The recent run of poor financial results experienced by leading online gambling companies has been attributed to the huge popularity of the football World Cup. PartyGaming, one of the biggest online gambling operators, whose markets stretch from the UK to as far as Australia from their European base have seen their poker and casino activity take a plunge during the tournament.
The impact has come as no surprise to industry analysts, who have for some time stating that the impact of the World Cup was likely to have a far more dramatic effect on the global online gambling market than the last major tournament held in Germany in 2006.From financial figures released to the stock market yesterday, PartyGaming, the FTSE listed online gambling operator, showed poker revenue down a massive 15% in Quarter 2 from Quarter 1. The number of players actively playing at their poker site was also down 9%, a key indicator that players had other things to occupy themselves with, namely the football.
The World Cup has also had an impact on PartyGaming’s online casino product which comes as some surprise given the recent launch of a number of new and popular online pokies on their casino platform.
Commenting on the recent results, PartyGaming CEO Jim Ryan…
“We are pleased with the relative robust performance of our business.”
However, whilst Ryan has little choice but to sell PartyGaming’s results to the market, it’s apparent that all may not be running as planned within the PartyGaming stable of products. The announcement that revenue for their sports betting product was down 7%, despite the World Cup indicates not only a major failure by Ryan and his team to cross sell the World Cup to existing PartyGaming poker and casino players, but also a failure to compete with other operators, a failure that calls into question the long ability of the PartyGaming sports betting operation to generate significant profits for the group in its current format.
Other global gambling operators are expected to take a hit to the bottom line as well, but much depends on the location and markets that the companies operate in. European operators are expected to take the brunt of the downfall, with operators in certain markets such as Australia and Asia left almost unaffected due to the fact that most of the action is occurring during the night.
Source: OnlinePokiesClub.com: For the latest information on the online gambling sector. Latest news: Free pokies added to the site and available to play in instant play mode.
Tags: Financial Results, gaming industry finance reports, partygaming
This entry was written by Nena on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Blog, News.
