William Hill owner 888 the latest operator to issue a profit warning

William Hill's owner 888 has become the latest gambling operator to warn the City that its revenue has been hit by sports results in September and safer gambling measures in the UK.

888's share price was down around 14 per cent at 95p on Thursday morning after the company's trading update, which revealed that overall revenue for the third quarter of the year was expected to be down ten per cent to around £400 million.

The news follows this week's announcement by Ladbrokes and Coral owner Entain that its revenue performance had been softer than expected since the summer.

888 said the performance of the group had been "mixed", with issues including customer-friendly sports results in September and the "ongoing impact" of safer gambling changes within the UK driving the year-on-year decline in revenue.

The company said it continued to drive double-digit growth in active customer numbers, while William Hill's betting shop estate was said to be performing strongly.

Nevertheless, 888 said that ebitda (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) for the year was set to be below expectations.

888's executive chair Lord Mendelsohn said: "We are making significant strides to improve the quality and long-term sustainability of our revenues, but performance in the third quarter has been below our expectations, and this means we now expect to end the year with ebitda below our prior expectation.

"The hard work the team has undertaken so far this year has set very strong foundations for the future of the business and our synergy delivery is well on track. We are strongly focused on investing to deliver good levels of expected revenue growth in 2024 as we progress towards our clear target of more than £2 billion of revenue in 2025, and I look forward to the coming years with confidence."

David Brohan, gaming and leisure analyst at stockbrokers Goodbody, described the update as "disappointing", with trading being impacted by "several of the same factors that Entain called out earlier this week".

It has been a turbulent year for 888 which has been without a permanent chief executive since the departure of Itai Pazner in January, although Per Widerstrom is due to take up the reins in October.

888 was also the subject of an unsuccessful attempt to change the leadership at the company by a group of investors which included prominent racehorse owner and former gambling industry heavyweight Kenny Alexander.

Read these next:

Gambling giant Entain gives revenue warning as stricter regulations continue to bite 

Why we should be suspicious of the Gambling Commission's plans to rewrite problem gambling statistics 

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