Veikkaus hits financial targets in first year after merger

Finnish National Lottery operator Veikkaus has said that it was able to achieve its financial expectations for the first year following its three-way merger.

Last year, Fintoto, Finland’s Slot Machine Association (RAY) and Veikkaus joined forces to form the umbrella Veikkaus brand, with the three companies working as a single entity since January 1, 2017.

For this first year as a combined business, Veikkaus posted turnover of €3.21bn ($4bn), while profit came in at €1.02bn for the 12 months to December 31, 2017.

Of the total turnover, 58% of this came from the company’s retail sales network, while the remaining 42% was generated by digital channels.

Veikkaus enhanced its digital business in August of last year by rolling out a new online store, where all games across the three businesses were united under one account.

At year-end, Veikkaus had a customer base of more than two million players.

Veikkaus was also able to exceed the target figure for the amount distributed to beneficiaries in the past year, with this coming in at just over €1bn.

In addition, the share of identified gaming of all playing of Veikkaus games rose to 40.6%, up 1.6 percentage points.

Olli Sarekoski, president and chief executive of Veikkaus, said: “The first year of the new Veikkaus was successful in spite of the challenges associated with the integration, and we were able to generate the projected profit to our beneficiaries.

“Identified gaming helps us to offer our customers even more responsible tools for gaming management.

“Last year we renewed the Veikkaus Card, which now enables our customers to play identified even on slot machines.”

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