Ladbrokes is thanking the 'sporting gods' for a massive increase in profits
Revenue was up 13.1% from the same period last year to £661.8 million ($880 million), while pre-tax profits rose to £39.8 million.
Jim Mullen, Ladbrokes' Chief Executive, thanked "the sporting gods" and put it down to "some helpful bookmaker results."
One thing that has certainly helped was Leicester City's shock Premiership win last season. Although it cost Ladbrokes £3 million in payouts - with some punts at 5000/1 for the team to take the title - it resulted in a surge in Premiership bets for the upcoming season as punters look beyond the more obvious teams.
Euro 2016 was also good for Ladbrokes, with most bets on the competition going through the company. This helped it "deliver 43.5% staking growth for UK Retail and 103% staking growth and 65.1% actives growth for Ladbrokes.com."
Online, in particular, performed well, with total digital net revenue increasing 40.9% to £158.1 million. Ladbrokes said customers responded to improved branding and site upgrades, as well as favourable results.
Mullen said that Ladbrokes' experience in the industry meant it could evolve:
"History would strongly dictate that such a run of results in our favour would see customer staking suffer, but encouragingly these numbers firmly buck that trend and combine strong staking and a good margin. However, 130 years of experience in sports betting has shown us that we will endure a run of customer friendly results and margins will normalise. Despite this assumption on results and our intention to continue investing in marketing, we have slightly increased our full year expectations."
Shares unsurprisingly jumped on the news, and at around 8:25 a.m. BST (3:25 a.m. ET) are higher by more than 4%. Here's how the stock looked at the open:
