Paddy Power Betfair revenues jump 28% as Betfair Casino reaches breakeven

Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) has reported a 28% jump in US revenues (13% in constant currency) for 2016, as the operator’s Betfair Casino business also made positive strides.

Combined revenues for the US operations reached $111m, with EBITDA up 6%cc to $14.6m.

The profit came largely from the TVG horseracing TV and betting network, which PPB said was increasing its market share and growing at around 9%.

However the Betfair Casino in New Jersey also reached breakeven EBITDA for the first time after a couple years of start-up losses.

Group CEO Breon Corcoran said the site accounted for around 12% of the New Jersey online casino market and was a good starting point should real-money gaming open up across the US.

The firm was less bullish on the New Jersey Exchange, which launched in May, saying: “Whilst the size of that market is limited, it is a good opportunity to test consumer demand for exchange betting and to attract new customers to the overall horseracing betting market.”

Corcoran told investors it was still early days for the exchange, but early results showed it was indeed bringing new customers to horseracing, with 70% of users not already betting into online horseracing pools.

PPB also reported a 6% uptick in customers across all three US platforms, to 139,000.

Paul Leyland of Regulus partners said the PPB US business was still small but offered more in terms of strategic optionality than operational momentum.

“Though given that the businesses are now robustly profitable, this optionality is attractive and can be long-dated,” Leyland added.