Casino and online gambling operator Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG) saw its Q3 revenue rise more than one-fifth thanks to its new flagship property in Estonia.
Unaudited figures released Tuesday show OEG’s overall revenue rising 21.3% to €45.4m in the three months ending September 30. While OEG’s Latvian business contributed the most to the overall pie (€15.6m, +16%), the Estonian market posted the biggest gains, rising 20.2% to €10.1m.
The Estonian business enjoyed a full quarter’s contribution from the new €45m Hilton Tallinn Park, which opened in June. The property, which is the first Hilton to open in the Baltic region, boasts what OEG calls its new flagship gaming venue, the Olympic Park Casino.
As for OEG’s other markets, Lithuania led the way with €5.7m (+16.2%), followed by Poland (€4.2m, -9.5%), Slovakia (€3.5m, +1.6%) and Italy (€2.7m, +10%). OEG’s new Malta operation contributed €3.6m, while Belarus contributed, er, nothing.
In late September, OEG announced that it was shutting down its Belarus operations “due to the inefficient operations caused by the macroeconomic situation and poor prospects to increase profitability.” The Belarusian subsidiary had generated a whopping €200k in revenue in H1 2016, leading to a net loss of €150k. OEG says the liquidation of the subsidiary won’t have any material impact on future results.
Poland was the only other territory to post negative growth in Q3, and the situation wasn’t helped by the Sept. 30 announcement that OEG’s application for a location specific activity license in Warsaw had been rejected by the Ministry of Finance. OEG had previously announced that it was freezing active operations in Poland due to problems getting its license renewed by the Sept. 23 deadline.
On the plus side, OEG inked a pair of deals in September to boost its online gambling division, which includes the Olybet.com site. OEG has tasked Malta-licensed live dealer technology provider Medialivecasino with streaming live roulette from OEG’s new Estonia casino, allowing both online and land-based punters to wager on the same spin of the wheel.
OEG also partnered with Evolution Gaming to stream live dealer games from Evolution’s Malta and Latvia studios to OEG’s online brands via desktop, tablet and mobile. The deal also allows for the possibility of adding a live stream from OEG casinos at some future date.
