Interactive
Canada – Online gaming drives Loto-Québec to ‘outstanding results’
By Phil - 18 June 2019
Online gaming was the biggest revenue earner for Canadian operator Loto-Québec accounting for $105.4m of the group’s C$2.83bn (US$2.1bn) total.
Loto-Québec said it owed its ‘outstanding results’ to the vision outlined in its 2017 to 2020 strategic plan. “The corporation has stayed focused on the customer, strengthened its focus on gaming and entertainment, maintained its responsible commercialisation approach, and continued to improve its work processes in order to optimize convergence, agility and efficiency,” it said.
Lynne Roiter, President and CEO of Loto-Québec, explained: “Over the past five fiscal years, even with our total revenues on the rise, we’ve maintained tight control over our expenses. That’s helped to improve our productivity. The ratio of net income over revenues has also risen from 45.5 per cent in 2014 to 2015 to 49.8 per cent in 2018 to 2019. All of our business sectors are contributing to the increase in net income, which reflects the efforts being made right across the Corporation.”
The lottery sector was the second-biggest earner for the group. The increase in lottery revenues is primarily due to the strong performance of Lotto Max, for which sales were over $52.3m, or 30.6 per cent higher than those of the 2017 to 2018 fiscal year. The instant lottery category also showed continued growth (up $18.8m, or 12.3 per cent) due to the overwhelming popularity of permanent games and the holiday collection.
The casino sector delivered strong results, mainly due to the success of its themed promotions, which attracted close to 10 million customers. Despite road work and difficulties getting to the site, the Casino de Montréal managed to see an increase in revenues.
The drop in gaming establishment revenues can be attributed to the reconfiguring of the video lottery terminal network in bars, for which sales decreased by $6.7m, or 0.7 per cent. The drop was more pronounced in sectors that lost terminals.
The total revenues (lottery and casino games) generated by lotoquebec.com totalled $105.4m, which is an increase of $19.8 million, or 23.2 per cent, versus the previous fiscal year. Improving the ease of navigation between product lines improved the website’s market share.
The group stated: “Responsible commercialization is a constant priority for Loto-Québec. Several information and awareness-raising initiatives were launched in the 2018–2019 fiscal year, including a campaign about the importance of respecting one’s limits, an online video explaining how luck works, and a new slide-out menu on lotoquebec.com that links to information on responsible gambling.”
