The Betmakers Technology Group Ltd (ASX: BET) share price is falling today after a volatile past week.
With no fresh news from the company this morning, the Betmakers share price has fallen 3.8% to $1.25 per share at the time of writing.
Let's take a closer look.
A quick take on Betmakers
Betmakers develops and provides data and analytic products. The company operates in two segments: content and integrity, and wholesale wagering products.
The content and integrity segment assists racing bodies and rights holders in producing and distributing race content, including services such as barrier technology, official price calculation, vision, and pricing distribution.
Its wholesale wagering products segment, which derives the majority of its revenue, provides a variety of racing data and analytical tools consisting of basic race data. This includes the usual suspects: pricing, runners, and form, as well as analytical tools to consume and leverage the data, and wagering tools such as platforms and the Global Tote.
Geographically, it derives a majority of revenue from Australia.
The losses behind the Betmakers share price gains
The Betmakers share price has risen 537% over the past 12 months, spurred on by significant increases to Australia's already booming gambling market during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Betmakers has been well-positioned to benefit from Australia's gambling habits shifting online during COVID-19 lockdowns as a gambling operator specialises in data analytics and a highly technological approach.
According to research from the Australian National University, Australia has one of the highest rates of gambling losses in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic, while not leading to national increases in the overall number of people gambling, did lead to huge increases in gambling expenditure by key demographics.
Victoria's gambling losses rose by 35% during the state's enforced lockdown. Australia-wide, male gamblers spent almost 25% more per month after the COVID-19 lockdowns than before them.
In its second-quarter FY21 activities update released in February, Betmakers reported cash receipts for the first half of FY21 of $7.9 million, up 130%.
While Australia's gambling losses have been rising consistently over the past few years – Australians lose more than $24 billion a year or about $923 per person – the Betmakers share price was flat for most of the previous five years. Its gains are based largely on 2021 alone.
In September 2019, it was trading at just 9 cents per share, and it had a strong 7-month period to rise to more than 50 cents by August 2020. But since January this year, the Betmakers share price has already more than doubled to its current value.
Betmakers current performance
Despite today's falls, the Betmakers share price is up 22% in the past month and almost 80% in 2021 so far. It's also beaten its consumer cyclical sector by more than 480%.
