Ladbrokes, one of Britain's biggest bookmakers, beat analysts' forecasts today as high-stake gaming machines and big-betting gamblers with telephone accounts boosted profit.
Ladbrokes, which has over 200 betting shops in Ireland and 2,300 in the UK, said pre-tax profit for the year to the end of December rose to £344.2m sterling from £238.1m a year ago.
Gross win, its profit after paying out winning bets, increased to £1.286 billion from £990.3m in 2006. Gross win from highly lucrative gaming machines, known as Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs), rose 21%, while profits from its big betting customers jumped to £183.6m from £17.3m in the previous financial year.
Excluding the 'high rollers', operating profit decreased by 4.4% to £241m.
Ladbrokes said that its Irish gross win increased by 26.4% to £61.8m from £48.9m in 2006, driven by good growth from acquisitions and new licences and despite a difficult horseracing margin in the second half.
Irish operating costs increased by 25.5% as a result of the impact of more shops and related establishment costs, but Irish operating profits increased by 43.6% to £20.1m from £14m the previous year.
'Ladbrokes has made a positive start to the year with gross win and operating profit ahead of last year in each of European Retail, eGaming and Telephone Betting,' the company said in a statement.
It added that its gross win in the first seven weeks of the year, excluding its big betting customers, was up 16%.
Earlier this month, Ladbrokes bought Eastwood Bookmakers, Northern Ireland's largest bookmaker, for £117.5m sterling. Following the deal to buy the 54 Eastwood shops, Ladbrokes will have 70 shops in Northern Ireland, which include the 16 shops it acquired in 2006 from Northwest Bookmakers.
Its market share now represents 23% of the total number of betting shops in Northern Ireland.
