Online gambling firm 888 Holdings has pledged increased commitment and activity towards safer gambling, with continuous improvements to be felt across three core areas.
This comes as the company delivers a financial report for the period ending December 31, 2019, which saw a 58.3 per cent drop pre-tax profit to $45.3m (2018: $108.7m) despite group record revenue of $560.3m (2018: $529.9m).
Recently introducing its proprietary safe gambling software, it follows 888 committing to its new corporate social responsibility framework centred around the three key focus segments under its ‘Safer. Better. Together.’ strategy.
Itai Pazner, CEO of 888, commented: “The board is closely monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on 888 and its customers. We continue to recognise that with people spending more time at home and with increased levels of stress and economic uncertainty, 888’s unwavering commitment to preventing gambling related harm is even more important than ever.
“We are proactively communicating with our customers to provide information on safer gambling and, where necessary, offer support. In addition, in recent weeks we have introduced several new alerts to our proprietary safe gambling software, the Observer, which constantly scans all customer activity and flags any potential areas of concern to our highly trained customer care team to act upon in order to prevent harm.
“Underpinned by the strength of 888’s technology, our growing customer base and our talented and committed team, the board continues to see a number of significant and exciting growth opportunities for 888 which we are confident of progressing during 2020 and beyond.”
During the reporting period revenue across 888’s B2C verticals casino increased 13 per cent to $359.3m (2018: $317.6m), sport grew 12 per cent to $90m (2018: $80.3m) and bingo rose 19 per cent to $38.5m (2018: $32.4m) reflecting the contribution of newly acquired brands. Poker revenue decreased 13 per cent to $42.7m (2018: $49m) due to a challenging competitive environment.
Adjusted EBITDA of $85.6m (2018: $107.1m) is said to have been primarily impacted by $25.6m of additional gaming duties, in part reflecting the group’s growth in regulated markets and FX headwinds.
Remaining “confident” of managing its business during the current climate of a purely online operator, the company’s focus for the year is set upon delivering a safe experience for customers as well as appraising and evaluating possible strategic and tactical deals.
Pazner added: “2019 was a year of further strategic progress for 888. During the year, 888 welcomed a record number of new customers – more than a million – to its international brands, launched in new regulated markets with very encouraging initial results, and completed the acquisition of a first-class sports betting platform and team.
“Despite the headwinds of significantly increased gaming duties and challenging conditions in some of our global markets, 888 delivered a resilient financial performance during 2019 reflecting the strength of our unique combination of technology, compliance and diversification across regulated markets. We entered 2020 with a record level of customers and the trends reported in our update on 24 March 2020 have continued in the year to date.”
