Consumers spent $172.6m betting on sports during the month, down 2.7% from $177.4m in April 2022 and also 25.8% behind the $232.6m wagered in March of this year.
Of this total, $157.5m was wagered online, while the remaining $15.1m was bet with retail sportsbooks across the state.
The profit will be donated to the Support Ukraine initiative, which provides humanitarian aid to displaced Ukrainians living in the UK as well as their families abroad.
The final donation total will be confirmed on 15 May, following the Eurovision finale.
“We will be pledging 100% of our profits made on the Eurovision market to the brilliant Support Ukraine charity,” William Hill spokesperson Lee Phelps said. “If you place a bet on the Eurovision market this weekend, Ukraine will win regardless of if customer bet slips are successful.”
“We must not forget the disasters Ukrainians are still battling through, and the continued support Ukrainians require both in their home country and for those who have sought refuge here in the UK.”
A spokesperson from Support Ukraine said that the donation will go towards much-needed supplies and support.
“We are immensely grateful for all the support Ukrainians have received from the UK and British people, and for their grand offer to host Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine,” said the spokesperson.
“The money will help provide necessities to those effected on or near to the front line and de-occupied territories, including medical aid such as medicine and much needed medical evacuation vehicles.”
The Provisional Measure (PM) was adopted by Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and signed by the Ministries of Finance, Planning, Management, Health, Tourism and Sports.
Once signed by President Lula, the PM will be published by Brazil’s government and will be enacted for an initial maximum period of 60 days, before it can be extended for another 60 days.
A 16% tax on gross gaming revenue (GGR) will be payable by licensed operators. Percentages of this will be distributed to public health initiatives and anti-match-fixing initiatives.
In total, 2.5% will be given to the National Fund for Public Security. Elsewhere, 1.6% will go to sports clubs and 10% to social security. The Ministry of Sports will receive 1% and education initiatives 0.8%.
Players will be subject to 30% income tax on winnings, which will be capped at R$2,112 (£344/€395/$429).
Brazil’s Ministry of Finance will be responsible for regulating sports betting in the country, holding responsibilities for advertising and setting fines for those who infringe upon the regulations. Those under the age of 18, people with ties to sports organisations – including athletes – and bookmaker employees will not be allowed to place bets.
The Ministry will be aided by the appointment of a new secretariat, the Special Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil of the Ministry of Finance, which will assess whether operators meet the conditions for a licence.
A law has been in place to regulate sports betting in Brazil since 2018, but this was not advanced by then-president Jair Bolsonaro.
Earlier this week, Hugo Baungartner gave his thoughts on what Brazil’s regulated market might look like on iGB’s World Series of Politics podcast.
John Pollard, co-CEO of Pollard, said that the results “reflected the underlying strong demand” for Pollard’s products in the first quarter of the year.
“We are very optimistic this demand will continue and believe our strong partnership with our lottery and charitable gaming customers will allow us to help them continue to grow and generate significant funds for their good causes,” he said.
Pollard noted ongoing issues with Pollard’s instant ticketing system, which saw its margins negatively impacted by challenges that occurred throughout 2022.
“As previously noted, major challenges in our instant ticket business continued, as the accumulated effect of significant cost increases on our major inputs – paper, ink, packaging, freight – during 2022 fully impacted our margins this quarter,” Pollard said.
Most of the revenue came from Pollard’s US segment, which generated $81.4m of the total. International revenue totaled at $28.3m, while Canada made up the remaining $14.7m.
In terms of Pollard’s product lines, revenue from its lottery segment was $92.2m. Charitable revenue was $18.6m, while revenue from egaming systems made up the remaining $13.7m.
The cost of sales for the quarter was $107.5m, a rise of 16.4% yearly. This brought the gross profit for the quarter to $17.1m, down by 20.8%.
Administrative expenses totaled at $13.4m, while selling expenses came to $4.6m. Other expenses came to $100,000. Equity investment income at $8.6m offset this slightly, bringing Pollard’s total income from operations to $7.6m.
Foreign exchange gain at $200,000, alongside interest expense at $2.7m, brought Pollard’s pre-tax income to $5.1m.
Following income taxes of $300,000, the total net income for the year was $4.8m, a 25% reduction from Q1 2022.
The earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) totaled at $18.4m, a slight dip from the $19.5m reported in the first quarter of 2022.
Zeal’s management board said that the first few months of the year had been successful, stating that the year had gotten off to a “positive start”.
“Following a successful 2022, during which we achieved ambitious growth targets and important milestones for the expansion of our business, 2023 has also got off to a positive start with some significant developments,” said the Zeal board.
During the quarter, Zeal co-founder Marc Peters stepped down from his role on the company’s supervisory board and Zeal’s ventures division invested in Circl Gaming, a games start-up.
The Zeal board said the investment in Circl Gaming had come at a “crucial” time in the market.
“The development of the gaming industry has been gathering pace in recent years and given rise to numerous visionary technical innovations,” the board noted. “This is crucial for our sector, as the future of the market is online.
“We are therefore looking forward to working together with Circl and sharing ideas for an even more diverse gaming and entertainment experience in the future.”
Zeal also noted the importance of its subsidiary, Lotto24 AG, receiving a slot licence from Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL). This occurred two weeks after the quarter ended.
The results benefitted from other operating income, which came to €200,000. However, expenses negatively affected the revenue.
Marketing expenses hit €7.0m, while direct operating expenses were recorded at €2.7m. Indirect operating expenses were also €2.7m. In total, this added up to €12.5m, an increase of 1.3%.
Personnel expenses for the quarter were €5.0m, a rise of 23.4% year-on-year.
Exchange rate differences accounted for €16,000.
This left the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at €9.3m, a rise of 4.3%.
Following amortisation and depreciation costs at €2.1m, the total before earnings before interest and tax was €7.1m, a rise of 4.9%. A financial results cost of €293,000, plus share of loss from associates at €38,000, brought the pre-tax income to €6.7m.
After income tax of €2.4m, the net profit for the quarter totalled at €4.3m, a decrease of 12.6%.
NeoGames characterised the results as maintaining momentum it carried from the end of 2022 into Q1 2023. Chief executive Moti Malul highlighted a number of the business’ achievements during the quarter.
“In ilottery, our proprietary games from NeoGames Studio continued to perform strongly across all of our key accounts and, together with the jackpot runs early in the quarter, have contributed to strong performance in the US,” he said.
“We are also proud to note that our customer, the Virginia Lottery, recently became the first US lottery to operate a completely cloud-based ilottery programme.”
For NeoGames’ gaming solutions divisions, Mulul pointed to its BtoBet B2B sports betting subsidiary that processed an all-time high of one billion bets during March. The executive also highlighted the work achieved by the company’s igaming content provider business PariPlay during the quarter.
In the three-month period PariPlay went live with 12 operators including DraftKings and signed another 10 deals, including one with Swedish operator Betsson.
“Equally exciting as the developments across all of our business units is the impact they had on our financial results,” Malul added.
“Our revenue grew 187% year-over-year and we were able to maintain EBITDA margins above 30% across the company operating segments. We look forward to building off this strong first quarter throughout the balance of the year and beyond.”
The company’s large year-on-year increase in revenue, which rose to $64.2m from the $22.4m the business achieved in the same period of the previous year, reflected “primarily” the business combination with Aspire.
Completed in June 2022, the $423.5m deal saw the business merge with the igaming solutions provider, then CEO Tsachi Maimo becoming company president and leading the newly formed igaming division. This igaming segment reported $35.1m in revenue in the first quarter of 2023.
The business’ ilottery segment – which was not affected by the acquisition – grew 8.7% on an annual basis to $14.4m from $13.3m.
On total revenue, the business announced an adjusted EBITDA of $20.2m, a 136.8% rise from the $8.5m the company reported pre-merger in Q1 last year.
Ultimately, NeoGames reported a net loss of $900,000 for the three-month period, representing zero movement from the $900,000 loss the company reported the previous year.
The company said that the loss this year was principally the consequence of share impacts from the amortisation of intangible assets related to the Aspire acquisition. The business saw a $13.6m hit from depreciation and amortisation costs in the quarter.
The supplier also said that interest rates resulting from the merger also hit the impacted NeoGames’ bottom line in 2023. These costs stood at $5.3m for the three-month period ending 31 March.
Other costs also made an impact on the company’s balance sheet. NeoGames reported a nearly 100% increase in distribution expenses, which rose from $2.5m in Q1 2022 to $23.4m.
During the three months to 31 March, Raketech said it continued to pursue its strategy for profitable growth across affiliation marketing, as well as its sub-affiliation, and betting tips and subscriptions segments.
While the latter experienced a decline in revenue, growth across the two other segments meant revenue for the whole group was up year-on-year, with the business on track to achieve its full-year guidance.
Excluding acquisitions, revenue is expected to reach between €60.0m and €65.0m, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) is forecast to be in a range of €20.0m to €24.0m.
“The strong result was mainly generated within our core, high-margin segment, affiliation marketing,” Raketech chief executive Oskar Mühlbach said. “Based on the successful start of the year, we remain confident around our full-year guidance.
“Considering the strong start of the year, we are confident reiterating our previously communicated revenue guidance for the full year.”
Breaking down segmental performance in Q1, affiliation marketing revenue was 31.9% up year-on-year to €10.8m, representing 68.1% of all revenue. Raketech noted “exceptional” results from the Rest of World market, driven by Casumba and OnlineCricketbetting, while its flagship assets in the Nordics also delivered in line with expectations.
Sub-affiliation revenue also increased 46.3% to a record €2.6m, with the majority of growth attributed to strong results from network sub-affiliation in South America. This area of the business accounted for 22.7% of total revenue in Q1.
Revenue from betting tips and subscriptions declined 30.9% to €1.4m, representing 9.2% of overall quarterly revenue. Raketech said this was due to lower results from its win-share component, which is based on its sport betting predictions.
Upfront payment accounted for 41.4% of all Q1 revenue, while revenue share agreements contributed 34.7%, flat fee 14.8% and betting tips and subscriptions 9.1%. Splitting revenue by gambling type, casino revenue was €12.0m and sports betting €3.8m.
In terms of geographical performance, the Rest of World segment generated €7.5m, a rise of 79.9% on the previous year. Nordics revenue increased 6.9% to €5.8m, but Rest of Europe revenue fell 15.0% to €568,000 and US revenue was down 21.7% to €1.9m.
Raketech also noted a 54.4% increase in the number of new depositing customers to 54,846.
Looking at spending during Q1, total operating expenses were 26.3% higher at €12.0m, with costs up in all areas. After also including €809,000 in finance-related costs, this left a pre-tax profit of €3.0m, up 20.0% year-on-year.
Raketech paid €119,000 in tax for the quarter and also accounted for €87,000 in deferred tax, meaning it ended Q1 with a net profit of €2.8m, a 27.3% rise from €2.2m last year. In addition, reported EBITDA was 20.1% higher at €6.1m.
Condou officially began her new role on 2 May, having joined OPAP after a two-and-a-half-year spell with Unilever.
An experienced executive, Condou also spent over two years as head of human resources with Minerva, as well as almost 11 years with global healthcare business Sanofi, serving in a number of roles including HR business partner for Greece, Cyprus and the SECE MCO region.
Earlier in her career, she worked at drinks giant Diageo for over four years, including a spell as its financial planning and reporting manager, while she also spent time as a consultant for financial advisory services group Deloitte.
“Achillia has a diverse professional background with a career of more than 20 years,” OPAP said. “She brings valuable experience, expertise and best practices related to the promotion and management of change, the development of high-performing teams and the evolution of our corporate cultures and values.
“The company is welcoming Achillia to the OPAP team and wish her good luck and success in her new role.”
The appointment comes after OPAP in March reported a year-on-year increase in revenue and net profit in its 2022 financial year, with growth across all core business divisions.
OPAP said the return of ordinary retail operations following the removal of all remaining pandemic-related restrictions, as well as expansion within its online business, helped drive growth across the group.
The business is due to post its first-quarter results later this month.
The total was 34.0% higher than the £34.7m pledged in the previous financial year, with the charity noting that the four main operators in the UK – Flutter, Bet365, Entain and William Hill – contributed to 92% of all donations in the year to 31 March.
