SBC News Gambling.com maintains momentum against COVID-19 impacts

Gambling.com maintains momentum against COVID-19 impacts

Gambling.com Group has praised its ability to overcome the challenges posed by the global pandemic, reporting a ‘record performance’ during Q2 2020.

Publishing its interim results for the period April – June 2020, Gambling.com declared revenues of €5.69 million, up from €4.42 million in Q2 2019, marking an 29% increase.

Total revenue for the six months from January – June totalled €9.5 million, down 2.2% from €9.7 million in the corresponding period last year which was largely due to ‘COVID-19 postponements and cancellations of most sports events’.

Revenue from sports betting marketing accounted for approximately 6% of total revenue inQ2, having contracted by 23% quarter-over-quarter according to Gambling.com.

Meanwhile revenue from casino or other non-sports betting gambling marketing saw ‘improved demand’ during the period, growing by 66% quarter-over-quarter.

Revenue from casino or other non-sports betting gambling marketing accounted for approximately 94% of total revenue in the second quarter.

Charles Gillespie, Gambling.com CEO, said: “The Group delivered a record performance in Q2 in terms of revenue, EBITDA, casino NDCs and earned NDCs despite pausing media buying and virtually no sporting events.

“The decline in sports revenue was offset by increased demand for other online gambling products like casino and poker. We attribute this increased consumer demand to a variety of factors including the closure of land-based gaming facilities, restriction on movement and substitution demand from sports bettors unable to wager normally. We expect to see increased adoption of online gambling products persist post-pandemic.

“The net effect of all this is that online gambling in general has accelerated its adoption and take up of the overall share of the global gambling market. There is no reason to suspect a reversal of this trend.”

“Our strategy to scale OPEX to invest in superior products and best in class technology clearly bore fruit in the quarter with significant improvements in search performance, monetization and operational efficiency.”

For Q2, new depositing customers (NDCs) increased from 19,487 in 2019 to 24,986. In comparison, NDCs for H1 saw a drop from 46,752 to 41,082.

Gambling.comalso reported a 256.9% increase in operating profit for Q2, rising from €856,000 in Q2 2019 to €3.1 million in 2020. H1 2020 profits were also up when compared to 2019, rising by 47.4% from €2.4 million to €3.48 million.

Addressing regulatory challenges, the affiliate highlighted the pending changes in the UK regarding the introduction of online stake limitations and the recently introduced ban on credit card gambling – predicting that the UK market will eventually be overshadowed by the US.

It added: “The Group anticipates that stake limitations would have a detrimental effect on the regulated industry including for performance marketers whilst the ban on credit cards will have only a limited negative impact.

“In the absence of detrimental regulatory changes, the Group expects the UK market to remain the most important regulated online gambling market in the world until eventually being overtaken by the US market.

“The UK Gambling Commission has been very active in enforcing marketing regulations with hefty penalties having been levied on operators for non-compliance. Some of the non-compliant activities related to marketing have been linked to affiliates and, as a result, many UK-facing operators have reviewed their marketing partnerships.

“The Group looks favorably on the increased compliance focus, has not been involved in such non-compliant activities, and retains strong long-term relationships with the major UK operators.”

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