PointsBet Australia Proprietary Limited boss defends recent marketing spend

The boss for global online sportsbetting operator PointsBet Australia Proprietary Limited has reportedly defended his company’s decision to spend some $163 million over the course of the last year on a range of new marketing and sales initiatives.

According to a Wednesday report from The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, Sam Swanell (pictured) serves as the Australian firm’s Chief Executive Officer with his endorsement coming as the enterprise posted a net loss of over $182 million for the twelve months to the end of June. This disappointing result was purportedly 43% higher than the company’s preceding annual deficit of about $103 million and followed a ramped up promotional spend that included approximately $110 million for the United States market alone.

Pronounced presence:

Sydney-listed PointsBet Australia Proprietary Limited via its PointsBet USA subsidiary reportedly entered the sportsbetting markets of five American states encompassing West Virginia, Kansas, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia over the course of the past year while its PointsBet Canada arm went live in the burgeoning province of Ontario. This purportedly means that its services are now available to aficionados in 13 North American jurisdictions to account for 3.7% of a market widely considered to be annually worth around $9 billion.

Short-term scheme:

Swanell reportedly told investors that his company’s recent marketing and sales push in North America would not be continuing into 2023 but had represented a ‘necessary’ set-up cost to become the region’s seventh-biggest sportsbetting operator. The experienced executive purportedly furthermore asserted that the region had grown into a key sports wagering market due to its population, ‘technological investment’ and sports structure.

A statement from Swanell reportedly read…

“Their sports are set up for betting, there are more breaks in play, more sports and a sizeable population. All the logic indicates this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this billion-dollar industry. It’s up to $9 billion on the existing states but just wait until states like California and Texas with big populations legalize.”

Firm financials:

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that this policy may have already begun bearing fruit as PointsBet Australia Proprietary Limited’s most recent annual handle grew by 32% year-on-year to north of $3.4 billion to send its aggregated revenues up by 52% to beyond $202 million. These figures were purportedly nevertheless joined by a 56% decrease in normalized earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to a loss of roughly $166 million although the operator holds a robust cash position via the recent completion of a pair of capital raising exercises worth nearly $337 million.

Swanell reportedly declared…

“We’ve got the right partnerships and we’ve got the licences in the states you need to have, which are hard to get. It’s taken investment but we’re there now and we have an opportunity to capitalize. We had to spend to go from the bookmaker no one’s heard of to being the seventh biggest in North America.”