Steep rise in pre-tax profits for Bet365 in fiscal 2015

Wednesday 30th of September 2015

Bet365, the online betting firm that also owns Stoke City football club, announced a 26.4 percent rise in pre-tax profits to £410.2m for the year ended 31 March 2015. Revenues were up 15 percent to £1.47 billion ($2.22 billion) after amounts wagered on sport rose by a third to exceed £34 billion ($51 billion).

In-play betting boomed, accounting for 75 percent of total betting turnover, and mobile increased by 59 percent year-on-year.

The number of active gamblers rose 43 percent to 4.1 million, with 2.3 million new customers signing up in the period.

The privately-held company did not break out casino revenue, but did confirm that revenue from its Playtech-powered poker channel increased by 3 percent, with most new customers being acquired by the mobile channel. The launch of a new bingo product also helped boost revenue for that vertical by 44 percent.

The group paid its owners (the company is half-owned by Denise Coates and a quarter-owned by her brother John), a £75m dividend, down from £95m a year before. It also made a £10m donation to its charitable foundation which has donated to cancer sufferers in Stoke, to Oxfam and the aid effort after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Bet365 was already paying tax in the UK on its online bets, so has not been adversely affected by the new point-of-consumption tax that is levied on companies with offshore gambling hubs.

However the company has relocated its overseas gaming operations to Gibraltar to simplify its licensing status as it expands into several foreign territories. It reportedly expects to have gaming licenses in 12 countries shortly.

Meanwhile, Stoke City, a Premier League football club, made a £800,000 profit in the period, compared with a loss of £5m for 2014.

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