Legal bookmakers in Russia: Who earns more?

Publication date: 28 Apr 2023

In April 2023, legal betting companies in Russia published their financial statement for the year of 2022: revenue and net profit as well as the main expenses. 

In case you have suddenly forgotten: 

• profit is the difference between revenue and expenses;
• revenue (income) is the amount earned by the company in a specified period.

Rating of bookmakers in Russia: net profit growth

Most of the bookmakers working and accepting bets legally in Russia have shown an increase in net profit.

Winline bookmaker’s profit in 2022 rose 32.5% to 13.1 billion roubles. At the same time, revenues increased by 47.9% to 43.6 billion roubles. Major expenses include management expenses of 20.16 billion roubles, payment of dividends and other payments in favor of the owners totaling 10.8 billion roubles. The wage fund increased by 58% over the year to 1.09 billion roubles. The profit tax for this period amounted to 27.8 million roubles.

Profit of the 1xStavka bookmaker in 2022 increased 1.5 times and reached 11.65 billion roubles. Moreover, revenue also increased to 23.7 billion roubles or by 34.9%.

BC Melbet’s profit (from the Melofon Ltd. report) was 4.1 billion roubles, an increase of 69.7% compared to the 2021 data. Revenues amounted to 24 billion roubles, i.e. growth of 18.2% more. The main expenses: 16.8 billion roubles were taken from manufacturing and sales and 2.2 billion roubles from management expenses. Another 73.5 million was paid in taxes and 4.3 million for employee salaries. 

Read on and take your pick:

• Brands: Top 10 largest gambling companies in the world
• GEO: How much money is made on online gambling around the world? 

Leon betting company (owned by Kontora Ltd.) has reduced its net profit by 99.8% to 1.11 million roubles, while revenues have increased by 10% to 8.2 billion roubles. The company’s biggest expenses in 2022 were 1.53 billion rubles for management expenses, 6.21 billion roubles for the cost of sales and 6.07 billion roubles for the payment of winnings. Employee remuneration costs amounted to 133.9 million roubles, special deductions – 128.5 million roubles and gambling tax – 39.1 million roubles, settlement and cash services – 414.5 million roubles. 

Net profit of BC Marathonbet decreased by 63.1% (513.8 million roubles), while the revenue increased by 11.3% (13.6 billion roubles). The company earned over 13 billion roubles from sports betting, the bookmaker’s expenses include: 169 million roubles for advertising, 107.7 million roubles for taxes and commissions and 107.7 million roubles for fees. The company has several major creditors, including NGO “Mobile Card”, PJSCB “Derzhava”, LLC “Olympic Technologies” and LLC “Soft Island”.

Bookmaker Sportbet increased its net profit by 308.9% to 143. 8 million roubles. Revenue also increased: by 7.2% to 1.96 billion roubles. 

Net profit of BC Tennisi (legal entity Rus Teletot LLC) decreased by more than 50% (to 67.2 million roubles). Revenue increased by 19.5%, reaching 2.97 billion roubles, while gross profit dropped slightly to 159.8 million roubles. The payment of various payments took 2.96 billion roubles, including 2.27 billion roubles for the winnings, 43.5 million roubles for the gambling tax and 647 million roubles for the income tax. Targeted deductions by the Tennisi betting company reached 120 million roubles. 

Bookmakers help Russia’s sports development: ERAI profit and report 

Last year’s net profit of the ERAI increased 13-fold, to 52.4 million roubles. This is the amount the regulator received from legal betting shops.

In the first quarter of 2023, the bookmakers’ target deductions also went up. Compared to the same period in 2022, the amount increased by 27% to 4.09 billion roubles. However, compared to the last quarter of 2022, the volume of deductions was slightly lower (by 0.92%).

The total revenue of all bookmakers in the first quarter was 260.1 billion roubles, an increase of 28.6%. But compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, there was also a noticeable decline of 3.2%. The revenue of land-based betting offices amounted to 18.56 billion roubles (or 7%). The remaining 93% (245.57 billion roubles) came from online sports betting.

Fonbet, Winline, BetBoom, Liga Stavok and Pari paid out the most – 3.32 billion roubles (or 79%).

The top 5 federations in terms of contributions received are the Russian Football Union, the Table Tennis Federation, the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, the Russian Tennis Federation and the Kontinental Hockey League.