William Hill’s torrid couple of weeks has continued with the news that it won’t be making an offer for mobile specialist Probability. The news was revealed this morning and could be linked to the trouble at their online joint venture with Playtech, William Hill Online. Their statement to the stock exchange this morning revealed little, saying the group “does not intend to make an offer” and there has been no further comment. We’ve already looked at whether the situation with Playtech may have some bearing on the deal. The main bone of contention here would be the fact that Playtech owns Mobenga, also a mobile specialist. Hills will now have to look elsewhere for a new bedfellow. The other is they simple wait for their marriage with Playtech to expire before hot-tailing it back to Probability with a new offer.
Unibet saw gross winning revenue increase by 22% to £37.8m as they celebrated entering the Italian market with a stellar set of figures. Casino, poke rand other games were the most important contributors with gross recenue up 34% to £23.3m compared with the same period last year. Their sportsbook product saw an incremental increase of 7% in gross revenue to £14.4m with live betting now accounting for 44.5% of bets placed. The next few months will be exciting for the green machine as they await approval for a Danish license.
Loto-Quebec had the online gaming industry to thanks for almost dragging its ass out of the mud in their latest results. Quarterly earnings declined by more than $5million with video lotteries bearing the blame for these declines. Online gaming, which wasn’t present on last year’s Q2 balance sheet, contributed $4m to the earnings and made sure that it wasn’t all bad news for the Canadian firm.
