Intralot Reports Drop in Revenue for H1

Greek gambling company, Intralot, has reported continued decline in revenues by 8 percent for the first half of 2019, earning €378.1 million in income. Despite the drop in proceeds in Europe and eastern territories such as Bulgaria and Turkey, the gaming group from Athens also declared an increase in Americas revenue by 1.6 per cent reaching unpretentious €102.2 million.

The numbers already looked disturbing in June, when Intralot announced financial results for Q1 and a 6 percent fall comparing to the same period of the last year.

At the end of H1, the Greek operator reported operating profits of €76 million, a 16 percent decline when compared to 2018’s €90 million from the same period. Furthermore, the company published an EBITDA decline of 16 percent to €59 million which is an €11 million drop when compared to last year’s €70 million.

Sports Betting Slowing Down?

According to Intralot, there are several reasons for a ten percent revenue drop to €229 million and the group attributes them to FX impacts in Argentina as well as a decrease in sports betting wagers in Eurobet Bulgaria subsidiary.

In addition, the gambling company reported an 8.5 percent decline in management B2B/B2G contracts, claiming that “unfavorable exchanged rates” in Turkey along with “discontinued contract” in Russia and drop in sales in Morocco caused the revenue slip.

Europe is still the group’s target market with revenues at €240.7 million, however, Americas proceeds also rose by 1.6 percent to €102.2 million.

The main source of income for now remains sports betting, totaling 44.9 percent of overall income in H1. A slight increase of 2.5 percent has also been reported in racing.

Sokratis Kokkalis, CEO at Intralot comments:

“We are still absorbing the business impacts of last year’s negative developments, reflect improvement in operating cash flows and liquidity by successfully implementing our three-pillar strategy for operational improvements, new business, and non-core asset disposals.”

One Busy Summer

As a gambling company that supplies integrated gambling, transaction processing systems, game content, sports betting management and interactive gambling services, Intralot had a busy summer, g multiple contracts with operators in several markets.

Starting with La Marocaine des Jeux et des Sports in June, the state sports lottery organization, it entered into an 8-year agreement with the possibility to extend it up to another 2 years.

Under the contract, Intralot Maroc, will continue to offer groundbreaking lottery terminals and software to MDJS, enhancing its performance and players’ omni-channel experience.

The company has also restructured and appointed a new board of directors at its US subsidiary, Intralot Inc, as it entered a new agreement with DC Lottery. Among the new are Thomas Miller, now non-executive chairman and independent director, Daniel Rappaport, non-executive vice chairman and independent director, Nicholas Mitropoulos, independent director, Byron Boothe, director and interim CEO, as well as Nikolaos Nikolakopoulos, director and Intralot group deputy CEO.

Back in July, Intralot signed a contract to provide sports wagering to District of Columbia Office of Lottery and Gaming, known as DC Lottery.

Source:

“Intralot H1 results suffers decline”, Wojtek Malinowski, gamblerspost.com, September 11, 2019.