Svenska Spel, the Sweden monopolist on the local gambling market, has recently released information for the revenue, earned in the third quarter of the year and surprising or not, the results are not too optimistic. As a matter of fact, the company reported a decline in the revenue; the operating profit is experiencing a downfall as well and according to the statistics, the situation an year ago was much better.
In the third quarter of 2013, the revenue of Svenska Spel was 2,4 billion in local currency, which is equal to $355 million. However, the authorities couldn’t keep up with the high standards and it resulted in a decrease in the revenue with almost 11%. In other words, the revenue fell to $284 million or 2,1 billion Swedish krona.
The downfall shouldn’t be regarded as something surprising or out of the ordinary though. Such a tendency has been observed from the beginning of the year till now and the issues with the revenue of Svenska Spell were even more serious during the first and the second quarter of the year when it fell with almost $1 million.
During the third quarter of the current year, the operating profit of the Swedish monopolist was a bit over 1 billion Krona but unlike the revenue, its decline was rapid. 14,2% is the percentage of the downfall in the profits year over year.
As far as the situation with the operating profit is concerned, the third quarter of 2014 was marked by a decline, equal to 9%. While in 2013 it was 3,8 billion Swedish krona, reports show that it fell to 3,5 billion in 2014.
Lennart Käll, the CEO of Svenska Spel, gave a brief interview about the issues the company has. He said that the authorities are not surprised by the decrease. On the contrary – it was expected and they did their best to prepare for it. He also added that such a downfall was predictable just because that’s the tendency that has been observed in Sweden during the years and obviously the gambling affairs in Sweden are going into the wrong way and a new, innovative approach has to be applied so the situation, and respectively the revenue, is improved.
According to Käll, one of the main reasons that have led to the revenue issues was the responsible gaming matters that became is a top priority for the company instead of the chase of short-term profits.
As for the long term investments and profits, Käll thinks that they provide Svenska Spel with the chance to remain stable and thriving for the years to come and ensure top quality gaming experience for the local players.
Svenska Spel authorities are determined to show the Sweden-based players that company’s products and services are competitive to the foreign ones. They intend to introduce new rules that require the player to go through a short registration procedure before being given access to the game chosen.
