PartyGaming revealed its quarterly results today, and is not pleased with its earnings over the past three months. The company’s poker division has underperformed, earning 13% less than expected, a loss that is largely attributed to this year’s World Cup.
“The adverse impact of the World Cup on our non-sports betting verticals was slightly greater than expected," says Chief Executive Jim Ryan.
The simple fact is that would-be poker players are busy watching the World Cup, instead of taking part in online gambling activities. Many online casino operators attempted to offer World Cup promotions, but nothing seemed to be able to tear football fans away from their televisions.
The report stated that Party Gaming’s sports betting brand, Party Bets, showed steady financial results. However, this means that the expected influx of sports betting customers that the World Cup seemed to have spawned never arrived, and the company had no way to make up for its poker losses.
Despite Party Gaming’s best efforts to push its sportsbetting division on Party Gaming clients, they were still unable to meet their goal for this quarter. Even with a wide range of World Cup-based bonuses and promotions, the company continued to lose sportsbetting business to larger brands like Bwin and BoDog.
Party Gaming is hopeful that it will be able to compensate for the loss with its entrance into France’s online gambling market, which took place on July 1st. The French market is notoriously lucrative, and Party Gaming got in early enough to take advantage of the opportunity.
