EGR Power 50 2019: 888 Holdings (09)
09. 888 Holdings (08)
FINANCIALS: Group revenue climbed 7% on a like-for-like basis in H1 2019 to $277.3m, driven by strong growth from its UK-facing business
STRATEGY & IMPACT: Has focused much on a mass-market proposition and major product upgrades in casino and poker
GEOGRAPHIC REACH: The firm is uniquely positioned in the US where it is online with poker, casino and sports, and expanding in European regulated markets like Portugal, Italy and Spain
INFLUENCE & LEADERSHIP: Was arguably one of the first firms to pivot away from a VIP, CRM-led casino business to a mass-market entertainment approach
It has now been a long time since 888 started hunting for its own sportsbook technology – EGR had a headline almost exactly to that effect last January – and the firm finally got its wish in March with the £15m acquisition of BetBright. The deal came with some controversy around how BetBright chose to handle open bets following its closure, but the strategic rationale remained intact. 888 got an injection of ‘sports DNA’, as it called it, with a new office of traders and sportsbook ops in Dublin.
The first BetBright-powered 888 sportsbook is due to launch in Sweden in H1 next year, while the platform will be a vital part of 888’s US strategy. The operator is in its second season of sponsoring the NFL’s New York Jets, and is currently on the hunt for a local media partner, although it is taking a typically cautious approach rather than charging in and throwing money at the market.
A huge boost for the business has been the Orbit casino platform, which will be familiar to anyone who has listened to 888 conference calls this year. Casino is without a doubt the standout vertical for 888, in line with its proud history. The vertical represented 67% of B2C revenues in H1 2019, with revenues up a fairly modest 9% YoY, but up sharply in the UK, while both active players and first-time depositors were up double digits.
The success was refl ected in the EGR Casino Operator of the Year award, but it wasn’t quite as smooth a story in other verticals, with poker revenue down 24% year-on-year and B2B revenues down 44%. Part of the drop was explained by the acquisitions of AAPN and the Costa Bingo brands which transferred revenues from B2B to B2C, but there was still a structural slowdown.
Looking ahead to 2020, 888 said it would look to Africa and Argentina as potential new growth areas for bingo, while sports is expected to benefit from the convergence of marketing and trading that comes with operating on your own platform. If the new Poker8 product can do the same for poker as Orbit did for casino, then the only way is up.