888 Looking for Expansion

One of the world's leading online gaming conglomerates, 888 has announced plans for major expansion with negotiations already in progress and expected to be finalised in the near future.

Despite reporting low player traffic and earnings in the first quarter of 2009, the gaming giant has plans to continue expanding the business. “We feel a lot more confident the industry’s going back to its normal growth trend, rather than continuing to be hurt by the recession,” Gigi Levy, 888 Chief Executive, said. “We’re looking at Q1 as the lowest point, and aiming to grow from there.”

888 Holdings PLC is currently the second largest online gambling provider in the UK and has reported a $61 million Q2 operating income – indicating a 7 percent growth from the previous quarter. Both the online bingo room 888Ladies and 888’s sports betting section has shown the biggest income increase of $7 million resulting in a rise of 40 percent.

This growing performance has encouraged 888 to seek major expansion - primarily within the company's business-to-business section which provides and adopts the 888 software and infrastructure to third parties.

888 are reportedly close to making an acquisition. "One of them is very close to closing. It's a bolt-on but would help us in our business-to-business strategy. A few others are at an earlier stage," Levy told Reuters.

Despite already having 22 contracts with other online gambling operators, 888 is in negotiations with television stations, media companies and state-owned lotteries. The main targets are European companies that could increase the female audience so as to equalise the percentage of male and female customers. The plan also includes introducing online bingo outside of UK to attract an even bigger number of women to online gaming.

Levy underlined that because of the growth of online bingo, Britain’s online gambling demographic has an almost equal percentage of males and females, although it was not so long ago that males made up 85 percent of the market.

888 is considered to be one of the most successful online gambling operators and currently holds $110 million in cash and no debt.