Good and not so good online casino news

This month’s latest online casino news is a mixture of good and bad for three of our major online casino operators. First let’s take a look at the half year figures released by Ladbrokes last week. Although net revenues rose by 6.4% to £563 million in the first six months, operating profits fell by 19.8% and after taking a variety of exceptional costs into consideration overall pre-tax profits were down 48.5% to £55.1 million. Apparently the hot weather in July led to a huge fall in the number of gamblers going into their betting shops, and this coupled with the cost of opening 73 new shops and launching their joint online gambling venture with the online casino software company Playtech, severely affected the half year results. Meanwhile their much bigger rival William Hill further demonstrated their faith in the Australian gambling market by buying another online bookmaker to add to their recent purchase of Sportingbet Australia, despite concerns in some quarters as to the value of that £459 million investment. This time it is tomwaterhouse.com, a somewhat controversial relatively new online gambling company with a costly high profile marketing strategy which despite generating revenues of A$28 million over the past 12 months has yet to make a profit. Our last casino news is also seen as a bit of a gamble by some analysts, and concerns another of Britain’s biggest online casino operators 888 Holdings. Seven years after their total withdrawal from the American online gambling market following their internet gambling ban, 888 Holdings have signed a deal with the owner of Caesars and Bally’s casinos in Atlantic City which would allow them to offer online poker and other online casino games in New Jersey from November 25^th when online gambling in that state is scheduled to return. The US online casino market is of course the golden egg for many online casino operators who have been waiting patiently for the relaxation of the internet gambling laws and estimates of potential revenues from New Jersey alone vary from $250 million to $1 billion, but no one really knows what market share can be achieved or how much it will cost.