A flurry of bets on the football Club World Cup and summer tennis tournaments helped the UK gambling company Entain to better-than-expected results, helping it brace for looming tax rises in its domestic market.
The owner of brands including Ladbrokes and Coral reported an 11% rise in underlying profits to £583m in the first half of the year, on revenues that rose 3% to nearly £2.6bn.
At BetMGM, Entain’s 50%-owned US joint venture, revenues rose by more than a third. US sports betting continues to grow rapidly following the supreme court’s overturning in 2018 of a decades-old ban on the practice.
But Entain also performed strongly in its home market, with online gambling revenues up 21% in the UK and Ireland.
Entain said the Club World Cup, held in the US earlier this summer, had delivered “fantastic results” for the company, despite a muted response to the tournament in the UK.
Entain describes Brazil as one of its “must win” markets, alongside the UK and US, and it has a partnership with the São Paulo team – and Club World Cup participant – Palmeiras. The company said this helped boost local interest in betting on the tournament.
The Club World Cup final, between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain, was the year’s most popular event by the number of bets taken. The French Open and Wimbledon tennis tournaments also delivered new records for the company, amid surging interest from gamblers in a sport whose design inherently creates opportunities to place rapid-fire wagers.
Female tennis players have spoken out this year about the abuse they receive, often from gamblers frustrated by having lost bets.
Entain’s chief executive, Stella David, appointed earlier this year after her predecessor, Gavin Isaacs, departed suddenly after five months, said the results showed the company was “getting stronger, fitter and faster”.
Entain’s improved fortunes in the UK could cushion the blow if the Treasury goes ahead with plans to target the gambling industry with higher taxes, as the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, casts around for ways to plug a fiscal hole.
after newsletter promotion
Gordon Brown, the former prime minister who also served a decade as chancellor, recently called for gambling duties to increase by £3bn, from about £2.5bn at present, to pay for lifting the two-child cap on benefits.
The Treasury is expected to increase taxes levied on the sector, albeit by a smaller amount than Brown has suggested.