PartyGaming, the publicly listed online gambling company, revealed its revenues for the last quarter of 2007.

Showing that while its growing casino business was booming, its poker sales took a slight dip, compared to the previous quarter of the same year.

However, a spokesman for PartyGaming said that the drop was due to a new customer loyalty scheme and that, overall, the company performed exceptionally well. 

All in all, in the final three months of 2007, sales rose by an impressive 52% compared to the previous quarter. Translated into financial terms, PartyGaming drew $120-million in revenue in comparison with the same quarter in 2006.  

PartyPoker, the company’s successful poker arm, is estimated to cover around 10% of the entire poker industry and two thirds of the company’s overall sales originate from its poker rooms. While the company managed to increase its poker revenue by 23% compared to the same quarter in the previous year, it still showed a 3% loss over the previous quarter of 2007.  

Mitch Garber, Chief Executive for PartyGaming, said that the company was forced to change its loyalty scheme, after it was found that the previous scheme was “rewarding customers for disloyalty”. This restructuring caused the yield of each active player to drop 9%, despite numbers that showed that active player numbers rose 13% compared to the last quarter.  

The company also lost some of its poker market share after it was forced out of the United States gambling market with the onset of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in late 2006. Overnight, PartyGaming lost two-thirds of its US customer base and has struggled to improve its share price plunge since then. The latest figures, however, show that – despite the last quarter’s slight hiccup due to the loyalty scheme – PartyGaming’s efforts are paying off. 

The company’s casino sector has performed very well, with a rise of 15% over the previous quarter and 156% over the same quarter in 2006. Success has also been recorded by the site’s sports betting sector, which increased 50% to just over $5-million from last year’s figures. 

PartyGaming’s continued success, despite the blows suffered because of the UIGEA, are in part due to the fact that the company immediately sought out alternative markets in the world, focusing on the flourishing European market.  PartyGaming is making increasing efforts to get its foot in the door of the French gambling industry, after the country came under pressure from the European Commission to open up its state-run market to foreign operators.  

News Source:  Renee Kingsley