Online casino, poker room and bingo operator 32Red was firmly in the red on Thursday following its full-year results despite posting a strong performance, in-line with expectations. The group reported a 21% increase increase in total gross gaming revenue, up at £38.8m from £32.1m a year earlier. Profit before taxation climbed 12% from £2.0m to £2.3m, while underlying earnings before, interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) improved from £3.4m to £5.0m. Earnings per share rose from 2.81p to 3.09p. Ed Ware, Chief Executive Officer, said: "This is our fourth consecutive year of delivering double digit growth in both sales and EBITDA underpinned by a step-up in marketing investment and our continued focus on providing a second to none customer service. With the momentum continuing into 2014 and our greater focus on driving returns from our increasing marketing spend I am confident in making further progress in the year ahead."Trading in the first nine weeks of the year has been good with both gross and net revenues up 5% against challenging prior year comparatives. We are encouraged by the initial response to the increased marketing investment in the UK and by recent regulatory clamp downs instigated by the Italian regulator, AAMS, which should ensure that the recent momentum in the business continues.The group declared a final dividend of 1.0p (2013: 0.8p) giving a full-year pay-out of 1.8p (2013: 1.4p). Analysts weigh inSanlam Securities UK Research said it was "slightly disappointed by the performance in Italy, which reported a loss of £1.2m". "However, we believe there is an opportunity to increase its market share," it added. For its part, Numis gave a target price of 100p, with a 'buy' rating, while Daniel Stewart & Company was of the same opinion albeit with a 95p target. Most likely due to profit taking, the share price had fallen 7.53% to 76.75p by 13:45 Thursday. NR