Bookie ukbetting reduces losses
Online bookmaker ukbetting today said first-half losses narrowed to £1.6m (€2.4m) after a revamp of its gaming websites spurred a 56% hike in turnover.
Ukbetting, which includes TEAMtalk and sportinglife websites among its brands, said the addition of virtual racing and fixed-odds casino games helped to cut losses from the £2.9m (€4.3m) posted a year earlier.
Group turnover improved to £43.1m (€63.4m) in the first six months of 2004 following the relaunch of ukbetting.com and totalbet.com.
The London-based group also saw a 46% jump in interest from punters, with the number of people registered for its sites increasing to more than 225,000.
Turnover from sports content doubled to £7.1m (€10.4m) and benefited from a string of acquisitions at a time when gaming revenues rose 50% to £36m (€52.9m).
Vice-chairman Peter Dubens said: “This is as a result of both organic and acquisitive growth, in addition to careful cost control and focus on margins, particularly in the gaming division.”
But sports results in the past two months had disappointed, which left the group struggling to match the gross win – the money that punters leave behind after they have finished gambling – scored by other firms in the industry.
Mr Dubens said the underlying trends were positive for its ukbetting and Totalbet websites in spite of these challenging trading conditions.
Ukbetting has expanded rapidly over the past 12 months and bought sports content operator Rivals, which includes TEAMtalk, Football365 and Sportinglife in its portfolio, for £2m (€2.9m) in December.
It also bought Oddschecker – a live price comparison service – in the same month for £4.75m (€7m), while a deal for Goldbet took the company into the European gaming market.
Revenues from third party sales of mobile phone and audio content to operators like Orange, along with in-store broadcast services to Asda, Allsports and Moto, showed encouraging growth.
In addition, ukbetting secured exclusive deals to supply official commentaries to the re-launched Attheraces and new Racing UK horseracing channels.
Ukbetting unveiled a boardroom change today with Mr Dubens stepping up to replace non-executive chairman David Sieff at the start of next month.
