EGR Power 50 2022: 5. Bally’s Interactive
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5. Bally’s Interactive
Financials : Worldwide digital revenue for H1 2022 was £375.1m, down 4.1% YoY in cc. UK and Asia delivered revenue of £220m and €158.9m, respectively
Strategy & impact : A gaming-led operator dominated by bingo and casino. Has long-term igaming ambitions in the US aided by the omni-channel proposition of Bally’s casino properties
Geographic reach : By far its two largest markets remain the UK and Japan, although serving Japan – one of the world’s largest grey markets – counted against the firm’s final score
Influence & leadership : While online is fairly new to Bally’s, the Gamesys team has bags of experience around product, user acquisition and CRM. Plus, CEO Lee Fenton is highly respected on both sides of the Atlantic
Bally’s Interactive makes its debut in the EGR Power 50 after the £2bn merger between Rhode Island-based casino group Bally’s Corporation and igaming heavyweight Gamesys Group (fifth last year) completed in October 2021. While this transatlantic tie-up was largely about Bally’s fast-tracking its online ambitions in the US, the digital arm’s revenue is still dominated by casino and bingo brands like Jackpotjoy, Virgin Games and Monopoly Casino in the UK, as well as leading Japan-facing casino sites Vera&John and InterCasino.
The UK segment – its largest by some distance – delivered £220m in revenue for H1 2022, down from the £237.5m in H1 2021, which was partly due to tough comparatives, reduced marketing and increased safer gambling measures – one of the most recent being a self-imposed £25 maximum stake on slots – ahead of the overdue white paper on overhauling gambling laws. In North America, where Bally’s Interactive anticipates a ~$60m adjusted EBITDA loss for 2022, the firm is still in “ramp-up mode”, insisted Bally’s CEO Lee Fenton (previously Gamesys’ CEO) on the operator’s Q2 2022 earnings call. Indeed, management is playing the long game and keeping its fingers crossed that igaming is expanded beyond the six US states today.
For instance, Indiana and Illinois are on the firm’s radar should, as is predicted, online casino be approved in both states. And the fact there is quiet optimism that New York has a good chance of legalising online casino was a key reason the operator forked out $25m for an online betting licence and stomached the 51% tax on gross gaming revenue (GGR). Bally Bet, powered by the acquired Bet.Works platform and currently live in six states plus Ontario, hasn’t been pulling up trees since becoming New York’s ninth betting app earlier this year, though; it had a miniscule 0.1% share of September’s handle.
Perhaps it would be a different story if casino was legalised there and Bally’s Interactive leans on its international igaming know-how and proprietary tech stack, including user journeys powered by machine learning. In neighbouring New Jersey, where its Virgin Casino brand has been live since 2014, Bally’s Casino launched last December, with both brands setting a market share target for 2023 of 6%-8% after generating combined net revenue of approximately $2.5m in June. With its Atlantic City property contributing to CPAs below $250, the aim is to replicate the New Jersey model elsewhere.