Sportsbook leapfrogs poker as Playtech Q3 revenues rise 16%
Strong growth in casino helps mitigate 21% poker revenue decline with bingo also suffering a 6% drop
Playtech reported a 16% year-on-year rise in overall Q3 revenues to 90.6m, in a period which saw sport overtake poker to become the Israeli software supplier’s third largest vertical.
Income from sportsbook services leapfrogged poker despite the three-month period including mobile launches for both Bet365 and Winner on the Playtech’s iPoker network. Poker revenue fell 21% to 3.2m while sportsbook increased 39% to 3.4m.
Revenues from casino increased 24% to 46.8m, representative of more than half of total group revenue for the quarter, while bingo revenue dropped slightly from 4.4m to 4.2m for the quarter although it was flat on a constant currency basis.
Revenue from other services climbed 7% to 28.5m, with July’s acquisition of PokerStrategy contributing towards the increase.
Current trading remains strong, with revenue for the first 27 days of Q4 up more than 12% year-on-year and up more than 5% sequentially.
“Playtech has continued its growth through the third quarter and the management team is confident of achieving market expectations for the full year and beyond,” Mor Weizer, CEO at Playtech, said.
The company’s cash balance remains in excess of 500m and Simon French of Panmure Gordon said its current share price value fails to reflect the upside which could be created from deploying its cash reserves.
Investec analyst James Hollins was more critical of the company’s lack of visibility regarding potential M&A activity, claiming that there should be more focus on poker and bingo verticals where performance has gone backwards. “There is no need for alarm, but no need to buy,” Hollins said in a statement.