WA-based online gaming juggernaut VGW (Virtual Gaming Worlds) has published incredible full year financial results with revenues growing to $4.3B over 2022/23, as predicted by their earlier six months to December 2022 income of $2.2 billion (which was up 43% year on year).
Profits were down 17% to $378M after a significant increase in marketing spend, which famously included a reported $107M sponsorship of Formula 1 racing team Ferrari.
Dividends handed out to shareholders were $319M, with a reported $215M going to the founder and CEO Laurence Escalante. His Instagram stories now seem to be full of super cars, expensive watches, private jet journeys and F1 races where he (understandably)gets pretty amazing access.
VGW is a public unlisted company, meaning that while not listed on the ASX, it has to publish its accounts. The last time a share issue occurred, the company was valued around $4B, up from $3.4B in mid 2021, giving it ‘unicorn status’ (unlisted company valued at more than US$1 billion).
VGW continues to be Perth’s only home grown and Perth-located unicorn. Canva, another unicorn valued around $39B, left Perth pretty much as soon as it was founded in 2012/13 and has been based in Sydney ever since.
VGW is reported to have 200-300 staff in Perth and another 500 in the Philippines, as well as other places. The company has managed to manage the strict ban on online gambling sites in the US, by using a sweepstakes format. Its most popular game Chumba Casino reaped in $3.3B in revenues, followed by Luckyland Slots bringing in $1.2B.
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