Net casinos come up trumps for Sportech

SPORTECH, the Scottish-registered gaming group, has seen flourishing business at its online casinos and resilient pools sales boost its turnover in the first half of the year.

The firm, established in 2000 after Edinburgh technology firm Rodime bought Littlewoods Gaming, said overall sales came in at 254.5 million in the six months to June 30, "reflecting significant growth in internet casino products".

Sportech, which owns the Littlewoods and Zetters football pools operations, also saw its earnings edge ahead, with pre-tax profit coming in at 5.9m, seven per cent ahead of the same period in 2003.

It added that it was "excited by the opportunities across the breadth of the business".

The company described the performance of its football pools business as "resilient", with operating profit before exceptionals and goodwill of 12.9m, compared with 13m the year before. But sales dropped to 40.2m from 45.7m.

Sportech has undertaken a major relaunch of its pools business over the period and forked out 4m to back it up with an August advertising campaign, which it is hoped will be reflected in the full-year numbers.

Losses at its betting business - including sports betting, fixed odds games and products such as Bet Direct, Littlewoodscasino.com, and Littlewoodspoker.com - were cut to 1m, from 1.6m last time and gross win was up 74 per cent on the previous year.

And within that, Sportech said it was "particularly pleased" with the performance of its internet casino products where the gross gaming win was 4.3m - 170 per cent higher than the year before. However, the star performer was interactive games, where turnover was up almost 300 per cent to 4.6m, driven by the firm’s Game On website.

The company has an exclusive deal with ITV, whereby Littlewoods Gaming is the principal supplier of all the broadcaster’s interactive gaming and betting content. It also has a deal with BSkyB for its Littlewoods Bet Direct service.

Managing director George Rushton said: "I am pleased with the progress made in the first six months of the year. Importantly, we have now established a comprehensive betting and gaming service across the new direct channels, including ITV, providing future growth opportunities for both soft gaming [online casinos] and betting."

And he added: "We look forward to the full launch and marketing of the ITV interactive service [ITVi] next month."

Mr Rushton said the full launch of the ITVi service on October 20 would also "enable the re-theming of games swiftly and at low cost", adding that the initial seven-year deal offered an "exciting medium-term opportunity".

Chairman David Mathewson said that the group’s soft gaming business, which includes the pools, instant win and lottery operations and accounts for the majority of Sportech’s profits and cash flow, continued to trade "in line" with market expectations.

Turnover from soft gaming was 48.5m - 2.9m lower than 2003 - with operating profit, excluding the investment in interactive developments, up four per cent to 13.3m.