The amount pledged by the quartet reached £42.9m, with each of the operators having committed to donating 0.1% of their gross gambling yield each year. This rate is due to increase to 1.0% for 2023-24.
Flutter donated more than any other operator, pledging £18.0m across a number of brands during the year. Paddy Power Betfair and Sky Betting & Gaming each donated £8.2m, while Tombola pledged £943,133 and PokerStars £650,000.
Entain followed with £15.2m in donations from its Ladbrokes Coral brand, then Hillside, the operator of Bet356, with a total donation of £5.0m, split into smaller pledges of £2.4m, £1.7m and £907,000.
William Hill donated £4.6m, while Camelot UK Lotteries, operator of the UK National Lottery, committed £445,000 and Betfred £194,633.
Other stand-out pledgees included Rank Group, which donated £392,464 to the charity. This was split between a £196,605 donation from Rank Interactive, £122,967 Mecca Bingo and pledges of £22,106 and £50,786 from Grosvenor Casinos.
In addition, 888 pledged £190,000 and BetVictor £188,772.
“As the leading independent charity and strategic commissioner of gambling harm prevention and treatment across Great Britain, funding is key to ensure the effective delivery of the National Gambling Support Network and our many other programmes of work to address and prevent gambling harm,” GambleAware chief executive Zoë Osmond said.
“We welcome government plans to introduce a statutory levy as outlined in its gambling white paper, which will help provide stable funding. We hope that changes will be made swiftly, as any significant delay in moving to the statutory levy risks slowing down the pace at which we have been, and plan to continue, transforming prevention and treatment services as outlined in our five-year organisational strategy.”
The quarterly telephone survey is to be the final edition of the statistics compiled by the regulator, with the Commission planning to replace it with a “new Gambling Survey for Great Britain”. The first version of which is due to be released in November of this year.
The data – which is conducted on behalf of the GC by Yonder Consulting – consists of a nationally representative sample of 4,002 adults aged 16 or over interviewed via telephone in March 2023.
Overall, there was little significant change in the number from those reported in the survey that was supervised by Yonder in the same period the previous year.
The headline problem gambling rate, as measured by the short form Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), remained statistically stable at 0.3%. While this is 0.1% higher than the 0.2% reported in the prior period, the small sample size means that there is little statistical difference between the numbers.
The moderate and low risk rates also remained statistically stable at 1.2% and 1.8% respectively compared to March 2022. Nevertheless, the number was higher in absolute terms than last year, which correspondingly measured the risk rates at 0.9% and 1.4% of the total adult population.
The in-person gambling participation rate also was stable compared to the March 2022 period at 27%. However, this is still significantly below the 35% who answered positively to the survey in the pre-pandemic period.
The online gambling participation rate also demonstrated little difference from the same period last year, with 26% of all UK adults joining in on the activity. This result also matched the 26% reported in March 2022.
The telephone survey is set to be replaced by a new National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) developed methodology. Following a May 2022 pilot, the Commission approved the project, despite some criticisms that the new survey oversampled problem gamblers.
As the body responsible for conducting the data collection effort from 2016, Yonder released a report examining the key trends over the lifetime of the survey.
Yonder highlighted that, while there had been some variations in participation over the period, there was not a “dramatic or sustained” increase in overall gambling participation, with rates being “significantly higher” in 2016 versus 2022 and 2023.
In-person gambling activity was greatly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with rates yet to return to pre-pandemic levels – especially for lottery participation.
Online has now replaced in-person as the most frequent method of National Lottery ticket purchase. Individuals aged 65 and over still prefer buying tickets in-person as opposed to online methods.
The participation in online gaming has grown steadily over the seven-year period, with older age groups experiencing the largest increases. Although men are more likely to bet online than women, both groups have seen an increase in participation over the period.
One negative trend that can be clearly seen is that the proportion of individuals stating that gambling is conducted fairly and can be trusted peaked at the beginning of the period, before continuing on a downward trajectory. Trust notably saw significant lows from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020 before becoming “relatively stable” in the subsequent period.
On a more positive note, the period from the end of 2020 onward saw the proportion of those queried classified as moderate and low risk significantly fall. The proportion of problem gamblers peaked in Q3 2016 and has stayed “relatively stable” since.
