The numbers are in, and The Stars Group saw record revenue numbers during the first quarter of 2020. While the coronavirus pandemic has shut down the sports betting industry for the large part, it has not had a large effect on the world of online poker.
Even though The Stars Group does offer some online sports betting, they were able to post record-breaking numbers due to the number of online players staying home and playing online poker.
The Stars Group saw revenue numbers close to $735 million for the first three months of the calendar year. This is a 27 percent increase compared to the same time period during 2019, and it is their largest quarter total of all time.
The Stars Group has been busy acquiring other companies over the last 24 months, but it was their own PokerStars brand that brought in a majority of the money. TSG acquired SkyBet in the summer of 2018, and that portion of the company has seen some declining numbers over the last few weeks. SkyBet is an online sports betting giant that is located in the United Kingdom.
Even though sports betting has slowed down tremendously over the last few weeks, The Stars Group still saw some very favorable results for the first quarter. Their high betting win margin was almost triple the amount during the first quarter of 2019.
A majority of that success is because the sportsbooks had some very favorable results during the first two months of the quarter. As the coronavirus continues to impact the live sports scene around the world, The Stars Group is looking at some very poor numbers for the second quarter.
The Stars Group noted in this announcement that they saw a huge increase in customer traffic during the first few weeks of March when the coronavirus pandemic started to affect parts of Europe. The trend has continued throughout other parts of the country as well as people are spending their time at home by logging on to their sites.
There was a 44 percent growth in international revenue from March 2019 to March 2020, and the coronavirus is the number one contributing factor. Not only are people stuck at home all around the world, but the cancellation of sporting events has caused people to focus on poker. These numbers will not do anything to help calm the nerves of betting experts that fear that problem gambling will increase over the next few months.
Merger With Flutter Entertainment Still Happening
Flutter Entertainment is set to acquire The Stars Group at some point this summer, and both companies have insisted that the coronavirus pandemic will have no effect on this merger. There was some concern that Flutter would want to pull the plug on the merger in the wake of this crisis, but that is not the case.
Flutter is the parent company of Paddy Power, which is one of the biggest online gambling companies in the world. The acquisition of The Stars Group will make Flutter the most powerful online gambling company in terms of revenue in the world.
Flutter Entertainment is set to suffer tremendously if sports do not make a quick return. The company makes close to 80 percent of their revenue from sports betting, and they are set to see a major decline in the next two quarters.
From March 16 to April 12, Flutter saw a 32 percent decrease in total revenue from 2019 to 2020. The merger of The Stars Group could not come any sooner for Flutter as they hope this acquisition will get them through these tough times.
