Playtech’s Brave New World
After disappointing corona-stressed H1 financials, gaming solutions giant Playtech is looking to expand operations in the US and Latin America big time.
The move follows a significant revenue loss caused by the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic, with Playtech’s year-on-year takings, ending June 30, falling by almost a quarter to €564m (£517m/US$668m).
Even an outstanding performance from the firm’s financials division TradeTech could not cover a 13.5 per cent drop in B2B and 41 per cent slump in B2C revenues.
The group’s total gambling revenue for H1 fell 30.8 per cent to €476.7m (£437m/US$564.5m) and it posted a big drop in adjusted profit, €44m (£40.3m/US$52m), compared to €78m (£71.5m/US$92.37m) in H1 2019.
Nevertheless, Playtech Chief Executive Mor Weizer has asserted that the group is in a strong position to recover strongly from Covid-19 disruption.
“This has been an extraordinarily challenging period for the industry,” said Weizer. “But we have added more than 50 new brands and continued our expansion into the US with our first launch in New Jersey and further structured agreements in Latin America.
“The scale of our technology and breadth of our product means we can capture commercial opportunities in the fast-growing US and Latin America markets. And we are accelerating this strategy,” the Playtech chief underlined.
Playtech already has a long-term partnership with Caliente in Mexico and a major hook-up with Wplay in Colombia. This year it signed deals in Guatemala and Costa Rica. And now it’s also looking to expand in Brazil, Argentina and Peru.
And there were further positive H1 indicators.
Bingo and poker performed strongly under lockdown, with Playtech boosting its poker network by signing up 19 brands. IGaming revenue was up 37 per cent and so-called White Label, or franchising, revenue was up 21.4 per cent.
Playtech’s Sun Bingo brand, alone, saw revenue grow over 60 per cent to €28.2m (£25.85m/US$33.4m).
But Playtech’s best performer in H1, beyond doubt, was its TradeTech division, which saw a massive 123.4 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue to €87.3m (£80m/US$103.4m).
