POSITIVE YEAREND FOR PROBABILITY

25 July 2008

NGR up 152 percent, and operating loss reduced at mobile gambling technology firm


Year end results for the UK-based mobile gambling technology provider Probability plc are looking encouraging, with net gaming revenues up 152 percent to GBP 3.16 million, and gross operating margin rising to 75 percent. The company's full year operating loss has been reduced by 70 percent to GBP 1.17 million, and the firm is now in a cash generative position following its first operating profit in the third quarter.

CEO Charles Cohen says that 2007 was a year of transformation for the company. "We started loss making and finished profitable, well capitalised, with improved margins and significant momentum to carry us into what we confidently expect to be our first fully profitable financial year,” he said.

The sort of players using the mobile platform have apparently developed from early adopters to early majority, comments Cohen, more broadly reflective of the general population. Most Probability customers did not describe themselves as Internet gamblers, and their prior gambling action was often on lottery scratch cards and pub fruit machines.

The company has doubled its customer base over the year adding over 160 000 new players to flagship LadyLuck’s mobile casino, bingo and slots service, with new distribution agreements signed with major UK mobile phone networks like Orange, 3 and Vodafone.

Getting in early on the trend to develop games themed on popular movies, the company struck a deal with Paramount Pictures to develop mobile games based on three of the studio’s classic movies (see previous InfoPowa report). Another agreement with the 3 mobile network will see a link to the LadyLuck’s mobile gambling service pre-installed on two million of 3's new handsets during 2008.

Cohen feels that the company has demonstrated beyond any doubt that the mobile gambling business model is a viable one. "Consumers are happy to spend money gambling on their mobile phones," he said. "They can be acquired economically with the right marketing andrelationships, and they are available to us in increasingly large numbers. Mobile gambling is set to be a mass market, popular form of entertainment and Probability is at the forefront.”

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa