Tale of the tape: How Paddy Power Betfair measures up to rivals

This morning’s Paddy Power Betfair results announcement gave us a clearer picture of the size of the merged business with the recently enlarged operator offering up some interesting 2015 proforma numbers.

Online revenues, including its Australia and US-facing businesses, amounted to ?987m across the 12 months, with EBITDA, excluding US, totalling ?296.5m.

And with Paddy Power alone growing net revenues at a rate of 28% across the 12 months and Betfair reporting a 21% hike in revenues in Q3 to 31 January 2016, it is clear this merger is one being conducted from a position of strength, which has not always been the case in mergers gone by.

But with a host of firms having also released 2015 numbers, how does a combined Paddy Power Betfair size up compared to its rivals?

It is clear bet365 remains the top dog on a number of metrics. Although we have no 2015 full-year figures, last year the firm revealed revenues for the 12 months ended 31 March were ?1.47bn.

While there is the small caveat of the bet365 numbers including the 2014 World Cup, the Stoke-headquartered firm remains at the head of the field on a global revenue basis.

However, the UK picture is not as clear. Bet365’s UK revenues are estimated to be in the range of 25% to 35% of its total which, if correct, would have Paddy Power Betfair moving slightly ahead.

And from an investor perspective, licensed markets revenue of ?915m should be enough to give Paddy Power Betfair the biggest regulated business in the industry.

Arguably its nearest competitor in this area would be William Hill. In 2015 William Hill posted net revenues of ?648.6m with core/regulated markets contributing approximately ?582m of that total, although still a fair bit shy of the Paddy Power Betfair figure.

Total staking numbers are widely considered a better gauge for sportsbook performance and in 2015 Paddy Power Betfair posted a combined ?6.5bn – a figure which excludes the Betfair exchange. In comparison, William Hill accumulated stakes of ?5bn, although it’s worth noting that Hills’ gaming arm contributed ?286m in net revenues compared to a Paddy Power Betfair total of ?214m.

However the pair’s staking totals remain in the shadows of bet365 which last year reported annual sportsbook staking of ?34bn – again it’s worth pointing out that, unlike its rivals, this figure includes the World Cup.

Last month also saw the merger of GVC and bwin.party and while no official figures are available for the combined business, EGR estimates combined revenues for 2015 will have been in the region of ?815m, although they would have been more evenly distributed across regulated and unregulated markets.

And later this year we should see Ladbrokes and Gala Coral join forces and on a crude amalgamation basis, combining Ladbrokes 2015 online revenues with those of Gala Coral for the 12 months ended 26 September 2015, total online revenues would total ?490.6m.