Paddy Power Betfair Share News (PPB)

(Sharecast News) - A flurry of betting before the football World Cup in the second quarter increased interim pre-tax profits at Paddy Power Betfair by 4% to £106m as revenue rose 5% to £867m. Underlying profits fell 1% to £217m. The dividend was lifted 3% to 67p a share on the back of earnings of 103.7p a share, up 1%.The company added that full year 2018 underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, pre-US sports betting, was now expected to be between £460m - £480m, reflecting recent trading momentum, the introduction of additional taxes in Australia and the inclusion of losses from the FanDuel daily fantasy sports business.Chief executive Peter Jackson said product enhancements and improved cross sell rates led to stronger gaming revenue growth over the past few months for both brands in Europe along with higher customer satisfaction with the Paddy Power sports app."The World Cup was a showcase event for Paddy Power, with a series of successfully executed marketing campaigns leading to it being one of the UK's most talked about brands in social media conversations around the tournament," he said."In Australia, despite significant upcoming tax headwinds, Sportsbet continues to target further market share gains by using its scale to increase investment in marketing, product and its value proposition."Jackson said the addition of the FanDuel fantasy sports betting operation to the group's portfolio had created the industry's largest online business, with a "large sports-focused customer base and an extensive nationwide footprint" as gambling firms looked to cash in on the recent law change in to legalise sports betting."Our FanDuel sportsbook is now available in New Jersey and with our recent partnership with Boyd Gaming we're looking forward to launching in further states as the legislation progresses," he said.Paddy Power now had "much better visibility of the regulatory and fiscal changes in the UK, Australia and the USA, and believe that our scale, leading customer propositions and strong balance sheet mean we are well positioned to build a business that can generate sustainable shareholder returns over the long term".It added that it did not expect the UK government's proposed new £2 stake limit for gaming machines to have a material impact on retail strategy."Our shops are more profitable, and outperform on sports betting, enabling them to better withstand the impact of lower machine stakes limits. We operate in high footfall, highly competed locations, which means we are well placed to benefit from competitor shop closures," the company said.