Amaya post record profits for 2016

PokerStars parent company enjoy a boom year, but poker generated revenue declines as online casino and sportsbook make up the shortfall.

Canadian gaming giant Amaya inc recently released their fourth-quarter profits for 2016 which proved to be a good year for the PokerStars and Full Tilt owner. Total revenue was announced as $1.15bn, marking an increase of 8% on the $1.07bn posted in 2015.

The surprising issue however is that poker, once the site's only product but still its main source of income, actually recorded a drop in revenue over the same period, again by 8%.

Poker made up 70% of its revenue in the fourth quarter where as that figure had been 78% one year previously, meaning their online casino and sportsbook, BetStars, are making a growing contribution to the company’s profits, now around 26%.

There are several contributing factors to poker’s disappointing returns such as PokerStars’ efforts to focus increasingly towards recreational players as well as a stagnating US market.

Momentum expected to continue

Rafi Ashkenazi, who took over as CEO in August, said;

“Our proactive changes to the poker ecosystem and customer acquisition initiatives continue to reverse certain negative trends and we are starting to see organic growth in that business, our casino offering exceeded expectations as we introduced limited marketing campaigns and focused on our cross-sell efforts, and we continued to build and develop our sportsbook.

The strong performance of our business has helped us to reduce our currency risk, lower our interest expense, and accelerate the payment of the remaining amounts owed on our deferred payment obligation, all of which will allow us to continue pursuing our four strategic priorities.

We expect to continue our 2016 momentum and execute on our strategy in 2017.”