Empire Online, Slower Business In Quarter 2

Published: Saturday, July 22, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

SLOWER BUSINESS IN SECOND QUARTER FROM EMPIRE ONLINE

Sign-ups are down for online casino and poker room operator as it moves away from US players

The second quarter results from Empire Online operations were released this week, showing a slowdown in new customer signups that could be worrying.

Empire shrugged it off with the comment that it was a seasonal drop in player recruitment figures that operators usually experience. although it admitted that it had been "more pronounced" this year. Part of their slowdown may be that Empire has shifted its client acquisition away from the US - most of its players were recruited from outside the US and the Fifa World Cup had had a more detrimental effect on its sign-up rates than it expected.

The company claims it is "financially strong with considerable cash resources of more than US$260 million (GBP140.5 million)". It added that it was always looking at suitable acquisition targets but had "been hindered by unreasonably high valuations expected by vendors and the uncertainty surrounding the US regulatory environment".

Trading highlights included total net gaming revenue for the quarter of US$18.3 million, compared with US$21.1 million in Q1 2006 and US$25.3 million in Q2 2005. Over 60 percent of new real money players were driven from outside the US, compared with 50 percent in Q1. The number of new real money players across all gaming platforms rose by 29 928 in Q2 2006, from 44 217 in Q1 2006 and 42 772 in Q2 2005.