French horseracing and sports betting operator France Pari reported a 24% rise in revenue to €3.25m for the three months ending Sept. 30. Much of the credit goes to France Pari’s B2B division SportnCo, which reported double the revenue from the same quarter a year earlier and recently struck a three-year deal with Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) to provide PMU subsidiary Genybet with a fixed-odds sports betting platform.
France Pari’s mobile offering also had a good quarter, with the mobile channel now accounting for 10% of overall wagering turnover. Total betting handle was up 20% in Q3, with the month of September posting a 60% rise year-on-year. France Pari said the good times would continue with another double-digit revenue rise expected in Q4 as well as in the company’s full-year 2013 results.
The picture isn’t so rosy with French gambling operator Groupe Partouche, which recently received court protection from its creditors, following the company’s inability to renegotiate its €233.7m loan obligations to a syndicate of banks. On Monday, the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris granted Partouche’s application for ‘safeguarding,’ a process similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that will allow the struggling company to temporarily halt debt payments while it seeks suckers, er, investors to inject the necessary millions to keep the lights on at Partouche’s 49 casinos, 15 hotels, spas and golf courses.
Partouche claimed this safeguarding wouldn’t affect its continued operations, such as they are. While Partouche is France’s number two casino operator, behind only the Barrière group, Partouche has failed to turn a profit in each of the past five years, posting a €17.1m loss in 2012. The slide has continued into 2013, with revenue down 3.5% to €328.7m in the first nine months of its fiscal year. In June, Partouche Poker closed its French-facing online poker room after saying the French online gambling market was incompatible with profits, but the decision came shortly after television broadcaster Canal+ aired a program suggesting Partouche family members had been playing on the site in contravention of French gaming regulations. A year ago, family patriarch Patrick Partouche impetuously announced the closure of the Partouche Poker Tour live poker business after being called on the carpet over the PPT’s failure to honor an guaranteed prize pool.
