Paddy Power Betfair has raised its full-year profit forecast on foot of a better-than-expected trading performance in the third quarter, which was boosted by the slide in sterling and strong betting on the Euro 2016 tournament.
The newly merged entity said revenue had risen by 25 per cent to £404 million (€454 million) in the three months to the end of September.
Paddy Power Betfair said it benefited to the tune of £28 million from the translation of non-UK revenues due to the weakness of sterling.
On a constant currency basis, it said turnover grew 15 per cent while underlying earnings rose 53 per cent to £113 million.
As a result, the company said it now expects underlying earnings for the full year to come in between £390 million and £405 million, against previous expectations of £365 million to £385 million.
Strong performance
As well as the weakness in sterling, Paddy Power Betfair also highlighted the successful conclusion to the Euro 2016 tournament with sportsbook stakes up 26 per cent to £2.4 billion for the three-month period.
The company also cited “accelerated synergy results” as a factor in the strong performance.
“This was another good quarter for Paddy Power Betfair. We are continuing to focus on building a stronger combined operation by exploiting the unique assets and capabilities of each legacy business, and on using our scale to better serve our customers,” chief executive Breon Corcoran said.
“Work is under way to combine the best of Betfair and Paddy Power’s technology into a multi-brand, multi-channel, multi-jurisdictional platform that will start to unlock the full potential of the group’s scale and will lead to increased pace of development and faster roll-out of new products,” he added.
