In the United Kingdom and prominent land-based and online gaming operator Rank Group has released its financial results for the first three months of the year showing a drop of 72% year-on-year in like-for-like aggregated net gaming revenues.

The Maidenhead-headquartered firm behind the Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo chains used an official press release to simultaneously detail a decline of 98% year-on-year in analogous land-based receipts as it suffered through the coronavirus-related shuttering of its entire estate with the exception of the nine Enracha-branded venues it runs in Spain. The company also declared that these properties, which are located in the cities of Cordova, Barcelona, Seville, Reus, Madrid and Girona, had experienced ‘strong customer demand’ during the period ‘albeit under very strict capacity restrictions.’

Digital dependence:

Rank Group is also responsible for the online gambling domains at Enracha.es, MeccaBingo.com and GrosvenorCasinos.com and disclosed that its net iGaming revenues for the three-month had fallen by 3% year-on-year. However, the London-listed firm explained that this sector’s like-for-like receipts actually rose by 4% when compared with the preceding quarter after receipts from its Stride Gaming subsidiary had been included.

Spanish success:

Staying with its iGaming business and Rank Group additionally pronounced that the three-month period had seen revenues from its GrosvenorCasinos.com domain sink by 2% quarter-on-quarter while growing by 4% at MeccaBingo.com. It furthermore divulged that results from Stride Gaming, which runs sites such as SpinAndWin.com, MagicalVegas.com and RegalWins.com, had sequentially swelled by 7% with receipts from its Spain-facing YoBingo.es and YoCasino.es domains having ballooned by a very impressive 10%.

Optimistic objective:

John O’Reilly serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Rank Group and he used the press release to state that his firm is now firmly focussed ‘on continuing to grow digital net gaming revenues’ and expects to return to year-on-year growth during the third quarter of this year. He moreover proclaimed that the company is ‘broadly where we expected to be’ following the coronavirus-plagued quarter and is looking forward to re-opening its estate of United Kingdom venues from May 17.

Read a statement from O’Reilly…

“Our business has inevitably been heavily impacted by the pandemic but with the strong support and dedication of our colleagues we are now very much looking forward to re-opening our casino and bingo venues, welcoming back our customers and providing the great entertainment and omni-channel service in a coronavirus-safe environment we know they enjoy. We continue to make good progress on the Transformation 2.0 plans that will drive the next phase of growth for the group.”