Just having a quick look through the Stars Group Q4 and 2018 full year results presentation released on 6 March and the investor day presentation of 27 March to see if there might be any indication what the future might hold for Sky Poker and a couple of things caught my eye.
Re Sky Poker, I noticed in both presentations that where SB&G is mentioned only the Sky Bet, Sky Casino, Sky Vegas and Sky Bingo logos are used - no sign anywhere of the Sky Poker logo. Wondered if this was an unfortunate omission or more should be read into this with the Stars Group looking to drop the Sky Poker brand at some point sooner rather than later. Its the type of quiet development that you sometimes see when a group wishes to drop an acquired brand it does not see as core, but it could be coincidental. Wondered if anyone from Sky Poker might be able to offer an comment on this.
The second is not poker related but Sky Bet related. I recall seeing a discussion on this forum about the risk free bet offer on the first race every day during the Cheltenham Festival whereby anyone eligible for promotions (new or existing customers) could bet on the first race every day and if you lost the bet you got your stake back up to £20 in cash. Was it too good to be true, why would Sky Bet do it? Well, it was not too good to be true and according to the investors day presentation and transcript, Sky Bet acquired 150,000 "new" customers during the Cheltenham festival which represented around 25% of its annual target and "re-engaged" with a further 250,000. The trick will be to ensure that these customers did not take advantage of this promotion and then drift away or that an existing customer did not encourage all his/her relations to take advantage of the offer on his/her behalf and hence these might not be truly unique customers. However, even taking this into account it demonstrates why Sky would offer such a promotion as it helps to achieve some of their new customer targets - albeit it did impact profitability with the betting net win margin for Q1 2019 being at the lower end of its historic range. There was no mention of how may "already engaged" customers took advantage of the offer. Anyway, interesting to see some figures in relation to such a promotion to understand why it might be offered and how it could be worthwhile if, as Sky Bet did, other marketing spend is reduced in the period beforehand to help in part fund this acquisition strategy.
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Hmph!