Current gambling financial report

There has been a lots of numbers and movement in the online gambling related financial markets so far this month.

One of the major news is that Neteller has decided to cut its workforce by 220 people in Calgary, Canada and 30 people in their U.K. offices. This comes as the result of their downsizing plans, after the online gambling transaction processor has taken a big hit from the recent developments - their exit of the US market following the arrests of the two former members of the management. The worldwide number of employees of Neteller has fallen now down to 425 our of over one thousand an year ago. The Neteller stock is still suspended from trading for undisclosed period of time.

One of the leading casino software providers, CryptoLogic (UK: CRP) has shown a good 2006 financial report, however, in the forth quarter of 2006 the profit has dropped 70.6% to $1.7 million, with earnings equaling to 12 cents per share, down from 43 cents per share for the same period last year. CryptoLogic has signed recently an exclusive 3-year contract with the Dutch government to provide the casino software for their national casino, which should help in offsetting the losses from the US market.

888 Holdings PLC is another online gambling company making the financial news. The company has announced that the year gaming revenue rose 7%, despite their pull-out of the US market. The increase is due to more new players from Europe and from the fact that the players are gambling more money now. The total gambling revenue rose to $290 million in the 2006 up from $271 million for 2005. 888 Holdings also noted that January of 2007 is already breaking records of previous non-US operations.

The Canadian based ESI (TOR: ESY), which operates the online gambling check processor Citadel Commerce Corp., had over 80 of its customers residing in the United States, which led to the recent layoffs of 35% of its workforce, which would save over $5 million per year. In January the company laid off 22 employees and wrote off $6 million in assets. The ESI stock price has fallen from the initial offering of $3 down to 50 cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange, as the company is trying to focus on developing a better business model of catering to the European market.