Ladbrokes Troubles From Last Year Continue Due to Upgrades in Online Offering

Ladbrokes has a bad prediction on the first-half of this year’s profit, due to upgrades in the online offering.

Ladbrokes, which is one of largest bookmakers in the UK, is having continuous troubles after the significant annual profit fall from last year.

The company, which operates under UK gambling laws, struggles to stay competitive enough to its major opponent William Hill, therefore it is trying to position itself comfortably in the booming online market. This move tough caused multiple profit downgrades, which affected the overall state of the company.

Difficult times for Ladbrokes

Currently, Ladbrokes has 2,300 betting shops and it is working together with the software specialist Playtech in order to upgrade its online products. The aim of the operator is to attract players who bet on sports in the UK, using different devices like PC, tablets or smartphones.

Richard Glynn, the Chief executive of the company, along with his team are responsible for delivering the upgrade on time, but unfortunately it might not happen. This means that Ladbrokes might not be able to correspond to the online betting interest around the World Cup in Brazil.

Ladbrokes comment on the situation was: “Completion of the remaining platform, product and capability upgrades means first-half 2014 group operating profit is targeted to be ahead of second-half 2013 but down on the comparative period, with further growth anticipated through the second half of 2014.”

Ladbrokes pointed that its annual operating profit for 2013 fell 33% to GBP 138.3 million. Also, the profits from its UK retail operations, which are its largest division, went down 26% along with the profits of the digital division, which were down 74%. Additionally, the company announced that it would close between 40-50 shops this year.