Intralot reports rise in first-half revenues

Intralot, the Athens-based developer and supplier of gaming and transaction processing systems, has announced its financial results for the first six months of 2010 showing a 10.8 percent year-on-year rise in revenues to €540.9 million.

The Greek firm also reported a 77.4 percent year-on-year increase in operating cashflow to €45.8 million for the six-month period although its gross profits dropped 24.7 percent compared to the same period in 2009 to €93.8 million.

Regarding the second quarter of 2010, Intralot stated that its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation reached €36.8 million, which was 8.2 percent above the previous quarter, while its net profits rose by €300,000 to €15.4 million despite the imposition of a windfall tax of €5.3 million.

“All results are very much in-line with our expectations and strategy for an improvement in operating cash flow generation and stabilisation of profits in 2010,” said Constantinos Antonopoulos, Chief Executive Officer for Intralot.

“Regarding sportsbetting payout in the second quarter of 2010 and especially in relation to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, although we didn’t see excessive payouts as in previous such events, the relatively high payouts of the first quarter of 2010 showed very slight deterioration in most of the countries we operate.

“Since our previous results reporting, other developments include the extension of the OPAP contract, the acquisition of a minority stake in Favorit, a Russian betting

operator, the extension of the New Zealand video lottery terminal monitoring system, an agreement with Net Entertainment to offer Internet casino games in Italy and our first supply contract in China. Finally, following a tender process, our first contract in the United States, the Nebraska State lottery contract has been awarded to a competing company.

“As previously mentioned, the company has entered into a stable course of business that is expected to continue in the next quarters, which is evident in the group’s net profits. In addition, numerous important projects that were in the implementation phase in the first half of 2010 such as Morocco, Minas Gerais in Brazil, three US state lotteries and the video lottery terminals in Italy, will start to contribute gradually to our results over the next quarters.”