Poker Continues to Boom at bwin

bwin Interactive Entertainment AG announced its financial results for the second quarter and the first half of 2009, ending on Jun. 30, 2009, and things are looking good for its poker sector, a trend which has continued since its last interim report.

Net poker revenues rose 12.3 percent from €17.9 million in the second quarter of 2008 to €20.2 million in the second quarter of 2009. Also, the first half of 2009 has seen poker net revenues increase by 25.4 percent to €47.9 million from €38.2 million in the same period of 2008. This is largely due to the growth of the poker business in Italy, successful cross-selling, and greater awareness of the bwin brand.

Overall, all the products have grown. Turnover from betting, poker, casino, and games operations has risen by 2.2 percent when comparing the second quarter of 2008 and 2009, and it has also risen by 6.1 percent in the first half of 2009, compared to the first half of 2008.

The company appears to have positive aspirations for its poker sector, stating that there has been sound development of its poker and games segments, and also that the “successful implementation of online gaming industry’s biggest-ever software migration project provides basis for future growth of poker business”. In mid June, bwin completed the online gaming industry’s largest software migration project for its new P5 poker platform.

€13.8 million in customer bonuses were granted in the second quarter of 2009 (compared to the €11.6 million granted in the second quarter of 2008). This increase is due to reactivation measures, and also the active migration of the various poker labels to the site.

Overall, active and new active customers are slightly down based on year-on-year results with 1,057,000 active and 251,000 new active customers for 2009, and 1,095,000 active and 295,000 new active for 2008. The number of active customers for poker however is up from 287,446 in the second quarter of 2008, to 385,601 in the same period of 2009.

Although poker and games are developing as well as expected, the second quarter saw gross gaming revenues decrease by 7.3 percent to €95.1 million from €102.7 million in the second quarter of 2008, with the company stating that this was due to a “below-average sports betting margin”. However, looking at the half-year results, gross gaming revenues are actually up by 2.7 percent compared to the first half of 2008.

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