The online betting and sports content group reported a profit before tax of 0.5m, against a loss of 0.9m in 2004, on sales up 30 per cent to 55.5m.
“I am pleased to report trading for the first half 2005 has been strong across all areas of our business,” said Chairman Peter Dubens.
“The period saw particular growth in gaming gross win as a result of increased contribution from higher yield non-sports products namely poker, casino and fixed-odds games.”
Gaming gross win margin increased to 12.3% from 9.9% in H1 2004 due to greater contribution from poker and casino, which more than doubled revenues.
UKbetting had over 308,000 registered users at the end of the period, up 37% from 2004, while content network monthly users rose by 44% to 8.5 million.
“As the cost of gaming customer acquisition and retention continues to rise, ukbetting\’s position of originating its own customers from its sports content network becomes more and more valuable. We have seen a significant increase in \’click-throughs\’ to our own gaming sites as we have taken competitors off, as well as an increase in average spend per user,” said Dubens.
The group\’s content network now delivers 60% of UKbetting\’s gaming customers. As they use the group\’s sites to obtain information for betting, such as scores, form and tips, they spend twice as much as those customers that come from outside the network.
The company, which witnessed a solid growth in the number of customers playing games like poker and backgammon, is planning to introduce a \’single wallet\’ for all the products within the first quarter of 2006.
“At the moment, our casino and poker customers have to re-register and deposit funds to play games that are available to sports-bettingcustomers. Bringing them together should help growth,” said Dubens.
“Our progress in the first half gives us confidence of further development in the second half of the year, notwithstanding our second half performance remaining dependent on favourable sports results,” he concluded.
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