Jelly Slice

What is Jelly Slice?

Entain’s removal from the FTSE 100 is a telling sign of what has happened to gambling stocks across both Europe and the US in recent years. The company’s shares have fallen sharply over the past year, even as its first-half results showed continued growth in several important markets.

In the six months to June, Entain’s online net gaming revenue rose 7% in constant currency. Revenue in Britain and Ireland increased 13%, while the company maintained its full-year guidance for online net gaming revenue growth of 5% to 7%. So why is its stock price still so under pressure?

One answer is that the industry is no longer being valued primarily on the promise of endless growth. The market instead wants to see profit, cash generation and manageable regulation maintained across all facets of a listed business. Ed Birkin, managing director of H2 Gambling Capital, says the longer-term decline in gambling stocks runs much deeper than just changes to earnings forecasts.

About Jelly Slice

A new report commissioned by Euromat, and produced by Regulus Partners and Helios, estimates that Europe’s black market has sustained a compound annual growth rate of 18% between 2019 and 2026, and will be worth up to €13 billion by the end of the year.

The report assesses black market activity across 28 European jurisdictions, including the UK, Netherlands and Germany. According to estimates across a mature black market ecosystem, 25 operators account for approximately 64% of relevant black market traffic.

Thanks to the “rapid growth of crypto currencies” and globally recognisable branding through marketing and sponsorships, this handful of operators are generating the majority of illegal gambling traffic across Europe.

What is Jelly Slice?

“Operators do pay, yes, but they pay whatever suits them,” they said. “In other words, we effectively pay what benefits us. All the while, the state has no means of monitoring its regulatory policies.”

In response to these issues, earlier this year the DRC Ministry of Finance outlined plans for a new gambling monitoring platform to enhance its supervision of the sector.

The DRC government is also developing a new legal framework for the gambling industry, designed to modernise existing rules and strengthen oversight of tax collection.