Stockholm-listed online gambling group Betsson AB has published its 2020 interim results, revealing record revenue despite the COVID-19 crisis. 

Betsson saw Q2 revenue come in at SEK 1.532bn (€150m), up 20% year-on-year, with the group’s online casino properties responsible for 84% of that, a growth of 40%. This helped offset a 34% fall in Q2 sportsbook revenues, which amounted to some SEK 226m. 

Operating income for the first half of the year was SEK 478m (€46m), up 6% on the H1 2019, while closing H1 trading Betsson reported a year-to-date net income of SEK 422m (€40m), up 5% year-on-year.

During the period the Betsson saw several significant events, completing the acquisition of GiG’s B2C vertical, and announcing entries to the US (Colorado) and Kenyan markets.

Reflecting on the group’s performance, President and CEO of Betsson AB, Pontus Lindwall, said:

“We responded quickly and decisively to make changes in our offer, and I am particularly pleased to see the strong performance in casino.

“Sports betting revenues continued to be impacted in the second quarter by the pandemic as expected, however benefited from the progressive return of football and other sporting events at the end of the quarter. Our business has remained financially robust and resilient to this impact, being both diversified and flexible.”

The company has said that things are looking strong for Q3 2020, with daily revenue 35% higher than average, but has sounded a note of caution regarding regulatory environments in key markets. 

Specifically, the company is facing higher tax burdens in Denmark, a payment ban in Norway, the suspension of online gambling in Latvia, and most worrying of all, the controversial emergency gambling restrictions in Betsson’s home market of Sweden. 

Regarding the situation in Sweden, Lindwall said:

“During this pandemic, governments have been modelling a range of scenarios of potential impact, several governments took immediate temporary actions on our industry such as either suspending gambling both offline and online or implementing restrictions on marketing. 

“In the beginning of the third quarter, when most countries had removed Corona-related restrictions, Sweden sadly enough implemented restrictions on online casino, without empirical evidence. This measure will, unfortunately, push even more consumers to play outside of the Swedish regulation.”

AYO.NEWS says:

With Betsson’s extensive online casino offering, it was well-placed to ride out the COVID-19 storm compared to operators more exposed to sports betting. However, as we’ve been cautioning for some time, the crisis looks to be far from over and a second wave of infections later in the year could result in more lockdowns, and more severe economic disruption. But, as Pontus Lindwall highlighted, the biggest threat to successful operators like Betsson is most likely politicians rather than the virus.

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