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What is 9 Bells?
In the six months to June, Entain’s online net gaming revenue rose 7% in constant currency. Revenue in Britain and Ireland increased 13%, while the company maintained its full-year guidance for online net gaming revenue growth of 5% to 7%. So why is its stock price still so under pressure?
One answer is that the industry is no longer being valued primarily on the promise of endless growth. The market instead wants to see profit, cash generation and manageable regulation maintained across all facets of a listed business. Ed Birkin, managing director of H2 Gambling Capital, says the longer-term decline in gambling stocks runs much deeper than just changes to earnings forecasts.
“The industry share price declines have been much more severe than the cut to earnings projections which means that, while there may be some weakening in some companies’ fundamental growth drivers, the valuations that investors are putting on them have been the main driver of share price declines – although weaker fundamentals lead to lower valuations, so the reality is that they’re completely intertwined.”
How to play 9 Bells
For Ramiro Atucha, founder and CEO of Atucha Strategic Advisory, whether international operators can press home their scalable advantages will depend on how seriously they take localisation.
“When we talk about localisation, we’re not talking about the language or doing a game about Machu Picchu,” he tells iGB. “We’re talking about taking the effort to understand what the history of those players is, what they’re used to.
“I always found it funny when Colombia was starting, operators were saying ‘players here do not like slots’, as if they have a different DNA. Five years later, they would say, ‘well, they do like slots, but simple slots’. And five years later, they were playing all the usual [slots]. It’s not that they didn’t like slots.
What is 9 Bells?
The animosity between the sides has become political over the years. Station is owned and operated by the Fertitta family, who have been prominent Republican donors for many years. Culinary is a largely Democratic organisation that typically supports and endorses left-leaning candidates.
Last month, US President Donald Trump made an impromptu visit to Las Vegas, hosting a rally at Red Rock. Trump called the Fertittas a “beautiful family” during his remarks. Culinary, meanwhile, denounced the event and the Fertittas’ support of Trump and Nevada’s Republican Governor Joe Lombardo.
“As Lombardo runs for re-election in a state built and run by unionised hospitality workers, Culinary Union is demanding to know why the governor stands with Station Casinos and Trump’s harmful economic agenda instead of fighting and delivering for the working people who power Nevada’s economy,” the union said in a statement at the time.
