Probability

Now in the black, mobile gambling trailblazer Probability believes this is the right time to expand overseas.

The company has been expanding fast since the introduction of the 2005 Gambling Act, which allowed gambling companies to advertise their wares on television, radio and other media, providing a new way for it to access potential customers. This, allied with soaring mobile internet use arising from the networks’ strategy of allowing free or fixed-fee surfing, meant the number of people seeing Probability’s adverts soared too.

The success of this ongoing marketing campaign – and deals such as providing mobile network Orange’s bingo and slot-machine games – has more than doubled customer numbers in a year to over 400,000. Net revenues from gaming – and a limited number of white label deals with The Sun, Blue Square and Mecca Bingo – have jumped 117% to £2.6m in the six months to September and allowed the company to break even with a maiden pre-tax profit of £103,000.

Probability has strong competitive advantages over its peers arising from its ability to efficiently adapt its software to each type of mobile phone. The software supports over 7,000 models to date – significantly more than its competitors.

With games generally costing just 10p a pop, economic slowdown has not hit home, beams chief executive Charles Cohen: ‘We’re turning a profit and we’re very happy.’ Cash-generative and with £2.5m in the bank, he says a ‘low-cost’ overseas expansion is opportune now as ‘there are no competitors’.

Forecast by house broker Collins Stewart to make £800,000 of profit before tax and 3.6p of earnings for the full year, fast-growing Probability is an exciting, if still speculative, prospect.

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