23rd Apr 2015 06:58
LONDON (Alliance News) - William Hill PLC Thursday reported a drop in operating profit in the first quarter of 2015 during what the company said has been a slow start to the year, following its largest-ever loss-making week in sports betting in January.
The bookmaker reported a 19% decline in operating profit to GBP16 million in the quarter ended March 31, which it said was hit by a GBP20 million cost from the point of consumption tax and an increased rate of Machines Games Duty.
William Hill also said that sports betting revenue was hit by its largest ever loss-making week in January. It said punter-friendly results in the third week of the 2015 led to a GBP14 million loss.
However, mobile gaming performed well, up 48% to 37% of gaming net revenue. Overall net revenue was up 1%.
The company noted that it has launched in Australia where the migration of Sportingbet customers to William Hill is now complete. William Hill US also continues to perform strongly, it said.
"After a weak January, we saw improved wagering trends over the remainder of the quarter. Online wagering grew 20% in February and March, and 29% for the Cheltenham festival. Gross win margins were below our expected trading range for what is typically a stronger quarter, impacted by - amongst other things - our largest ever loss-making week in Week 3," Chief Executive James Henderson said in a statement.
The bookmaker added that it has started to roll out a '£50 journey' limit on some of its gaming machines, which is on track to be implemented by April 2. It will provide greater scrutiny of customers' staking at higher levels with a view to improve analysis of customer behaviour and identifying potentially harmful customers.
"Looking forward, as the end of the football season draws closer, we have not as yet made up the shortfall arising from the GBP14 million loss in Week 3 given the relatively weak first quarter sports betting margin. Outwith sporting results, we are making good progress on our key projects for the year, including in-house development of our responsive design front-end through Project Trafalgar, an enhanced bonus engine to further increase the competitiveness of our proprietary Vegas casino platform and the completion of our Eclipse machine roll-out in Retail," Henderson said.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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