Ladbrokes’ sees Irish revenue dip 1% in first quarter

Ladbrokes saw a further 1% dip in revenues at its struggling Irish operations during the first three months of the year.

A first-quarter trading update, published yesterday by the British betting and gaming services giant, also showed, however, that amounts staked by punters in its shops here grew by 1.2% year-on-year during the period.

The company’s Irish division entered examinership earlier this week, in a bid to protect its long-term viability. It is expected that its estate of 196 shops in Ireland will shrink to around 60 and redundancies will lower its workforce from 840 to around 600.

Group CEO Jim Mullen said that while “regrettable”, the actions being taken in Ireland are “absolutely necessary” in order to save the business, which is “unsustainable” in its current scale and needs “radical change”.

Mr Mullen is due to unveil the results of his review of Ladbrokes’ overall business in June rather than August. He said yesterday that the way the business is run needs to be changed, with scale-building needed — particularly in its digital offering— and customer and market changes adapted to more quickly.

“The decision to seek examinership in Ireland demonstrates the seriousness of our intent and the speed with which we will executive,” he added.

On a group-wide basis, Ladbrokes saw net revenues grow by 3.3% in the first quarter, compared to the same period last year.

Its core UK retail division grew sales by 4.3% and digital net revenue increased by 9.5%, year-on-year.