The gaming specialist saw earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITA) hit €2.079 million, an improvement of €1,000 over the first quarter of 2008, while earnings before interest and tax came in at €565 from a loss of €377 for the first three months last year.

The company also moved into the black with consolidated earnings reaching €90,000 from last year’s deficit of €520,000 while reporting cash and equivalents of €12.851 million, which was slightly down on the €12.861 it held at the end of 2008.

Jaxx stated that revenues from sportsbetting rose over 28 percent to €21.359 million from €15.189 million for the first quarter of 2008 while those from bets placed on horseracing dropped 40 percent to €4.202 million from €7.106 million. In addition, lottery revenues decreased 37 percent year-on-year to €3.768 million from €5.981 million.

“Following a good start to the 2009 financial year with healthy results for the quarter, the performance is expected to fall back initially in the second quarter due to seasonal factors,” read a statement from Jaxx.

“The end of the football season in Europe traditionally brings a downturn in bookmaking margins because customers increasingly place bets on the favourites to win. From the end of May, the start of the summer break will, moreover, limit the range of bets on offer. The possibility cannot, therefore, be excluded that the second quarter of 2009 could produce a negative result.”

Jaxx recently wrote down €15 million in investments in its German operations and closed its Jaxx Gmbh Hamburg subsidiary as a result of new legislation that came into effect in January prohibiting online lottery agency operations in its home nation.

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Under current Dutch law, firms offering online gambling services in the nation must have a permit but all such activities are currently nationalised under the Holland Casino monopoly.

According to a report from the Telegraaf newspaper, the European Union has begun to look at Holland’s efforts and the nation could eventually end up before the European Court Of Justice.

“The European Commissioner has asked the appropriate services to start an investigation into the banking blockade,” said a spokesperson for Charlie McCreevy, European Commissioner For Internal Markets And Services.

“As far as we are aware, The Netherlands is the only country in Europe to do such a thing.”

A recent report from research agency Motivaction revealed that the Dutch are spending €450 million a year on Internet gambling, which is double what it spent four years ago. Motivaction reported that 485,000 Dutch players gambled online ‘regularly’ while the nation spent an average of €82 a month gambling over the Internet.

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The figure was a 14 percent rise on the firm’s results for full-year 2008 and was helped by 25 percent growth year-on-year in income from sportsbetting activities.

Unibet revealed that its income from sportsbetting from the first three months of 2009 hit £15.97 million, which was up from last year’s £11.88 million, while its gross winnings revenue amounted to £36.1 million, a 13 percent rise on 2009’s £31.3 million.

Profits before tax for the first quarter of 2009 amounted to £10.7 million, which was up from £2.9 million in 2008, while those from operations for the first quarter grew by £600,000 year-on-year to £10.9 million.

Unibet also had 26,816 more active customers than a year ago to bring its total to 314,977 while it reported that it had operating cash flow before any movements in working capital of £13.5 million, a rise of £300,000 from twelve months ago.

“Our strong business model and the well-balanced product portfolio have resulted in another strong quarter in terms of gross winnings and operating cash flow,” said Petter Nylander, Chief Executive Officer for Unibet.

“During the quarter, the number of active customers increased by almost eight percent and we have continued our successful geographic expansion. The experience and structure capital that we have gained in our own sportsbook gives us a competitive advantage in many areas and are fundamental in the strength of our brand and our customers’ user experience.”

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The former three-term New York Senator wrote a letter to The Hill newspaper last week criticising an April 2 article entitled Frank’s Internet Gambling Bill Faces Tough Course To Passage. The piece pertained to proposed legislation due to be introduced later this month by US Representative Barney Frank that, if passed, would establish a new licensing and regulatory framework for online gambling operators and negate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

Seventy-one-year-old D’Amato wrote that the piece wrongfully suggested that ‘the issue of regulating Internet gaming is somehow partisan in nature, while pitting social conservatives against liberal Democrats’.

“As a former senator, a Republican, and Chairman of the PPA, a grassroots organisation aimed to promote and protect poker both online and offline, I can tell you with great certainty that it is not,” wrote D’Amato.

”Liberals and conservatives in and out of Congress are opposed to UIGEA for a number of reasons. It does nothing to prevent children and problem gamblers from playing online, it overly burdens the banks, making them, not the Federal Government, policemen of the Internet, it costs the taxpayers billions in unearned revenue, not to mention the loss of capital and jobs when these companies are forced to move out of the US and it’s simply unenforceable.

“In February, the PPA served as a co-sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference and the positive response to our issue was overwhelming. The principles that are aligned with Internet freedom, personal responsibility and limited government were abandoned when UIGEA slipped through Congress in 2006. Both conservatives and liberals alike know that UIGEA was simply a bad bill turned into worse policy and it must be redone in order to put a more effective system in place.”

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According to a story from Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the plans are part of the recent Government-commissioned Nyren Report investigating proposals that could lead to a new controlling gambling act.

If passed as written, the proposals would prevent Sweden-based players from accessing and playing on foreign gambling and poker websites. The Government stated this week that it would continue its efforts at strengthening the nation’s regulations in order to prevent an increase in gambling addictions.

It warned against liberalising the market but its plans have come under fire from both home and abroad with Internet service providers and domestic authorities largely condeming any legislation that would place limits on online freedoms. Many feel that it could lead to wider censorship and unfairly limit an individual’s right to use the Internet.

The State-owned Svenska Spel monopoly is the world’s twelfth largest online poker room and it is not currently illegal to visit or place bets using a foreign site.

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