2017 results are in…

It’s reporting season for some of the larger platforms that we’re familiar with, and as results for the year ended December 2017 start to filter in it seems pretty clear that the live dealer gaming is still growing…fast.

Evolution Gaming’s results are always a good proxy for the industry, given they’re a live games pure play with a significant market share. Their 2017 results smashed outcomes from 2016…

• Operating revenues were up 54% to €178 million  (2016 €115);
• EBITDA was up 81% to €81 million (2016 €45); and
• Profit almost doubled to €62 million (2016 €32)

Some interesting comments in the CEO’s statement accompanying the results included:

• the fact that they now have around 400 tables in operation;
• 2018 will be their most prolific year yet in terms of new games launches (No Commission Baccarat, Salon Prive Super VIP tables, Texas Hold’em Bonus Poker and the soon to be released Dragon Tiger rated a mention)
• the new Georgia studio is still expected to launch in Q2 this year.

Playtech don’t segment their live casino results so it’s not possible to gauge exact growth. We only know ‘Casino’  revenues (RNG plus live dealer) increased 10% to €411 million versus the 2016 year.

But judging by the amount of space dedicated to live casino developments in the CEO and Chairman’s statements compared with previous years, it would be reasonable to deduce that this niche is becoming more and more significant to their overall operation.

Key among those developments were the completion of the full migration of tables to the new Riga studio, which they believe was important in securing license renewals for a number of their tier 1 operators, and will also see more dedicated table roll-outs throughout 2018 (BetFred cited as an example).

Like Playtech, Net Entertainment don’t segment their live results – understandable given it’s still a reasonably new and small  niche for them. But also like Playtech, their live dealer games were prevalent in CEO statements and the investor presentation accompanying the results.

Live Beyond Live and the launch of mobile live blackjack were singled out as important developments by Per Eriksson. Live Casino generally was identified in the investor presentation as one of five long term growth drivers (the others being the rather broad areas of ‘Asia’, ‘Retail’, ‘Americas’, and ‘Programmatic service’.