Online Gambling Firm PartyGaming Feeling Pressures

Published: Friday, August 28, 2009 Online-Casinos.com

PartyGaming's revenues fell during the first half of the year by a fifth due to adverse currency movements, competitive pressures and the consumer slowdown.The company stated however that business in the past three weeks had been strong.

PartyGaming, which operates PartyPoker, posted a 6.5 percent fall in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation, of $60.7 million in the six months to the end of June on revenues 21 percent lower at $201 million vs $255 million. The company pointed out it took a $27 million loss in the movement of the dollar against the pound and euro. PartyGaming's, shares rose by more than a third this year. The group's value was estimated at around $1.78 billion dollars.

Average gross daily revenue was at $1.9 million per day in the last three weeks, up a third on the average for the previous quarter. First-half casino revenues were flat at $89.3 million but poker revenue fell a third to $102.6 million. Sports betting sales fell to $7.7 million from $8.9 million, while bingo sales dropped to $1.7 million from $2.5 million.

Chief Executive Officer Jim Ryan told reporters, "We're quite optimistic that you'll see PartyGaming return to growth in the fourth quarter. This is good progress in what is still a challenging business environment,"

As part of the agreement with the USA Department of Justice PartyGaming said it would pay authorities in that country $105 million over a 42-month period, which resulted in a first-half pretax loss of $66.9 million compared with a profit of $22.7 million in the same period last year. Mr. Ryan stated, "The agreement has put a line under the issue and removed questions about what is going to happen. It has also opened up the capital markets for us and allows us to pursue acquisitions we would otherwise have been unable to go after," PartyGaming acquired Cashcade the British online gambling marketing firm recently.