Sportsbook growth sees Sky Bet Q1 revenues leap 60%
Favourable sports results drives quarterly revenues to £56m as operator sees revenues up across all products
Sky Betting and Gaming reported a 60% year-on-year rise in Q1 2015 revenues following strong customer acquisition during the World Cup and growth in all four verticals.
Sky Bet revenues for the three months ended 30 September 2014 rose to £56m, and speaking to eGaming Review this morning, Sky Bet managing director Richard Flint said the operator had recorded revenue growth across all areas of the business.
“All products have grown in revenue terms and obviously a big chunk of that has been because of favourable sporting results compared to the same period last year,” Flint said.
“Player acquisition during the World Cup was strong and we’ve managed to retain a lot of those players particularly with the focus on our Sky Bet Club which has proven a good retention tool,” he added.
The Alderney-licensed operator recently extended its partnership with software supplier giant Playtech when launching Playtech-powered casino brand Sky Casino.
The casino product, led by Paddy Power’s former head of live casino Tom Murgatroyd, was launched on desktop and mobile in August and Flint said the brand was complimenting its Vegas brand well.
“We’re finding that by having Vegas and Casino we’re able to offer different propositions to different sections of the customer base,” Flint said.
“Casino is targeted particularly at table game players and the bonusing functionality available through the Playtech IMS is particularly appealing to the higher spending customers whereas as Vegas is a more mass-market slots-based proposition,” he added.
Flint also highlighted the success of its Sky Poker brand which eGR last month exclusively reported had posted double-digit year-on-year growth in 2014 with the development of a B2B model also in the pipeline.
“It’s quite differentiated in that it’s UK-focused, you play in pounds, it’s on our own network and is supporting the offline tournaments and TV content,” he said.
“We decided a while ago that we wouldn’t go head-to-head with PokerStars or share liquidity like the Playtech network, but focus on mid-tier UK players with a friendly and easy to use experience with the right levels of liquidity and functionality,” Flint continued.