ATG credited the continuation of Swedish horse racing all the way through the pandemic for its record net gaming revenue of SEK5.35bn (£453.1m/€525.7m/$621.8m), up 20.8% year-on-year, in 2020.
Total revenue was up 19.4% to SEK6.33bn. Total revenue comprises net gaming revenue, agent revenue and other income.
The pandemic led to a significant growth in online sales for ATG, with online net revenue of SEK3.98bn, up 31.3%. Retail revenue decreased however, by 6.9% to SEK1.21bn.
Despite being able to expand its offering as the market opened in 2019, bets on horse racing from Swedish customers still made up SEK4.54bn of ATG’s revenue, up 18.4%. Horse racing bets from Denmark, through ATG’s Ecosys subsidiary, made up an additional SEK42m.
Sports betting in Sweden brought in a further SEK378m, up 48.8%, while casino revenue from Sweden brought in SEK288m, up 13.0%. In Denmark, sports betting brought in SEK30m and casino SEK82m.
ATG then paid gambling taxes of SEK1.06bn, up 18.0%. It paid a further SEK460m in personnel costs, up 8.2%, and SEK2.36bn in other expenses, down marginally from 2019. After SEK280m in depreciation and amortisation costs, up 43.6%, ATG was left with operating profit of SEK2.24bn, a 49.3% increase.
After a net income of SEK2m from investments, interest and other financial sources, and taxes of SEK493m, ATG made a profit of SEK1.75bn, 50.5% higher than 2019.
Hasse Lord Skarplöth, ATG’s president and chief executive, said a major reason for the operator’s success was the continuation of Swedish horse racing even as almost all other sports across the globe were suspended.
“There are two underlying factors to these figures,” he said. “First: that ATG in recent years invested heavily to be able to deliver on customer expectations.
“Number two: when the rest of the sports world was shut down due to Covid-19, professional competition activities in Sweden could continue in a safe way thanks to the fact that all spectator space was closed.”
