BETonSPORTS, a US- and Asia-facing online gaming company, has delivered a superior set of full year results and picked up a profitable acquisition.

For the year to February, a profit before tax (but including exceptionals) of $14.9m (£7.9m) was delivered, an improvement of 12%. New ‘active real money sign-ups’ were up 32% to 41,660 and gaming volumes reached $1.77bn, up 25%.

To leave less of the business at the mercy of random sports results, BoS has shifted from a 90% focus on sports betting to 72% over last 18 months, but chief executive David Carruthers attributes even more of the improvement to the company’s ‘wider, deeper and stronger’ online marketing efforts.

To complete a terrific period, BoS has splashed out $22m in cash and shares for China-focused online sports betting outfit Hooball, doubling its Asian presence. Hooball made pre-tax profits of $3.6m in 2005 and is to be integrated into the existing Easy Bets operations in Malaysia, bought back in May 2005. Carruthers says Hooball will provide ‘huge’ cross-selling opportunities.

China is estimated to have 54 million gamblers and an online gaming market expected to see growth at a steady 34% per annum over the next three years and there’s ‘no slow-up in the US’, according to Carruthers. ‘Companies with strong brands can cross-sell and be successful,’ he opines. ‘I see no end to growth.’

Analyst Richard Carter at broker Numis has upgraded forecasts for both 2007 and 2008 to profit before tax of $35.7m for 2007, with earnings of about 17.7p per share and $41.3m profit, with circa 20.1p earnings for 2008. This puts the shares on price-to-earnings multiples of 8.7 and 7.7. For a company that seems likely to continue growing, that looks cheap, although remember that this is a volatile sector.