Playtech is based in Estonia and is the biggest company listed on Aim. In 2008, the business bought a series of gaming assets, businesses and contracts and sold them for $250m (£163m) to William Hill to create William Hill Online (WHO), in return for a 29 per cent stake in the business.
The move promises to be beneficial to both William Hill – which operates 2,300 bricks-and-mortar betting shops – which believes the most will transform its business in Europe’s leading online gaming and sports betting businesses.
Although, the early stages of the partnership were fraught with problems, the joint venture brought in €22.5m (£20.1m) in profits for Playtech, which helped boost pre-tax profits at the group from €41.4m to €70.3m for the year to December 31.
Playtech has seen its revenue grow by three per cent to €114.8m as it signed up new companies such as Betfair, Virgin and Sega to use its gaming software.
Playtech’s confidence has shown no sign of abating and since the year end, the business has made what some analysts think could be another very important partnership with Scientific Games, the world's largest lottery software provider. The deal is designed to accelerate the group's penetration of the potentially lucrative business-to-government market.
Mor Weizer, chief executive of Playtech said: “As governments start to legislate for online gambling markets, their state lottery operators need online poker, bingo and casino and other internet gaming products to remain competitive,” he said.
Earnings per share rose from 17.9 cents to 29 cents. Playtech is recommending a final dividend of 9.4 cents, bringing the total pay-out to 18.3 cents (15.2 cents).
Shares in Playtech, which came to Aim at 257p in 2006, rose 4½p to 507½p giving a market capitalisation of more than £1.2bn.