SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The management of Betfred has declared that it looks forward to a year of no business interruptions, helping its retail and online units benefit from normalised trading environments.
Publishing its consolidated 2020/2021 financial report on Companies House, the Manchester betting group registered group profits after tax of £6m.
The bottom-line result was matched against 2019/2020’s profits of £204m – a period in which Betfred had benefitted from a £100m FOBTs tax credit refund.
Year trading saw group revenues maintained at £525m, despite Betfred registering a peak turnover of £6.9bn (2019/2021: £6.4bn).
Though group wagering amounts increased, Betfred stated that performance was dragged due to “pre-exceptional EBITDA in the group’s LBOs (licensed betting offices) for the period has decreased due to Covid-19 as a result of the temporary closure of shops from November 2020 to April 2021.
A breakdown of expenses, saw Betfred pay £113m in taxes, with outlays attributed to £64m in betting duties, £30m in LBO machine duties and £8 towards the statutory betting levy.
Gross profit from revenues remained static at £412m (2019/2021: £410m) – as year trading saw Betfred absorb administrative expenses totalling £429m.
Despite registering significant administrative expenses, Betfred’s balance sheet remained in the black as the group accounted for £50m operating income from external investments.
The Companies House filing declared Betfred’s operating profits at £26m, matched against the £104m results registered during 2019/2020 tax year.
Betfred continues to ‘closely monitor’ the performance of its retail unit, in which the group reduced its portfolio of licensed betting shops (LBOs) from 1530 to 1470 during the past financial year.
