PartyGaming, the parent company of PartyPoker, PartyCasino, PartyBingo, and PartyGammon, released its financial report for the third quarter of 2006 today.
Some of the highlights of the report include:
- Group revenue was up 53 percent to $337.2 million. Group revenue from customers not located in the United States was up 158 percent to $92 million. In the same quarter of 2005, it was $35.6 million
- 267,948 new players signed up for real-money play, with 128,825 of those non-US customers. In the same quarter of 2005, 55,749 new real-money customers living outside the US signed up.
- Net poker revenue averaged $2.7 million a day. Poker revenue from non-US customers was $800,000 per day.
- Casino revenue averaged $900,000 a day. In the same quarter last year, that was $100,000 a day.
The third financial quarter consists of July, August, and September. PartyGaming is the biggest site that pulled the plug on Americans after the President signed into law the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement (UIGE) Act. Until the political climate in the US changes, this will be the last financial report from PartyGaming that includes revenue from the very lucrative American market.
PartyGaming has had a rough three weeks. First, its shares fell from 107 pence to 45 pence the Monday after the Senate sent the UIGE Act to the President. The Senate actually voted on an act to strength the safety at the nation's ports, but Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist managed to have the UIGE Act attached to it earlier in the evening. As of Oct. 18, PartyGaming's stock is trading at 29 pence.
Then the company announced it wouldn't do business with customers located in the US after the President signed the act, something he did Oct. 13. This will eventually cut more than a third of the company's poker-generated revenue off of the books. PartyGaming expects that decision to cost it $250 million in the second half of 2006.
The company will now continue to work to diversify its customer base. PartyGaming will launch a multilingual platform sometime this month, with other versions to follow in the future. And in 2007, the company will launch a multicurrency client.
