Amaya Revenues Up 6% To $288.7M in Q1 2016

On May 16th, Amaya Inc released its financial results for the first quarter of 2016 revealing a 6% increase in revenues to US$288.7 million compared to the $272.29 million that was collected in the same quarter a year earlier. If not for unfavorable flucuations in the Canadian dollar to the US dollar exchange rate, however, that figure would have been as high as 14%, according to a company statement. Furthermore, Q1’s net earnings came in at $55.5 million, higher by 138.5% compared to the previous year, and commenting on the impressive results, Interim CEO Rafi Ashkenazi (photo) said:
“During the first quarter, we continued to execute on our growth plans despite unexpected challenges, including management changes and the ongoing strategic alternatives process. We attracted new customers to PokerStars, continued to introduce changes to improve the overall poker experience, expanded our online casino offering and continued to invest in our emerging online sportsbook.”
Last month, business continued to improve with Amaya estimating that unaudited revenues amounted to around $96 million in April, up by 11% from a year earlier, with real-money online poker accounting for 77% of revenues, and online casino and sportsbook a further 21% of revenues. The positive Q1 figures and April’s results were subsequently received well by the market, and company shares jumped in early trading, and today are valued at 18.04CAD, up by 7.83% on the day so far.
In the meantime, Amaya said that it was certain that the charges brought against former CEO Baazov by the Quebec financial regulator would not affect its financial outlook. In order to protect the interest of the company and its shareholders, several invested parties, including Baazov, have agreed not to discuss details of the ongoing process, although they said further updates would be provided “as circumstances warrant.”
Finally, Amaya’s PokerStars product launched in New Jersey in March, and has already captured more than half the revenues of the state’s online poker market. PokerStars also now has more than 100 million users worldwide, 2.5 million of which have been classified as active real-money players.