888 Holdings, the owner of the world's largest online casino 888.com (Casino on Net), and the fourth largest online poker room Pacific Poker, reported excellent results for the quarter ending 31 December, 2005. Casino revenues were only up one percent, but poker revenues soared to $36 million, an increase of 22 percent.
A couple of highlights from the report:
- Poker revenues up 22% to $36 million in the fourth quarter;
- Poker revenues up 138% compared to the same quarter last year;
- Casino revenues up 1% to $41 million in the fourth quarter;
- Casino revenues up 19% compared to the same quarter last year.
Despite 888 Holdings' good quarterly results and an excellent 2005 overall, it must be stressed that 888.com is facing increasing competition from PartyGaming, the company controlling the poker market.
Late last year PartyGaming started to "cross-sell" Blackjack to it's existing customer base with astonishing success. Partygaming is now "well on [it's] way to creating the world's largest online casino," said PartyGaming's CEO, Richard Segal, during his presentation of PartyGaming's fourth quarter results last month. Technically PartyGaming is already the world's largest online casino since it's casino revenues were higher than those of 888 Holdings in the last quarter. PartyGaming intends to boost it's casino revenues even more in 2006 by adding more casino games and introducing a "shared purse" concept.
888 Holdings' CEO John Anderson said to Reuters he's welcoming the competition and does not perceive it as a threat. In order to sustain growth and to improve customer retention the company is actively planning to buy a non-US sportsbook in 2006. 888 Holdings also plans to further reduce it's dependence on the U.S. poker market by expanding into new regions and languages.