Betclic parent firm posts 42% H1 growth as CEO hails “outstanding performance”
Unique active players increase by more than a third as sports betting segment boosted by busy sporting calendar that included the first half of Euro 2024
Banijay Group, formerly known as FL Entertainment and the parent company of Betclic and bet-at-home, has announced a 41.7% year-on-year (YoY) surge in online sports betting and gaming revenue to €698m for H1 2024.
In Q2 alone, that increase for Banijay Gaming was 52.5% YoY, inspired largely by a packed sports calendar that included Euro 2024.
The first half of the year saw a significant rise in the company’s sportsbook revenue, climbing 40.6% YoY to €551.4m, while online casino, poker and horseracing, also posted combined growth of 46% YoY to hit €146.1m.
Breaking earnings down by vertical, it proved to be a strong second quarter for Banijay’s sportsbook segment, which generated €304.6m in revenue, a steep 56.7% increase over Q2 2023.
Meanwhile, casino operations amassed €47.7m in revenue, while poker achieved €18.7m and horseracing generated €5.1m, accounting for a total of €376.1m in Q2.
Banijay Gaming’s adjusted EBITDA for H1 came in at €176.4m, prompting an adjusted EBITDA margin of 25.3%, a slight decline from last year’s 26.6%.
There was a notable rise in the number of unique active players in H1, with actives up 37% despite H1 2023 experiencing a customer boost from 2022’s winter World Cup.
The increase can also be partly attributed to the recent expansion into the Ivory Coast, the company said, while Betclic bolstered its sportsbook offering by placing a significant emphasis on live betting and prop bets.
On the results, Banijay CEO François Riah said: “Our online sports betting and gaming business delivered outstanding performance, taking advantage of a busy sports calendar to gain market shares across all products and geographies.”
Riah also revealed that Banijay is on course to meet previously reported earnings guidance, adding: “Thanks to our first-half performance, and our highly visible pipeline for H2, we are well on track to meet our full-year earnings guidance for the year of organic adjusted EBITDA growth in the low teens.”
While speaking on the company’s earnings call, Banijay Group CFO Sophie Kurinckx-Leclerc also addressed the slight decline in the gaming division’s EBITDA margin for the first half of the year.
“Regarding Euro 2024, we do not have all of the benefit from the championship in our results at the end of June, and it was still ongoing also in the beginning of July, so we have all the marketing costs but not all of the benefits.
“We don’t expect to have such marketing costs in H2 2024, so that’s why we clearly expect the EBITDA margin to come back to the normal level by the end of this year.”
In Q2, Betclic renewed its agreement with the LNB (National Basketball League), which will see the division named the Betclic ELITE until 2029.
Betclic also extended its partnership with Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) until 2025 for Football League 1 and League 2 in France.
Last month, Betclic signed a sponsorship deal that included naming rights with the Polish Football Association that will run until the 2027-28 campaign.