Betting giant bet365 has reported a 9% rise in group revenue, reaching £3.72bn for the financial year ending March 2024.
The uptick was primarily driven by an 11% surge in sports betting revenue, while iGaming remained stagnant.
Revenue also included £23.8m from football club operations and facilities, primarily attributed to Stoke City Football Club, which was part of bet365’s portfolio during the period.
The operator said the absence of a major football tournament and challenging gaming comparisons from the previous year posed significant hurdles.
Sports betting performance
The group’s gross profit climbed by 4.7% to £3.03bn, while operating profit from sports and gaming rebounded to £396.6m, recovering from last year’s operating loss of £24.5m.
Sports betting emerged as the standout performer, driven by product enhancements, expansion into the US market, and and additional trading week.
Bet365 CEO Denise Coates highlighted the company’s launches in several regulated US states, including Arizona, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.
The operator also expanded its bet builder product to cover sports such as boxing, cricket, F1, and UFC.
Improvements to fantasy offerings and virtual sports, along with the addition of French and Latin American Spanish language support, were also noted as key enhancements during the year.
Gaming stagnation
In contrast to the growth in sports betting, gaming revenue remained flat. Coates explained this performance as being in line with expectations, given the strong prior period results.
She also pointed to market challenges in the live casino segment.
“Live casino has been a strategic priotity over recent years and, as such, we expanded our dedicated table offering in this area,” she said, however.
She also emphasised bet365’s focus on exclusive content and “quality over quantity”, including the rollout of the company’s first free-to-play game with daily prize incentives.
Coates takes a pay cut
The accounts, filed with Companies House on 3 January, also revealed that Coates, one of Britain’s wealthiest women, received a reduced pay package of £94.7m for FY24, a significant drop from the £221m she earned the previous year.
Despite the pay cut, Coates remains one of the highest-paid executives in the UK. She also collected more than half of the group’s £110m dividend payout.
Losing market share “rapidly”
Industry analysts have offered a lukewarm reception to bet365’s results.
“Given that global inflation was around 4% during the period and most online gambling markets managed solid double-digit growth [… ], it is hard to call these topline results anything more than disappointing, in our view,” Regulus Partners commented.
The firm noted a 9% drop in customer funds held by the group, calling it a clear sign of flagging momentum.
“Bet365 still has enviable scale, resources, and betting brand strength,” Regulus noted.
“However, the group keeps managing to grow at single digits in a double-digit growth environment,” the analysts added.
Regulus believes bet365’s stagnation stems from four key challenges: competitor in-play product catch-up, slower adoption of mass market multiples and bet builder bets, an inability to capitalise on post-pandemic gaming growth, and a decline in VIP and grey market contributions.
“In summary, bet365 has run out of in-play growth and has not yet found a similar growth engine for a world in which in-play betting is now a relatively mature commodity,” Regulus warned.
The firm concluded that bet365 is losing market share “dangerously rapidly”, amid increasing competition from rivals like DraftKings in the US and Kaizen Gaming in Brazil.