The installation of new gaming machines helped boost results at UK bookmaker Ladbrokes.
Source: Ladbrokes
During the first half of the year, the company installed around 9,000 new Clarity machines from SG Gaming across 2,226 shops.
The six months to June 30 saw a “difficult start” to the year for its older machine estate, it said, while the introduction in February of the Association of British Bookmakers’ new code of conduct for players “had a marked impact.”
However, by the end of the period the company began to see the benefits of the new Clarity estate and the impact of the ABB code “normalising” as customers adapted to the new procedures.
The new machines offer 50 per cent more slot games, improving the company’s product mix, while the trend of lower maximum stake Category B3 revenue growing ahead of B2 content – first seen in 2013 – continued.
In the first half of the year, machine gross win was ahead by 1.8 per cent at £213.3m, Ladbrokes reported. In the first quarter, gross win per shop per week was down slightly year on year, but in the following quarter it returned to growth. This, the company said, reflected the initial benefit of the Clarity roll-out.
Overall, Ladbrokes reported a 1.6 per cent increase in group net revenue to £577.8m, but a 33.7 per cent fall in group operating profit to £56.8m. The company’s plans to optimise its retail estate saw the closure of 29 shops by the end of the first half of the year, with further closures in July taking the total for the year to 46.
