Major revenue increase in Q1 for Amaya Gaming

The Montreal-based Amaya Gaming online gambling group has posted a significant rise in revenue and adjusted profit for Q1-2015, principally due to the performance of its $4.9 billion Pokerstars-Rational Group acquisition.

Amaya has been selling or spinning off its non-core subsidiaries in recent months, disposing of B2B operations like Diamond Game, Chartwell Technology, CryptoLogic Limited and Cadillac Jack in deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars . These initiatives will help the company reduce its debt burden, management advises.

Excluding one-time amortisation and acquisition related costs, the company posted an adjusted profit of Cdn$82.5 million, or 41 Canadian cents a share. That compared with a year earlier loss of Cdn$1.3 million, or 1 Canadian cent a share.

Quarterly revenue rose to Cdn$340.1 million, from Cdn$12.8 million, a year ago, whilst net earnings from continuing operations came to Cdn$22.7 million.

As expected, the bulk of Amaya’s revenue in the quarter came from online poker at 94 percent, but the company noted that non-poker activity increased by around 75 percent in the closing weeks of the quarter, a trend that has persisted into the new reporting quarter.

Chief executive officer David Baazov said in his report that there had been continued strength in Amaya’s core consumer online gambling business, with Pokerstars growing its share of the international online poker market, and gross deposits up 9 percent.

It is estimated that Pokerstars controls some 66 percent of the global internet poker market, based on cash game and tournament players in the first quarter, up from 62 percent a year earlier.

Amaya anticipates that new products in the casino and sportsbook verticals will deliver 13 percent of all its revenue this year, which it predicts will be in the range Cdn$1.44 billion to Cdn$1.56 billion.

The diversification into internet casino gambling at Pokerstars and Full Tilt has been assisted by cross-marketing, with over 20 percent of business coming from Pokerstars and 33 percent from Full Tilt, which has offered the casino vertical for longer.

The introduction of a sportsbetting vertical continues, with major developments expected in Q2 and Q3 this year.