Sports betting and gambling company Entain held its ‘Q1 Trading Update’ analyst call today and reported slightly better performance than expected.
During the first quarter, net gaming revenue rose by 3 percent, including Entain’s 50 percent stake in BetMGM. Analysts had predicted a decline of between 4 and 6 percent.
Interim CEO Stella David and Rob Wood, chief financial officer and deputy CEO, said the rise in revenue is mainly attributed to the Central and Eastern Europe business, which saw revenue growth of 124 percent.
“A globally spread digital-first gambling business should not be delivering basically flat revenue regardless of customer-friendly results,” said Paul Leyland, a gambling analyst from Regulus Partners, adding that Entain’s main issues are that it caters mainly to older customers, prioritizes operating efficiency over other factors and has a less clear customer proposition than other brands.
“A streamlined focus on core markets should lead to a turnaround in NGR momentum later in 2024,” added analysts at Jefferies.
David will replace Entain’s chairman Barry Gibson and has been serving as interim CEO since the departure of Jette Nygaard-Andersen in December.
“Overall, we are pleased with the progress being made against our plan to accelerate Entain’s operational performance,” David said. “There is still more to do, but the team is fully engaged in delivering operational improvements, product enhancements, as well as greater organizational agility and efficiency. We remain confident that our continued focused execution will drive organic growth into 2025 and beyond.”
