Ladbrokes set to accept US poker bets

Ladbrokes had made the decision to enter the US market prior to the passage of a bill making the operation of an online poker room illegal in the States.
“This follows with the guidance we gave earlier this year,” John O’Reilly, Managing Director of egaming said. “We intend to take advantage of our position in the market and invest heavily in player acquisition and sign ups are up 30% on last year, and we have set a 20% growth target for NGR between now and 2010 and we are bang in line with that.”
Commenting on Ladbrokes’ decision to join the Microgaming poker network and accept US bets, in particular for its high stakes players, O’Reilly said: “Most of the poker rake is generated by the high stakes players and we have taken the decision to offer them US liquidity from the states where there is less of a legal risk. We have evaluated the legal situation and are happy with our position.
Nearly all the publicly traded Internet poker companies retreated from the US market following passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act in October 2006.”
Ladbrokes is a member of the FTSE 250 Index and was once part of the Hilton Group, owning the hotel brand outside of the United States.
Group pre-tax profits for the six month period to the end of June fell to £170m from £192.7m over the same period last year, the company said this morning. Excluding high rollers, gross win increased 13% to £583.3 million, pre-tax operating profits fell 2% to £130m and UK retail gross win increased 6.5% to £394.3m. Chief executive Christopher Bell commented: "The group's performance has continued to show resilience against a challenging economic backdrop. In UK retail, following a strong first four months of the year, June suffered a string of poor results affecting all channels, most notably Royal Ascot and the early stages of Euro 2008. Notwithstanding a poor fourth week during July, Group gross win for the period from 1 July to 5 of August was up 11% overall and up 6% in UK retail."
Ladbrokes owns over 2,200 retail betting shops divided between the UK, Ireland and Belgium. It also operates several online gambling websites offering sportsbook, poker, casino, games, bingo and backgammon. Ladbrokes uses the OpenBet system from Orbis Technology.
Online sports betting had performed well, O’Reilly said, with in-running revenues up 50%. “In-running will continue to be one of the drivers for us on that side of the business. Our online sportsbook is a long tail business, where we offer thousands of markets and all the small bets create a critical mass once they are added up. We have also signed a deal with the Perform Group for more live streaming events, which will add to our in-running activities,” he said

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