The Paddy Power website is known for providing online sports betting, casino games, virtual sports, a poker room and more. However, with the first quarter of 2018 over and done with, it’s time for platforms to publish their financial reports. As it stands, Paddy Power Betfair is the latest one to announce its revenue and such, doing so while in a conference call with investors yesterday morning. Alas, when compared with the results of some other online gambling sites, the Paddy Power report isn’t quite as positive as hoped.
With just a few exceptions, the platform’s financial numbers were, across the board, considerably down. The year-on-year revenue for example, saw a two percent fall, standing at £408 million for the first quarter of the year. A swift rebuttal from company executives was quick to point out that this figure did remain flat under the constant currency rates. The revenue changes for each sector saw a rise of three percent as far as sports betting is concerned. A vast rise in revenue from the US market was also reported. However, the site’s Exchange, Gaming and Retail sectors were problematic with various downfalls.
Further to this, the underlying Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) was down by eight percent though, which is the company’s weakest overall quarter since the merger between Paddy Power and Betfair back in 2016. The CEO of the gambling site, Peter Jackson spoke of the results as being “disappointing”, although he maintains an optimistic outlook for the entire year. He went on to state that Paddy Power Betfair expects a year underlying EBITDA of somewhere around $470 million to $495 million.
What Is Affecting Paddy Power Betfair Figures?
Even though the first quarter results of 2018 aren’t what Paddy Power Betfair was hoping for, there doesn’t appear to be one particular thing affecting the numbers. In actuality, the company has only just recently completed integrating both halves of the infrastructure – those being the Paddy Power side and the Betfair side. These two companies started their £5 billion merger a couple of years ago and this particular process has taken a bit of a strain on several technology resources. These resources are expected to soon return to customer-facing products.
Jackson has cited the integration procedures as being somewhat responsible for the sluggish figures of the first quarter of this year. However, with the merger of the infrastructures finally being completed, he believes that the result of such will have a positive impact on end-of-year records. He also said that customer feedback has been positive on all areas of the platform, including the online poker room.
As well as this, Paddy Power Betfair aims to insert itself into the US market on a stronger level. There’s hope for a positive outcome of the US Supreme Court passing sports betting laws, which will prove to be a great boost for online gambling sites. As it stands at the moment, the company has Betfair Casino in action in New Jersey, as well as online horse betting via TVG, and the platform known as DRAFT – providing daily fantasy sports for players. Alas, there are hopes for the company to continue expanding across the country if things become more favourable in terms of legislation.
