Ladbrokes to focus on key localised sites

This means that from 1st February 2011, Ladbrokes.com will no longer offer a tailored service in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Finnish, Hungarian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian and Slovenian. Customers who currently use one of these services will continue to have the opportunity to use www.ladbrokes.com in another language service.

Commenting on the move Gary McIlraith, Ladbrokes' Managing Director Digital Channels, International and Strategy said: "We've taken a fresh look at what is the appropriate number of languages we operate in, their cost effectiveness and potential moving forward. As a result of the in depth review we are reducing the range of languages and tailored sites that we offer. This will enable us to better target our internal resources and strengthen our marketing spend around those languages and markets that have the potential to provide significant and durable, regulated revenue and profit."

"This is about focusing and strengthening our online resources to where we can operate efficiently and ensure durable scale. We remain very committed to our key markets and will continue to actively review new market opportunities, both online and offline, where we believe we can achieve the requisite scale and compete effectively."

In International retail, Ladbrokes continues to focus on its key markets of Ireland and Belgium, where it is market leader. The firm also plans to continue to grow its successful JV business in Spain, Sportium, which is licensed in the Madrid region. It also remains committed to pursuing its partnership with AGTech in China, where its AGT joint venture is trialling a virtual racing game in betting shops throughout Hunan with a view to expanding to other provinces in the region.