Pacific Online posts 85% profit growth

MANILA, Philippines - Pacific Online Systems Corp., the exclusive online lottery system provider of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (Peso) in the Visayas and Mindanao, said its net earnings grew 85 percent in the first nine months of the year on new terminal openings, record lotto sales and mark-to-market gains.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Pacific Online said its net income front January to September this year reached P224 million, up from P121 million the previous year, on the back of a 30-percent jump in revenues to P738.4 million. The company booked P49 million in extraordinary and unrealized mark-to-market gains from trading securities.

The sale of PCSO’s Instant Scratch tickets nationwide and continued opening of retail outlets by subsidiary Lucky Circle Corp. boosted Pacific Online’s financial performance during the period under review

Lucky Circle currently has over 100 outlets nationwide and expects to end the year with 130 branches. As a partner of PCSO, the Scratch project has remitted a total of P145 million as of end-September this year to the peso’scharity fund.

Pacific online chairman and president Willy Ocie said the company expects its sales and revenues to continue to grow for the rest of the year as PCSO lotto games remain popular nationwide and as it adds new terminals this year.

Lucky Circle sells eight Instant Scratch games, namely Cash Machine, Golden Egg, Go Bananas, Lucky Charms, Otso-Otso, Pares-Pares and Ruby Riches, all of which are sold for P20 each with a top prize of up to P200,000. Another game variant, Ruby Riches is priced at P50 with a top prize of P500,00.

Pacific Online is eyeing a 17-percent rise in revenues this year to P900 million, bulk of which or P750 million will come from lotto operations while the remaining P150 million will come from the Instant Scratch tickets, which have become the fastest growing offerings of the PCSO.        – Zinnia Dela Peña