Amaya Gaming Q2 revenues up 10% to $320m

PokerStars and Full Tilt recorded a 10% increase in revenues in the second quarter of the year to CA$320m (£157m) thanks in part to growth in casino, parent company Amaya Gaming reported this morning.

EBITDA was up 24% to $138m (£68m), which Amaya said was driven by the increase in high margin revenue streams including online casino, which rose to 11% of total revenue, offsetting FX headwinds and new gaming duties and VAT.

The Montreal-based gaming giant said revenues would have been up 24% on a constant currency basis and normalising the $6m impact of new VAT charges in some European markets.

On the same basis, Amaya said poker revenues grew 11% YoY during the three month period, boosted by an increase in real-money unique players and depositors on PokerStars.

PokerStars and Full Tilt added 1.9 million new customer registrations in Q2, taking their total player base to 95 million, with 5.7 million active players during the quarter.

Amaya CEO David Baazov said it was “another exciting quarter” for his firm, and that its core poker business remained strong with customers embracing its expansion into new product verticals.

“We’ve completed our transition to a pure B2C technology company having finalized the divestiture of our B2B businesses,” added Baazov.

Amaya divested its remaining B2B assets to NYX Gaming earlier this month and used some of the cash raised for the sale to reduce debts related to its $4.9bn acquisition of PokerStars parent company the Rational Group.

“We substantially reduced our leverage and improved our financial condition. Since the acquisition of our B2C business, we’ve repaid approximately US$529 million of our long-term debt, thereby eliminating an estimated $62 million of related interest expense,” Baazov added.

Amaya’s H1 revenues remained relatively flat (up 5% year-on-year) at CA$657m while adjusted EBITDA increase 12.5% to $279m.