Business Monitor: Kindred Group Q2 2021
Key Takeaways
  • Kindred Group reported £7.5 million in revenue from online poker in Q2 2021.
  • Casino revenue grew 18% year-over-year, far off the last four quarters but stronger than growth reported in pre-pandemic years.

Kindred Group reported £7.5 million in revenue from online poker in Q2 2021. It is the lowest quarter since Q3 last year and represents a fall of 22.7% year-over-year, the worst annual performance on record and the first negative growth rate for almost four years.

However, Unibet Poker is lapping a one-off aberration that saw online poker traffic revenue surge to almost £10 million during Q2 2020—up more than double year-on-year—due to the high demand during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic that swept across Europe.

Over the first half of 2021, online poker revenue at Kindred was £16.7 million, down just 3% on H1 2020.

Compared to Q2 2019, Unibet Poker revenue is up almost double, representing a CAGR over this two-year period of 28%. This is in line with the growth reported consistently from 2017 through to the start of the pandemic in 2020 and suggests this underlying growth in Unibet Poker remains.

Unibet’s other verticals performed well. Total group revenue reached £363.7 million, up 55%, just a fraction below the Q4 2020 all-time high. Casino revenue grew 18% year-over-year, far off the last four quarters but much stronger than the single-digit growth in casino reported in the pre-pandemic years.

Sports, on the other hand, saw a natural surge in revenue as it laps a period where most major sporting events in Europe were suspended due to Covid-19. Revenue reached £170.5 million last quarter and the operator reported that Euro 2020 competition was one of the group’s most successful events in company history.