Rank confirms Portuguese expansion for YoBingo asset

London-listed Rank Group Plc has confirmed that it will expand its Spanish gambling asset ‘YoBingo’ within Portugal’s regulated online gambling marketplace.

Publishing Rank’s interim trading results last week, corporate governance highlighted YoBingo as a star performer for the firm’s digital division, generating net-gaming-revenues of £13 million combined with an operating profit of £1.6 million.

Issuing a strategic update, Chief Executive John O’Reilly confirmed that Rank had expanded YoBingo provisions by launching supporting domain YoCasino.es, with the company monitoring further Portuguese market opportunities for its Spanish property.

Marked as a core asset supporting Rank’s ongoing corporate transformation programme, YoBingo was acquired in May of last year for €21 million cash transaction.

The acquisition would see Rank secure a ‘top-2 presence’ within the Spanish online bingo market, with YoBingo maintaining a reported 30% of market share.

Paul Richardson, Managing Director, International, at Rank, said: “We are keen to replicate the success of our YoBingo business in other markets and we have identified Portugal as our first target market. We have submitted a licence application which is currently under review by the regulator and we hope to launch in calendar Q1 2020.”