Fortuna reports online growth as chairman stands down
Industry veteran Wilf Walsh announces his departure as Czech betting firm sees 19% rise in online gross win
Czech betting firm Fortuna Entertainment posted 19% growth in online gross win for the first three months of the year after revealing chairman Wilf Walsh is to stand down early next month.
Fortuna reported a 19% year-on-year increase in Q1 2014 online sports betting gross win to 16.2m, the first time online performance had rivalled that of the firm’s retail betting business.
The revenue growth, however, couldn’t prevent a 17% fall in overall EBITDA, which CEO Radim Haluza attributed to unfavourable sporting results in January.
EBITDA stood at 9.4m for the period with sports betting EBITDA down 16.9% year-on-year and lottery EBITDA remaining largely flat.
“In the first quarter of 2014, the company continued in a strong growth of amounts staked and we accepted 165.9 million of bets, which is 17.5% more than last year,” Haluza said.
“The amounts staked grew double digits in all our key markets, primarily driven by online betting expansion. The number of registered users exceed a half million in the first quarter of this year which is 40% more than a year ago,” he added.
The firm also revealed its chairman Wilf Walsh would stand down in June.
Industry veteran Walsh first joined Fortuna in April 2009 and has served as the firm’s chairman since then, combining the role with his duties as an operating partner at leisure consultancy firm Global Leisure Partners.
Walsh spent more than seven years at Gala Coral as managing director, and still stands on the group’s board as a non-executive director.