Supplier News
Greece – Intralot pitches COVID-19 impact at between €25 to €30m
By Phil - 5 May 2020
Greek betting giant Intralot has pitched the best case scenario for the COVID-19 hit on its business at being between €25 to €30m,a prediction which came following a year where revenues were down 8.1 per cent to €720.6m.
During the twelve-month period ended December 31st, 2019, Intralot systems handled €18.3bn of worldwide wager, posting a 21 per cent year-on-year increase. North America’s wagers increased by 51.1 per cent, driven by the Illinois contract launch and Eastern Europe’s increase of 17 per cent, reflecting the new Sports Betting era dynamics in Turkey since September 2019
Bets increased in Africa by 13.3 per cent, Asia by 9.3 per cent, mainly due to Taiwan, Western Europe by 3.6 per cent, driven mainly by Sports Betting in the Netherlands, and South America by 0.6 per cent with as Chile’s and Peru’s performance fully offseting ARS currency impact.
Reported consolidated revenue posted a decrease compared to FY18, leading to total revenue for the 12-month period ended December 31st, 2019, of €720.6m, down 8.1 per cent. Lottery Games was the largest contributor to the company’s top line, comprising 44.4 per cent of revenue, followed by sports betting contributing 42.7 per cent to Group turnover. Technology contracts accounted for six per cent and VLTs represented 4.4 per cent of group turnover, while Racing constituted the 2.5 per cent of total revenue of FY19.
Intralot successfully delivered its Sports Betting solution to the DC Lottery in late March, with official Go-Live postponed until the US leagues and events resume following the Covid19 pandemic. Its Sports Betting solution in Montana has been launched in midMarch, just a few days before all US leagues and events were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. By evaluating all available data in mid-April 2020, the company’s best estimate on Covid-19 impact for 2020 is in the range of €25 to 30m at Group’s EBITDA level.
Intralot Group Chairman Sokratis P. Kokkalis said: “2019 has been a transition year for Intralot. I have set the cornerstones of the transformation of the Group by implementing a restructuring of our project portfolio through divestments of non-core assets; renewing existing contracts and winning new business with a focus in North America; launching our new products; and optimising our cost structure. With the appointment of Mr. Christos Dimitriadis as Group CEO in 2020, Intralot is enabled towards technology-driven evolution, leveraging his long experience and global expertise to achieve growth and value creation.”
Mr. Dimitriadis added: “In 2019 we have completed the sale of our shares in Gamenet Spa, in Italy, Totolotek in Poland and Hellenic Lotteries in Greece, strengthening the company’s liquidity and improving its capability for strategic investments. We are particularly satisfied with the successful launch of our brand-new product LOTOS X, at OPAP, as well as at the National Dutch Lottery (NLO) with the Eurojackpot game. We are also proud for the launch of our landmark gaming system and services project with CAMELOT in Illinois, as well as for capturing sports betting opportunities with US State Lotteries in the District of Columbia, Montana and New Hampshire. The signing of a new Lottery contract with the British Columbia Lottery Corporation in Canada is a great achievement proving the execution of our growth strategy in North America. We have also successfully implemented a cost saving program at HQ resulting in €11m of savings that have partly offset adverse developments related to the loss of the Turkish land based sports betting contract, the negative impact of the regulatory changes in online betting in Turkey and one-time cost overruns.
Looking into the future and as we go through the 4th industrial revolution, we are prepared to capitalize on our recent investments in building state-of-the-art products and in achieving economies of scale. The transformative power of our technology will play a key role in business innovation and value creation, together with an even more customer-centric new organisational structure.”
