12-09-2007 Litttlewoods e-gaming division doubles its operating profit

While parent company Sportech continues its transformation to become a gaming business with international reach, Littlewoods e-gaming division, which operates littlewoodscasino.com and littlewoodspoker.com, successfully built upon the improvements made last year by more than doubling its first half operating profit to £1.1m. Gross win increased by 29% to £6.6m, with the total number of active customers up 26% to 23,000.

During the first half of 2007, Sportech's main business Littlewoods Football Pools reported an operating profit of £7.3m, down from £9.0m in the corresponding period in 2006. Before the start of the new football season, Sportech re-launched its footballpools.com portal offering fixed odds games, lotteries, bingo, poker, casino as well as pool betting all in one central website in anticipation of the launch of a new brand expected for early 2008.

CEO Ian Penrose commented: "Our technology partnerships with Scientific Games and Orbis have given us the head start we needed to modernise our technology infrastructure, and to upgrade our online and new media presence. We have initiated the introduction of new and enhanced products as well as making significant progress with opportunities to distribute our products into overseas markets. We look forward to the second half with confidence."