Gaming and wagering company Tabcorp said its half-year net profit after tax rose 64.1 per cent to $122.4 million, boosted by a one-off income tax decision linked to its Trackside product.

Excluding significant items, underlying net profit rose 21.8 per cent to $90.9 million in the six months ended December 31, 2014, which was ahead of the $87.3 million analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting.

Revenue rose 6.7 per cent to $1.1 billion, which was in line with consensus. The newly merged wagering and media division was the only driver of growth, with revenue rising 7.8 per cent to $960.7 million. Strong growth in fixed odds and digital betting continued to outpace declines in traditional totalisator betting and wagering in Tabcorp's bricks and mortar outlets.

Chief executive David Attenborough said wagering benefited from a strong 2014 Spring Carnival and the last stages of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. "Strong customer acquisition numbers and betting volumes helped drive first half earnings," he said in a statement, noting Tabcorp was the market leader in both fixed odds and digital betting.

Gaming services revenue rose 1.6 per cent to $50.7 million. Growth in the pubs and clubs poker machine servicing arm has mostly stalled after a period of strong growth following its establishment mid-2012.

The Keno business, which distributes the lottery-style game into pubs and clubs, went backwards with revenue falling 0.6 per cent to $103.8 million.

The board declared a fully-franked interim dividend of 10c a share, and a special dividend of 30c a share. The special dividend is worth $230 million to shareholders. Both dividends will be paid on March 16.

The Melbourne-based company has taken the positive result as an opportunity to launch a share offer to existing shareholders, to raise $236 million. The stock has gained 37 per cent in the past year and closed at $4.71 on Wednesday, which is its highest point since the June 2011 demerger that split out the casino assets that now trade as Echo Entertainment Group. The stock is in a trading halt until Tuesday.

One investor called the move to raise capital and redistribute it through a special dividend "clever" because it made use of Tabcorp's surplus franking credits and made Tabcorp a high yield stock "which is attractive in this market".

Assuming Tabcorp will distribute a final dividend also in the range of 10c, this suggests Tabcorp is trading with a dividend yield of about 9.4 per cent.

Mr Attenborough said the half year result reflected the benefits of Tabcorp's transformation and investment in its multi-channel distribution.

-Source The Age Melbourne.

__________________
RaceCensus - powerful system testing software.
Now with over 399,000 Metropolitan, Provincial and Country races!
http://www.propun.com.au/horse_raci...ng_systems.html
*RaceCensus now updated to 31/03/2024
Video overview of RaceCensus here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W821YP_b0Pg

Just looking at it with my financial planners hat on, its interesting they state it puts tabcorp on a 9.4% dividend yield, however they aren't going to raise capital and then re-distribute that raised capital fully franked every year via a special dividend.

Will be interesting to see if its clever enough to get the yield hungry investors to jump onboard though and push the share price higher.

I've always been a fan of investing in gambling related companies (Crown for example). It's pretty rare that even through something like the GFC that people stop gambling all together, which makes their revenue reasonably stable and the efforts they make to re-invest that revenue can make them good growth stories.

Tabcorp are as slimy as William Hill.

Tabcorp and Tatts Group knocked back by High Court over $84m pokies levy in Victoria

"Beautiful"