SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Bet-at-home AG has revised its financial outlook for the remainder of 2023 trading as it continues to face hurdles impacting its sports betting operations.
The board of the Frankfurt Boerse-listed online gambling group now expects full year revenue to be in the range of €44m-48m, around 12% to 3% less than previous projections of between €50m-€60m.
However, EBITDA is expected to be in the ‘upper range’ of a previously announced forecast, which would put the figure between a loss of €3m and a gain of €1m, as the group cites the positive impact of the outsourcing of its customer and betting platforms to a third party partner.
The reasons for the revised guidance chiefly relate to sports betting. Bet-at-home stated that “adverse sporting results, in particular a disproportionate number of favourite wins in the most relevant football leagues negatively impact sports betting margins in the period from August to October 2023”.
Bet-at-home has been part of the Betclic Everest SAS Group since 2009, which is majority owned by pan-European betting and media entertainment conglomerate FL Entertainment.
The Germany-based group’s financial results are therefore included in FL Entertainment’s quarterly and full-year financial statements, which have repeatedly laid bare some of the difficulties faced by the sportsbook.
FL’s H1 interim trading report, published in August, revealed a 5% decline in revenue for Bet-at-home during the first six months of the year. However, this was offset by positive trading for Betclic and for the group’s entertainment businesses, pushing group-wide revenue up 6.8% to €1.92bn.
Meanwhile, Bet-at-home’s own full year report for 2022 detailed similar difficulties, with gross gaming revenue falling by 10% to €53.5m (FY2021: €59.3m), resulting in a net loss of €585,000.
Despite this, the group’s casino division did perform well last year and the group remained confident in its reorganisation efforts and planning to focus on its home market of Germany – the group also holds licences in Australia, Malta and Gibraltar.
Germany is continuing to pose a troublesome market for a number of operators, however. For example, Betsson noted that despite an overall strong performance across Western Europe during Q3 2023, Germany remained an outlier.
The market is continuing to adjust to the regulatory changes of the Fourth Interstate Gambling Treaty (GlüNeuRStv), some conditions of which have been criticised by the German Online Casino Association (DOCV) and the German Sports Betting Association (DSWV).
