Bwin.party Revenue Rises 2% To €217.8m In Q1 2011
May 6, 2011 5:41 amThe world’s largest online gambling company Bwin.Party has recorded a slight increase of 2% in its first quarter earnings to €217.8m ($304.3 million).
In March, Bwin completed a merger with PartyGaming with the new mega-company ‘Bwin.Party’ being valued in excess of $2.1 billion. Bwin.party now offers a range of products, which include bwin, PartyPoker, PartyCasino and Foxy Bingo.
In the first quarter of 2011, the company’s Sports betting revenue was up by11% to €71.6m, while casino and other games also saw their revenue rise by 8% to €64.8m. However, Bingo revenue remained unchanged at €18.3m, while poker revenue slid 14% to €54.0m.
Nonetheless, despite the company’s poker offering suffering a double-digit decline Bwin.Party actually saw its shares soar recently following the US online clampdown on PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker.
Investors were betting on Bwin.Party gaining market share at the expense of these online poker rooms, with CEO Jim Ryan believing that the company could soon see a return to growth in its poker offering. Explaining further, Ryan commented:
“Following steps taken by the U.S. government to enforce its laws, we have seen an uplift in new player sign-ups on our poker sites despite the impact of seasonality. While this represents only a short trading period, it is nonetheless encouraging.”
Prior to ‘Black Friday’ in the US, the ‘Big Three’ poker rooms were able to offer more lucrative prizes due to tapping into the American market, but will now have to compete on a more level playing field.
Since merging in March 2011, Bwin.Party saw 40% of the value of its shares wiped out due to its chief market, Germany, indicating it may introduce a 16% tax levy on sports betting turnover.
However, since then its shares have recovered to just a 27% devaluation for the year, with Bwin.Party shares now falling less than 1% to 150p after the Q1 results were announced.