Takeover spree adds sales at SportingBet

The company said turnover for the period leapt from £111.5m to £248.1m, though pre-tax losses also rose 50% to £1.5m as administration expenditure grew. Sportingbet's cash position improved by more than £11m to £17.6m, while net stated assets also leapt to £131m, reflecting its enlarged status following the acquisition of Sportsbook and UK firm Sporting Odds, which it acquired in last month.

The group struck a deal with Barclays Bank to provide Sportingbet with bridging facilities to cover the deferred consideration due to be paid to Sportsbook's former owners. Sportsbook has traded above expectations since being bought in July last year, the company said.

Sportingbet FD Andy McIver said: "Its been a fairly quiet quarter but we have made good progress in terms of customer growth and will be fully profitable at the end of the year, some 12 months ahead of expectations."

In a tradionally flat period for sporting events, the company continued to make progress in attracting new customers, entirely by way of organic growth; nearly 50,000 have been added since the end of March. It said the World Cup directly contributed 11,000 new customers and more than 300,000 bets were placed.

McIver revealed that the company is to launch its own peer-to-peer betting exchange in the UK and US in the coming weeks. He said: "We have partnered with Trading Sports in the UK, which is acting as a third-party to bring together other bookmakers into the fray. In the US, we have 500,000 customers, and believe that this user base offers the liquidity needed to operate a peer-to-peer exchange."

Recent attempts to introduce hardline regulation of the online gaming market in the US have been resisted and McIver believes that, for the first time, a pro-online gaming bill will be brought before the House next year.

"I expect this to fail but it will represent an important first step towards liberalisation. Gradually, those congressmen behind the negative bills are finding it harder and harder to find sponsorship. In any case, we are four or five years away from a solution in the US," he said.

Sportingbet recently secured a bookmaker's licence in the UK and has relocated from Alderney to take advantage of changes in gaming advertising laws, allowing it to market its services to the 100,000 UK-based customers it has on its books, as well as other prospective punters.

Shares shed 4.4% to 76.5p, valuing Sportingbet at £117m, a discount to net assets.







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