Fortuna Entertainment : accepted bets of EUR 302.2 million up 20.1% in the first quarter of 2017

AMSTERDAM/Warsaw/Prague - Fortuna Entertainment Group, the leading Central European fixed-odds betting and gaming operator, has announced its unaudited consolidated results for the first quarter of 2017.

· Total Amounts Staked in Q1 2017 increased by 20.1% to EUR 302.2 million

· Total Gross Win in Q1 2017 went up by 12.2% to EUR 42.7 million

· Online Sports Betting Gross Win in Q1 2017 increased by 18.5% to EUR 28.3 million

'In the first quarter of 2017, the Company continued to deliver robust growth in Amounts Staked and we accepted total bets in the amount of EUR 302.2 million, which is 20.1% more than last year. The Amounts Staked grew double digits in all our key markets, primarily driven by the online betting growth and in particular mobile sports betting while retail grew low single digit. We also recorded in this quarter the first bets from the recently launched online casino in the Czech Republic of which we started as the first regulated operator at the end of February. Our operating profitability measured by EBITDA was impacted by lower margins due to unfavourable sports results across all markets and the planned increase of operating costs in connection with building operational excellence and CEE expansion,'said Per Widerström, CEO of Fortuna Entertainment Group.

The Group's Amounts Staked for the first quarter of 2017 was EUR 302.2 million, a robust 20.1% yoy growth. This increase was driven primarily by the double digit growth in Online betting while Retail grew low single digit. The Amount Staked on sports betting reached EUR 281.5 million in the first quarter of 2017, a 14.1% improvement on the first quarter of 2016. The Amount Staked from lottery betting in the first quarter of 2017 totalled EUR 3.9 million, a 20.0% yoy decrease. During the first quarter the Company recorded Amounts Staked in the online gaming segment in the amount of EUR 16.8 million. The gaming Amount Staked originated from the Czech Republic where the Company launched online casino as the first regulated operator at the end of February 2017.

In the first quarter of 2017, the total Gross Win reached EUR 42.7 million, an increase of 12.2% compared to the first quarter of 2016. The yoy growth in the first quarter was primarily driven by online betting which implies a lower Gross Win margin than in the retail betting while unfavourable sport results in February and March 2017 in particular further depressed the overall betting Gross Win margin. The recently launched online casino in Czech Republic contributed also to a higher overall Gross Win.

The Gross Win from sports betting was EUR 40.0 million, an 11.1% increase yoy. Of this figure, the Gross Win from online betting in the first quarter of 2017 increased to EUR 28.3 million, a substantial increase of 18.5% over the same period of 2016. The Gross Win from retail betting in the first quarter of 2017 amounted to EUR 11.7 million, a 3.6% decline yoy - primarily driven by a lower Gross Win margin in February and March 2017 in particular.

In the first quarter of 2017, the Gross Win from the lottery business was EUR 1.7 million, an 18.6% decline over the same period of last year. The Gross Win from gaming reached EUR 1.0 million in the first quarter of 2017.

In the first quarter of 2017, total EBITDA reached EUR 3.0 million, a 36.3% decrease over the same period of last year. Of this, the EBITDA from sports betting and gaming reached EUR 3.0 million and the EBITDA from lottery was a negative number of EUR 0.02 million, by 108.9% yoy less. The EBITDA decrease resulted mainly from the decline in Gross Win margin as discussed above and from the anticipated increase in operating costs of the Group related to data feed and live streaming, IT technologies, M&A advisory services for CEE expansion and marketing services including sponsoring.

Selected financial indicators - FEG total