Ladbrokes Takes A Beating

Published: Thursday, November 17, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

LADBROKES TAKES A BEATING

On-the-money telephone bettors negate good e-gaming results

British betting group Ladbrokes may be thankful that the group's e-gaming operations had a good showing after it was given a beating by informed, telephone betting high rollers on the sports and racing side.

Telephone takings have more than halved through the autumn thanks to some canny bets by folks with big wallets.

Chelsea's victories on the football pitch and jockey Kieren Fallon's brilliant treble on Arc de Triomphe day at Longchamp in October, are two examples where gamblers have had a field day, the company said this week in a trading statement for the four months to the end of October.

Commenting on the overall results Hilton, owner of Ladbrokes, said: "Betting and gaming profit declined slightly as good growth in eGaming [online poker and roulette] was offset by adverse telephone high-roller results and tough retail trading. Telephone betting results were adversely affected by high-roller activity with gross win down 58 percent."

Pretax profits rose 10 percent for the 4 months to Oct. 31, but poor trading at Ladbrokes betting business helped depress a number of gambling stocks.

The statement said that at Ladbrokes, growth in eGaming was offset by adverse telephone results from "high roller" big betting customers and "challenging" trading at its UK retail outlets, where underlying gross win, or the amount gamblers lose, was down.

Morgan Stanley analyst Lou Pirenc said the trading statement was disappointing, with the 10 percent profit growth being below his 17 percent forecast rise, the problem area being betting, especially in telephone betting and the betting-shop estate.