OPAP posts strong performance in 1Q19

The Greek gaming operator OPAP experienced a strong performance in the first quarter in its lottery and VLTs segments.

Greece.- Europe’s fourth-largest betting firm by revenue, OPAP, has reported its financial results from the first quarter of the current year. The company reported a 43.5% increase in first-quarter net profit due to an increase in video lottery and cost reduction.

Gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the period ended March 31 was €396 million, an increase of 5% when compared to the €377.3 million that was registered during the same period last year. Lottery is still OPAP’s biggest revenue source, with an increase of 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter to €191.7 million. This is also a 48.4% of the total revenue that the company registered in that period.

Despite lottery maintaining its position as top revenue scorer within the company, revenue from VLTs increased 58.9% to €68.9 million. The total share of revenue jumped from 11.5% in 2018 to 17.4% in 2019.

On the other hand, the betting sector of the company posted a 5.3% decrease to €101.7 million. Instant and passives revenue was also down 10.8% to €33.7 million.

Furthermore, OPAP said that these results were achieved thanks to lower overall costs in the first quarter. OPAP cut costs by almost 5% from €67.4 million in the first quarter of last year to €64.1 million in the same period this year. The reduction in IT costs offset a 10.1% rise in payroll expenses, mainly because of an increased staff headcount.

OPAP CEO Damian Cope explained that the investments made during the last few years are delivering solid returns and demonstrating OPAP’s ability to generate profitable growth: “We are also maintaining our close focus on operational excellence and continue to realise improvements and efficiencies in how we manage our business.”