Snai sees minor drop in revenues
Revenues down 1.5% as operator takes out 490m loan to repay debts.
Italian operator Snai’s revenues declined slightly for the 12 months ending 31 December 2011, dropping 1.5%, the company announced in its draft financial statements for the year.
Revenues fell from 566.9m in 2010 to 558.5m last year “ a decline in part caused by lower income from sports betting and horse racing. However, video lottery terminals (VLT) revenues helped offset this loss, with EBITDA up 16.5% year-on-year to 74.7m.
Amounts wagered on sports and horse racing, a sector where Snai remains the market leader with a 38.5% share, fell 14.5% for the year, with customers betting a total of 1.3bn in 2011. The fall in revenue in these areas was attributed to a lack of major sporting tournaments, and the ongoing crisis in the Italian horse racing industry which prompted a strike that shut down events for most of January. Revenues in the horse racing sector fell by 50%.
A total of 4.93bn was wagered on all products offered by the group, including bingo, skill games and slots, though the group did not discuss figures for other verticals.
This decline reflects Italian regulator AAMS’ figures for January, which revealed a 71.7% decline in sports betting for the month, and a 54.4% drop in gross gaming revenue for horse racing.
Snai’s debt rose 20.8% to 354.4m for the year, with the company announcing a deal with Unicredit SpA, Banca IMI and Deutsche Bank for a loan of up to 490m in order to pay off the company’s debts and support future business development.
This loan has not been linked to the ongoing dispute between the Italian Ministry of Finance and the country’s 10 gaming machine operators, with the companies fined a total 2.5bn for failure to comply with the terms of gaming machine regulation set by AAMS. Snai reiterated its desire to appeal its 210m fine, and confirmed that its 140m acquisition of rival operator Cogetech “ fined 255m in the case “ has “failed”.