Bet-at-home Q3 profits slide 27%
Substantial increases in taxes and marketing expenditure hit profits despite an 11% rise in revenues
Bet-at-home today reported a 27% year-on-year fall in Q3 profits after an uptick in revenues failed to cancel out a double-digit rise in both gambling taxes and marketing expenses.
According to a trading update released this morning, the Betclic Everest Group subsidiary’s EBITDA for the three months ended 30 September was 6.1m, down from 8.4m during the same period last year.
Profits at the Frankfurt-listed company were hit by a 74% rise in betting fees and gambling levies, while the company also upped its marketing spend from 9.6m in Q3 2014 to 11.7m this year.
However, the operator’s gross betting and gaming revenues showed positive momentum during the quarter, increasing 11% year-on-year to 30.7m, after signing new sponsorship deals and expanding into new markets.
Bet-at-home’s investor relations manager Klaus Fahrnberger told eGaming Review the operator was pleased with its current performance, with the firm’s profits 28% ahead on a nine-month reporting basis.
“The growth mainly results in the optimisation of our marketing mix, as nowadays we are able to generate more customer returns by lower expenses,” Fahrnberger said.
“We are proud having increased our bottom line results, in spite of new VAT rules for electronic service providers in the European Union, which led to an increase in VAT payable on sales by 5m in the first three quarters of 2015,” he added.
During the quarter bet-at-home became the main sponsor of Bundesliga football club Hertha BSC and in August was also one of the first recipients of an Irish sports betting licence.
Bet-at-home’s share price was up 6% to 93.70 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) at the time of writing.