23% Revenue Burst for Quebec Casino Website
Big revenue boost for Quebec online casino games and lottery site.
Quebec is one of just four Canadian provinces to jump aboard the internet gambling bandwagon since the turn of the century. British Columbia led the charge in 2004, followed by Quebec in 2010. Manitoba hopped in the cart with B.C. In 2012, and Ontario finally joined the high-yield revenue race in 2015.
After all this time, I find it rather interesting that Quebec’s iGaming venture is capable of increasing by nearly a full quarter in a mere 85-day span of time. Such is the length of the province’s first fiscal quarter of 2019/2020, beginning April 1, 2019 and ending June 24, 2019. In its associative Q1-F19/20 revenue report, Loto-Quebec identifies a 23.8% increase in online gaming revenue – coincidentally very similar to the 23.4% overall increase in consolidated net income.
Loto-Quebec President and CEO Lynne Roiter commented in a brief press release announcing the results:
“Since 2015–2016, our total first-quarter revenues (for the same number of days) have increased by $70.0M (+11.9%), while total expenses over the same period have risen by just 1.9%. As for our consolidated net income, it saw a $63.9M (+23.4%) increase, to which all sectors contributed.”
Quebec Online Casino Games and Lottery Up 23.8%
Combining the revenue generated from lottery and casino games on the provincially operated online gaming portal, Espacejeux.com, the gaming regulator reports a total income of $29.23 million, up from $23.62 million in the same period last year. That marks a total increase of $5.11 million ($23.8%) year over year (YoY).
Dividing up the lottery and casino gaming side of the online sector, lotteries contributed to $7.58 million, up 7.1% from $7.08 million YoY, while casino games saw a much more substantial increase to $21.65 million, up 30.9% from $16.54 million.
Retail Lottery Sales Down -11.6%
Online sales may be up by half a million in the first quarter, but the retail market for lottery tickets is on the decline. Q1-F19/20 results showed a total revenue generation of $215.97 million, down 11.6% from $244.4 million in the previous year’s time frame. Loto-Quebec chalked the diminishing sales up to two largely attributable factors.
• Significant decline (-$16.3M) in Lotto Max sales as far less Maxmillions prizes were on offer; only 32 compared to 199 YoY.
• Reduction (-$10.3M) in special edition ticket sales, attributed to unpopular nature of high-priced $100 ULTIME tickets.
Report Gives Land Casinos Special Treatment
Quebec’s four major casinos, Casino de Montréal (left), Casino de Charlevoix, Casino du Lac-Leamy, and Casino de Mont-Tremblant, are said to be ‘stable’ in Loto-Quebec’s financial report. In reality, they fell $5.6 million (-2.85%), from $196.97 million in Q1-F2018/19 to $191.37 million in the same time this year.
Provincial regulators put a nice spin on the results, though. By lumping in the increase in Quebec online casino games revenue (+$5.11M), and accounting for this first quarter being one day shorter than last year’s (one more day would have increased Q1 by an average of +$2.25M), Loto-Quebec was able to report casino gaming growth of $2.1 (+1.0%). Kudos to their accountants for that that one out of the hat… Well played.
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