Online gambling operator Bwin.party digital entertainment saw revenue fall 10% in Q3 2015, with bingo the lone vertical to post year-on-year improvement.
The UK-listed firm said overall revenue dipped to €133.4m in the three months ending Sept. 30 while clean earnings hit €32.5m. Through the first nine months of 2015, revenue is off 8% while earnings are up 5% and the company says earnings would have risen 26% were it not for the UK’s new online point of consumption tax and new value added taxes in continental Europe, where Bwin.party earns most of its bones.
Bingo revenue rose 5% to €12.7m in Q3, largely due to a major marketing push behind the Foxy Bingo and Cheeky Bingo brands. The rest of the verticals enjoyed no such promotional backing and suffered accordingly.
The beleaguered PartyPoker product reported the greatest decline, falling 24% year-on-year to €13.3m. The company is getting better at squeezing blood from a stone, as yield per unique active player was up 11% despite unique active player ranks falling nearly one-third to 163k and daily average players down 27% to 20,700.
Sports betting revenue fell 8% to €54.3m, which the company blamed on last year’s Q3 benefiting from the second half of the FIFA World Cup. Year-to-date sports betting turnover is up year-on-year but sports margins are lower, although the company says margins have improved as the year went on.
Casino revenue also fell 8% to €44.6m. The ‘other’ revenue category was down 28% to €8.5m, reflecting Bwin.party’s ongoing fire sale of its non-core assets.
Bwin.party CEO Norbert Teufelberger said average daily revenue in October was up 9% year-on-year and the company was making “solid progress” in expanding its mobile footprint. Teufelberger added that the company had already achieved its 2015 cost-cutting goal of €15m by the end of Q3 and further savings were expected in Q4.
Bwin.party reached an agreement last month with UK-listed rival GVC Holdings that would see Bwin.party be absorbed by GVC. Teufelberger said the deal’s paperwork was “well-advanced” and shareholders should receive an update “shortly,” clearing the way for the transaction to be completed as planned early in the new year.
