Punters’ luck squeezes SVL profit
There was also the ‘fupple’, where four number nines played along with the Mega Ball. The Super Lotto was hit twice in 10 days and the Lotto was hit during the same period as well
A FOURTH-QUARTER purple patch for players of the lottery and sports betting games offered by Supreme Ventures Limited, SVL, put more winnings in their pockets and shrank profit by a fifth at the gaming and entertainment company last year.
Bettors won and shareholders were left holding the bag, leading the company to put out a statement assuring the market that the historic winning year for subscribers to its products, particularly the payouts that manifested in the October-December 2023 period, was “a rare scenario” that was unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.
SVL Executive Chairman Gary Peart said there was “a perfect storm” of outcomes on several games run by the company that left punters happy and shaved the bottom line by 21 per cent at SVL.
“In the case of sports betting, for the month of October the majority of favourites won, so it ended up with significantly more payouts for sports betting customers for that month,” Peart told the Financial Gleaner, while outlining a string of winnings for punters.
“There was also the ‘fupple’, where four number nines played along with the Mega Ball. The Super Lotto was hit twice in 10 days and the Lotto was hit during the same period as well. On top of that, the Cash Pot liabilities were such that we paid out more than was projected,” the chairman said.
Peart added that since he’s been at SVL, year 2023 was the first time the company had failed to achieve double-digit growth in sales revenue. In fact, gaming revenue fell by 1.7 per cent, from $50.77 billion to $49.9 billion.
The fourth quarter is normally the strongest for the company, but this time around SVL ended up paying out more than $1 billion above normal game prizes, with the hit flowing down the bottom line.
“Put it this way, last year in the fourth quarter we did about a billion dollars in net profit. This year we did about $300 million,” Peart said.
Annual profit also plunged from $3 billion to $2.4 billion.
SVL has declared a dividend of 10.88 cents per share, totalling $287 million, in the wake of the release of its year-end financial report. The dividend is payable in May.
In its market statement, which was separate from the preamble accompanying the gaming company’s 2023 earnings report, SVL said the games that paid out big were Super Lotto, Lotto and Pick 4, and that such payouts were unlikely to repeat themselves “from a timing perspective”. “We are also proud of the strength of our company to manage these uncommon events,” Peart is quoted as saying.
Pointing to the randomness of the games, the chairman said that for all of 2022, there were no payouts on Super Lotto, which offers the biggest jackpot, but fast-forward to 2023, there were four payouts totalling about $700 million by the end of the year. The upside of people winning is that it encourages more punters to play the various games, he said.
“While I can’t be specific, I can say that the first-quarter 2024 numbers we’re seeing are very encouraging,” Peart commented, indicating that announcements of the extra-ordinary winnings had seen a rise in betting activity.
Peart said 2023 was a year of investing for SVL, including new international subsidiary, Ibet SV Ghana, and new products and revenue streams for remittance and bill payments. SVL also doubled down on its investments in the microlending market, via acquisition of an additional 44 per cent stake in McKayla Financial through Supreme Ventures Fintech Limited to achieve 100 per cent ownership of that company, and the purchase of a 15 per cent stake in Dolla Financial Services Limited.