Poker Declines In 888 End Of Year Results
24th March, 2010
Large online gaming provider, 888 Holdings has taken a near 30% hit on poker revenues in the last year according to an article from the Financial Times. However they remain confident that they can tap into their well of social players and predict growth in their poker vertical during the second half of 2010.
Poker was the weaker link in their operations, seeing revenue fall 4% with a pre- tax profit drop of 31%.
Gigi Levy, chief executive officer, described poker as a mature market, with its competitors also suffering from falling liquidity. "It's a tough market".
The company has grown a base of two million non-paying poker players through Facebook and Gigi Levy believes that these players can be converted into paying customers, but he declined to give any real details.
The groups B2B arm, Dragonfish saw revenue climb by a third and has announced that the company will be providing casino games to the Italian arm of Bwin.
However, Gigi Levy said that the B2B subsidiary was "moving slower than we had hoped", with some potential clients unwilling to switch to new providers.
Mr Levy was indifferent about the prospect of significant progress on both the regulations or on sector consolidation.
"Everybody is arming themselves with small acquisitions to improve their position," he said. 888 bought Wink Bingo in December.
By Tom
