to see that gross turnover in sportsbook continues to be high compared with comparable figures. Casino also develops strongly, partly due to partner co-operations.”
The quarter also saw Betsson launch live streaming and mobile betting, with the aim of further enhancing the performance of the company’s core sportsbook offering.
The group’s third-quarter performance took pre-tax income for the year to date to SEK224.6m, a 20% increase on the SEK187.1m achieved by the comparable point in the last financial year. Revenues were also up 28%, standing at SEK 916.8m by the end of September, compared to SEK716.7m a year earlier.
Betsson came in eleventh place in this year’s Power 50 leading operators.
Betsson has been shortlisted for European Sports Betting Operator of the Year, Casino Operator of the Year, Socially Responsible Operator of the Year, Innovation of the Year and Offline Marketing Campaign of the Year for this year’s EGR Awards.
Winners will be announced at the EGR Awards gala dinner, which takes place at London’s Old Billingsgate market on 30 November, the first night of EGR Live, eGaming Review‘s free-to-attend conference and exhibition at the same venue.
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