The licenced body that currently offers betting services to New Zealand’s residents, TAB New Zealand, published its latest financial results covering its results in August 2022.
The operator made an announcement, unveiling the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 and some other factors, such as more sellers than buyers of betting services, and shared that its overall performance in August 2022 was not better than the one in previous periods. TAB New Zealand said that its results marked one more month facing falling trends that began in April 2022.
The overall GBR – or gross betting revenue – of the operator fell to NZ$31.5 million in August. The result led to a 6% decrease in budget (about NZ$2 million). As TAB New Zealand shared in a statement, in August, which has been the first full month of the company’s 2022/2023 financial year, the operator’s major performance results suffered a minor decrease despite the predominantly favourable conditions of the last financial year. Its turnover, worth NZ$197.9 million, was 5.8% (or NZ$12.3 million) below budget, and, as mentioned above, its GBR declined by 6% to NZ$31.5 million.
The fact that the company’s August 2022 result was affected in regard to so-called GBM (or gross betting margin), came as no surprise for both the operator and market analysts. The sports betting operator also revealed that its GBM of 15.9% was 0.1% below budget.
Covid-19 Pandemic and Soft Economic Conditions Affected TAB NZ’s Performance in August
As TAB New Zealand explained in a statement, August’s average thoroughbred starters a race reached 10.3. This result marked a minor decline in comparison to the average for the 2021/2022 fiscal year, which amounted to 10.6. The company further noted that a raceday event called the Waikato Stud Foxbridge Plate, held on August 27th, 2022, helped it record a peak turnover worth NZ$2.4 million.
The existing monopoly for the sports betting market in New Zealand acknowledged that its August 2022 performance was affected by a number of factors, such as the Covid-19 restrictions introduced by the country’s Government as a result of the ongoing pandemic. According to TAB New Zealand, this discouraged some players from visiting retail sports betting venues at the time.
The company shared that a mixture of ongoing factors had led eventually to the operator’s results in August, such as the mask restrictions in brick-and-mortar betting venues that deterred some customers from visiting, the continuing soft economic conditions that affected the discretionary spending of the operator’s customers, as well as the fact that some race events were abandoned because of poor weather conditions.
As mentioned above, New Zealand’s sports betting monopoly said that some race events were not held because of unfavourable weather. Still, the gambling company shared that in spite of the spread of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 infection, the country remained at level Orange, which pretty much made it possible for the country to keep local retail outlets operational.
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