LiveScore FY23 sees revenue boost of 48.9%

LiveScore’s full-year period ended 31 March 2023. Its full-year report focused on operations within its Virgin Bet, LiveScore Bet and sports media business.

Gambling made up £108.0m of the total revenue, up by 57.3% compared to full-year 2022. The remaining revenue came from advertising, which totalled £21.6m. This was an increase of 17.7%.

In October 2023, LiveScore chief executive Sam Sadi detailed future plans for the group to iGB. He explained that LiveScore intends to be the number one sports media operator globally, as opposed to the number one betting operator.

Looking at revenue by location, LiveScore saw a majority of its revenue made in the UK and Ireland, totalling at £100.3m – up by 40.0%.

However, the largest jump in revenue was seen in its Rest of Europe division, which almost tripled year-on-year to £14.0m. The group’s Rest of World division made up the remaining £15.2m.

The number of LiveScore employees also shot up during the year, going from 416 in 2022 to 492 in 2024.

Loss diminishes slightly

Cost of sales for the year was £29.7m. This consists of the group’s gaming licences. After factoring this in, the gross profit was £99.9m, a yearly increase of 45.1%.

But it was LiveScore’s distribution costs and administrative expenses that drove the group into a loss for the year. Distribution costs – which mainly consist of marketing – totalled £83.7m for the year.

Meanwhile, administrative expenses grew by 28.6% to £77.8m, bringing the operating loss to £61.7m. However, this was still an £8.1m improvement on the operating loss recorded in 2022.

The share of profit in associate combined with interest receivable and similar income improved the loss by a further £334,577. However, this was wiped out by the £4.1m in interest repayable and similar expenses, resulting in a pre-tax loss of £65.5m.

The $88,883 taxation on the loss brought the total loss for the year to $65.4m, an improvement of 6.5% year-on-year as the group’s operating margin improved.

EBITDA improves and investments shoot up

EBITDA for the year came out at a loss of £50.4m, a 14.4% difference compared to the EBITDA loss of £58.9m in 2022.

LiveScore’s parent company Anzo Group Limited issued £38.6m in shares during September and October 2022. This was in lieu of repaying party loan balances. This share total is also enough to cover LiveScore’s remaining liabilities for the next 12 months.

In September 2023 – after the full-year period had ended – Anzo Group’s shareholders created a loan facility of £20.0m for LiveScore. This differs from how Anzo Group typically provides LiveScore liquidity. In December 2023, £10m of this loan facility was used.

LiveScore also noted that during the year, Ringier Sports Media Group AG made a £50m investment in the group.