Strong digital growth for Tatts

Following a strong performance by its digital operations in fiscal 2015-2016, Australian betting group Tatts is to focus on the faster enhancement of the channel to offset disappointing results in other divisions of the company.

On Thursday Tatts reported a 7.2 percent fall in annual profit for 2015/16 to A$233.8 million, adversely affected by long-running pokies compensation litigation and a loss on the sale of its UK slots business, Talarius.

Tatts had to repay A$540.5 million plus interest to the Victorian government after losing a compensation battle, and took a A$12.8 million loss on the Talarius sale.

CEO Robbie Cooke said in a statement that the underlying business remained strong, with net profit from continuing operations rising 3.8 percent to A$263.4 million on strong digital sales and a significant rise in revenue from lotteries.

“We are achieving online growth never accomplished in the business before. In both wagering and lotteries our digital traction is outstanding,” Cooke claimed.

“Looking forward into the year, innovation remains top of our agenda as we pursue organic growth across all our distribution channels.

“We are now in a cycle of continuous and rapid enhancement of all our digital assets – a significant step forward for our business.”

Cooke revealed that Tatts’ lotteries and wagering apps are now installed on 1.5 million devices, up from about 800,000 a year ago.

In fiscal 2016, Tatts’ lotteries operations posted record results, with revenue rising 8.2 percent to A$2.14 billion, boosted by 45 jackpots at A$15 million or more. The group’s overall revenues grew 3.8 percent to A$3.03 billion.

Lotteries’ digital sales jumped 32.2 percent, and wagering digital sales rose 22.5 percent.

Tatts now generates more than 30 percent of its wagering sales and 13.5 percent of lotteries sales online.

Its UBET wagering business generated growth in turnover of 4.1 percent, up from a decline of 0.9 percent in fiscal 2015, but revenue and earnings were lower.

Cooke said that trading in the first month of the current financial year was trending positively.