SportingBet Declares Loss

October 24, 2007

The UK online gambling company Sportingbet has announced that they had an annual loss last fiscal year, directly due to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that was passed a year ago by the United States. They are just one of many that has reported losses for the last year out of the online gambling industry.

SportingBet joins other online gambling companies such as Top Ten Bingo and Rank in declaring losses due to the UIGEA. For these companies, losing their US online gambling operations is turning out to be catastrophic for them.

SportingBet says that they have lost more than $636 million for the year through July, which is roughly 4/5ths of their total business. However, the company says that not only do they think that the UIGEA’s time is coming to an end soon, they have been very busy looking into other avenues for online gambling and they could prove to be very profitable.

They say that it might take them anywhere between five and ten years to regain what the UIGEA has taken from them monetarily, but they have been exploring other countries to see where it might profit them to expand. In doing so, if the UIGEA were to be reversed, they would make even more money than ever due to those new avenues.

They are just one of many online gambling companies that have moved their operations to the Channel Islands, and as in the case of other online gambling companies they are looking to diversify their offerings. Many companies have found that by putting their eggs in one basket they got caught short with the UIGEA – and they say that they won’t let that happen again.





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