2 weeks ago
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Cost-cutting and product innovation, backed by heavy marketing and advertising at gaming and lottery company Supreme Ventures Limited, SVL, have combined to deliver nearly two-thirds higher profit in the June second quarter.
Executive Chairman Gary Peart noted that at the start of the year, he indicated that SVL was going to be looking seriously at costs. The company went through a redundancy programme, which while still not complete, Peart said, is already generating savings for SVL.
“We’re seeing savings in terms of reduced costs, because of the focus on reducing costs, and we’re also seeing an increase in the top line, on the revenue side,” he said, adding that the two together have driven the double-digit increases in profit.
Second-quarter earnings amounted to $776.27 million, a 63.33 per cent increase over the $475.28 million of profit recorded in the similar period in 2024. This was supported by a $1.16-billion increase in gross revenues, pushing it close to $14 billion.
Over the wider six-month horizon, January-June, the SVL group made net profit of $1.29 billion, which was just about four per cent higher year-on-year. However, the company noted that once normalised to exclude prior year provisions and unrealised losses, SVL actually performed 30 per cent better than the previous period.
Peart says SVL continues to drive revenue growth through innovative promotions of its games.
“People don’t appreciate the fact that we started with two lottery products. We now have 12, and in addition to having 12, there are variations of the 12,” he said, citing, as examples, Mega Ball, Monster Ball, and Color Ball.
“We’re constantly doing different innovations that is exciting to our customer base; that allows us to continue to grow; so even though in gaming it’s a mature business, we still find ways to grow,” he added.
The chairman also noted that SVL was reaping benefits from going deeper into sports betting. The segment continues to grow at double digits, up 30 per cent for the first six months of this year, coming off 50 per cent growth each year for the last three years, Peart said.
“There’s a lot more that we can get from the sports betting side of things. The regulator is now looking at dealing with offshore sites that are getting bets from Jamaica. Once they start to effectively deal with that, the segment will actually increase, not just for us, but all the sports books in the country. You’ll actually see the increase in their revenues going forward,” Peart declared, adding that with proper regulation, sports betting is a “market that can double or triple from where it is now”.
With its main revenue sources being lottery games, horse racing, gaming, betting and wagering, along with pin codes for mobile phones, SVL is classified as a gaming and entertainment company. But its continuing expansion into fintech, event management and, recently, remittances and bill payment led to Peart reach for a different appellation.
“We’re now a technology company, because the core of the business is the software that we’ve developed over the last four or five years,” said the SVL chairman.
“We have our own proprietary lottery system that we run Guyana and Ghana on. We have several proprietary systems that we run our phone credit business, Charge Up, on,” Peart explained, adding that this was the reason for trying to digitise the company as quickly as possible.
“That’s also giving us benefits in the sense that as you strip out the costs, your customers are able to use your products much better. So our online business continues to grow at double digits,” he said.
Regarding the mounting losses from horse racing, Peart reiterated that after spending more than $3 billion to upgrade the 66-year-old Caymanas Park racing track, it was time to adjust the middle model to remake the 196-acre property into a viable business.
“I can say categorically that the current arrangement is not viable and we have to find a solution, one way or the other,” Peart said.
Through member company Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited, SVL operates the horse racing track under lease but has offered to buy Caymanas Park from the Jamaican government, while promising to spend US$100 million over 10 years to transform it into a profitable venture.
The government is yet to make a decision on whether to sell the asset to SVL.
Otherwise, there has been pushback from a coalition representing trainers, owners, jockeys, grooms and others. The group is commonly called ‘the horsemen’. They’ve voiced opposition to the SVL proposal, while calling for increased purses.
Peart stopped just short of dismissing the horsemen’s lobby effort as noise.
“It seems to be a rite of passage out at Caymanas. Every time a new person is elected to lead a constituency out there, it’s like if you don’t bash SVL, you’re not doing well. Howard Hamilton did it. They bash you and when the facts come out, they just quietly ignore it or deflect. Patrick Smelly did it. Ian Parsard did it. All noise. Andrew Azar and Richard Lake too. They make all this noise when all they had to do was to call beforehand,” Peart charged.
He said SVREL was committed to the horse racing industry, and asserted that horse racing would remain a staple on the property.
“So, all this argument about when we shut it down, and whatever, none of that (will happen),” he declared. “On the contrary, we assert that there will always be horse racing.”
English (US) ·