Loto Quebec Sees Revenues Drop
Quebec's provincial lottery group, Loto Quebec released its first quarter figures this week and showed that revenue was down 4%.
Despite the success of Loto Quebec's newly launched online casino site, espacejeux.com, the group said that net profits dropped six percent in the three months its fiscal year.
All in all, Loto Quebec generated $882.3 million in revenue in the first 88 days of the fiscal year, compared to $916.8 million in the same time period the year before.
Analysts believe that if Loto Quebec had not launched the online gambling site when it did last year, and see $4.5 million in revenue coming in as a result, it would have seen an even bigger drop in revenues.
Out of the several brands offered by Loto Quebec, only its bingo sector saw growth compared to last year. The 5.6% jump to $8 million was due to new games launched this quarter, namely the Kinzo game and the Kinzo rooms associated with this game.
All other sectors saw a drop in revenue. Income from video lottery terminals (VLT's), for example, dropped from $250.1 million to $242.8 million. Loto Qubec explained that an additional day had been added to fiscal 2010, which could show a difference in revenue.
A single day could bring in as much as $3.8 million in VLT revenues, said Loto Quebec.
Revenue from casinos dropped 4.6% to $207.4 million, while revenue from lottery fell to $427.7 million - a drop of 5.1%.
New CEO for Loto Quebec
The Chief Executive Officer for Loto Quebec, Alain Cousineau said that the group had expected a drop in revenues.
"In general, the first quarter results are consistent with our expectations," he said in a statement issued by the group.
Cousineau will be stepping down as CEO in November this year and Gerard Bibeau will take his place.
Loto Quebec faces a lawsuit brought by two men who contend that the lottery group is engaged in "illegal and nefarious lottery practices" due to the 'un-randomness' of the numbers on its Extra lottery tickets.
As an aside, Loto Quebec showed that consumers choose their numbers based on a series of consecutive numbers. numbers in a logical sequence or numbers that garner public attention.
