Rank Group has announced its H1 results for 2023/24, with overall net gaming revenue (NGR) and the majority of other metrics showing growth from the same period last year. Underlying NGR was up 7%, totalling £362.6m ($459.3m) compared to the £338.9m made last year.
Rank Group CEO John O’Reilly commented, stating: “After what has been a very challenging few years for Rank... we are starting to build revenues and, with our strong operational leverage, we are improving our profitability... We are well positioned to optimise the opportunities afforded by the UK Government’s planned land-based regulatory reforms.”
Grosvenor venues
Ranks Grosvenor venues, which covers over 50 venues under the Grosvenor Casinos chain, generated £167.5m, up 10% from the £152.1m generated last year. Of this total, £56.4m (33.7%) was generated at London venues, while the remaining £111.1m was made across the rest of the UK.
Underlying operating profits were up a sizeable 198%, earning £14m, up from last year’s £4.7m. Across all of Rank’s recorded metrics for this half, this increase is the largest. Total profit was £13.7m.
Mecca venues
Mecca venues generated £67.2m in H1, up 9% from last year. While underlying operations made a profit this H1, at £0.1m compared to last year's loss of £4.8m, Mecca venues still totalled a loss of £1m.
Total loss in H1 2022/23 was £61.8m, showing continued development towards operating at a profit in the future.
Mecca has faced several challenges in the past half, including warnings from the ASA regarding ‘irresponsible’ advertising in November. In the past half, Rank has opted to permanently close 20 mecca bingo sites, though stated that the choice “is not taken lightly” due to the “important social amenities” and “key community role” of bingo halls in the UK.
Enracha venues
These venues, which consist of nine bingo, machine gaming and sports betting venues in Spain, made a total NGR of £19.5m. This is up 10% year-on-year, with total profit up 32% from £3.8m to £5m.
Digital
Total NGR for Rank's digital ventures came to £108.4m, up 8%. Of this, the biggest contributor was Mecca, followed by Grosvenor and other UK brands including Stride. Of this, £92.8m was generated in the UK, up 8% from last H1.
Mecca’s digital NGR came to £39.8m, up 11%. This may in part be explained by the closing of physical venues, but also by recent advertising pushes on social media and broadcast television partnerships including UK chat show Loose Women.
Grosvenor and Enracha made £33.5m and £13.3m respectively. This reflected growth of 21% for Grosvenor and 15% for Enracha.
Passion Gaming and Ranks other UK brands, including Stride, were down 28% and 12% respectively.
Total profit for Rank’s digital ventures came to £6.3m.
