A week after reported a 15 per cent drop in third-quarter net revenues as a consequence of freak sports results, William Hill confirmed that its sports margins had come under similar pressure.
Even so, a steady performance at the company's online division offset the 21 per cent fall in net revenue in its retail over-the-counter business, meaning net revenues fell just 3 per cent in the period. It also said that recent results had started to return to more normal patterns, and that gross-win growth from fixed-odds machines was still strong at 4 per cent - that compared with a 2 per cent fall at Ladbrokes, which also suffered a 13 per cent drop in eGaming net revenues.
Football results also put a dent in gross income at William Hill's online partner Playtech. Its share of profit from the joint venture with Britain's biggest bookmaker fell from $5.3m in the second quarter to $4.2m. But the contribution meant that gross income was still up 12 per cent over the year, offsetting slowing growth in its poker and casino businesses. PartyGaming, too, said that poker revenues had slumped 8 per cent over the year - and the company's shares slumped a further 16 per cent when founder Anurag Dikshit sold two-thirds of his 28 per cent stake in the company.
