888 Holdings Performs Above Par, Shares Spike to New Highs
After the online gambling firm posted full-year sales and profits, shares of 888 Holdings shot up 6% to 353.2p, a new All-time high. Depicting a beyond market expectation performance.
888 online casino in New Jersey was among the first operators to offer real money online casino games to players when the market first opened up back in November 2013.
Amidst the lockdown, the company saw strong growth in Casino, which increased by 63% to $586.8Million, and poker spiked up by 48% to $63.1 Million, resulting in a 53.5% rise in group profits to $848.7Million.
Geographically, sales increased by 81%, 69%, and 63% in the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom respectively, with regaining market share in the UK.
Itai Pazner, The CEO, said
“We are pleased with our continued progress in the US, and with three new states set to launch in 2021, we are poised to see the scale benefits of our investments here. We enter 2021 with strong momentum, with a record level of customers.”
In the Casino, 888’s in-house game developer Section 8 launched over 44 new games in 2020, and 888 Casino was named the winner of the Gaming Intelligence Awards.
The adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization has spiked by 69% to $155.6M, making for a 2% higher than expected growth.
The total dividend for the year was 18 cents per share, accounting for an increase of 12 cents as it was just 3 cents last year.
Multi-Year Extensions for Caesars
Adding fuel to the developments, after the period’s end, the company announced a multi-year extension of its B2B partnership with the digital lead of Las Vegas Casino and hotels, Caesars Interactive Entertainment.
Caesars will continue providing the technology for World Series of Poker(WSOP) online poker spaces. This extension marks the WSOP ventures to enable entry into new regulated markets.
The 888’s US head, Yaniv Sherman said,
“Our extended relationship will also enable 888 to gain a presence in a new U.S state following the required regulatory approvals, which presents an important opportunity in our long term development strategy for the US markets”.
He also added, their partnership with Caesars, has powered the hugely successful WSOP brand online, and they look forward to continuing the relationship for many more years.
It is crystal clear, 888 holdings improved focus on operations and tech investment has done them good in terms of dividends and company growth.
