Sportingbet Continues Upward March

Once again out to prove PartyGaming’s gloomy outlook for the online gaming industry wrong, Sportingbet, operator of online sportsbook, Sportsbook.com, and poker room Paradise Poker, announced this week that it once again had a very successful quarter.

First quarter pre-tax profits almost sextupled, soaring from £2.6 million to £14.3 million. Sportingbet attributes much of this growth to the increase in its U.S. customers on both the sports betting side and the poker side.

In a perhaps astonishing example of just how much money an online poker room can make, Paradise Poker saw its daily rake collection nearly double to £251,000 ($431,000). Yes, that’s daily. Additionally, the number of registered customers across all of Sportingbet’s sites rose during the quarter from 100,000 to 700,000.

Sportingbet shares are up 2 percent this week to 357p.

Originally published December 2, 2005