Big Fish drives Churchill Downs to record Q3 performance
Social casino arm records 34% rise in bookings to $114.4m during the quarter
Social casino developer Big Fish Games has continued its run of growth following its acquisition by Churchill Downs earlier this year after reporting a 34% uptick in bookings in Q3. [private]
The operator reported bookings of $114.4m for the three-month period ended 30 September 2015, leading to net revenues of $103.5m and adjusted EBITDA of $33.3m.
Churchill Downs said Big Fish growth had been driven by its casino and free to play casual game segments, which generated bookings of $47.4m and $40.3m respectively.
Casino revenues were driven by a 9% increase in average bookings per paying users compared with Q3 2014, offset partially by a 1% decline in average paying users.
Free to play bookings were driven by a massive 158% increase in quarterly average paying users and a 71% uptick in average bookings per paying user.
Big Fish said premium bookings declined $5.5m, or 17%, during the quarter primarily driven by customers continuing to shift from paid PC games to free to play mobile games.
Churchill Downs also broke out revenues for its real-money horse race wagering site TwinSpires.com, which saw revenues increase 9% to $50.3m leading to a 24% rise in EBITDA to $13.8m in Q3.
Total handle also increased 9% to $245.5m.
âWe delivered record revenues and record adjusted EBITDA largely driven by the contribution from our Big Fish Games division,â Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen said.
âIn addition, we were also encouraged by the growth in adjusted EBITDA during the quarter for our TwinSpires and racing segments,â he added.
Churchill Downs posted total Q3 revenues of $279.8m, up 61% on the previous year, with EBITDA rising from $32.5m to $70.6m during the period.