Lottery.com CEO Tony DiMatteo expressed he is ‘extremely proud’ of the company’s progress throughout 2021 as its LotteryLink B2B affiliate program catalysed revenue and gross profit growth.
Publishing its fourth quarter and full-year accounts for FY2021, Lottery.com highlighted the success of LotteryLink, its B2B affiliate and master affiliate marketing scheme, in explaining its full-year revenue growth of 819% year-on-year up to $68.5m.
Fourth-quarter revenues surged 559% YoY up to $21.5m with the firm noting that this was ‘driven by the sale of LotteryLink credits to a LotteryLink affiliate, primarily to acquire prepaid lottery games from the company in conjunction with the affiliate’s launch of a pilot promotional campaign at a national grocery chain’.
B2C sales also ‘increased substantially’ despite little digital marketing spend throughout the year.
The gains made by the affiliate credit sales helped generate full-year gross profits of $49.4m, up $44.9m YoY. Gross profit increases were also attributed to higher data sales, which come attached with greater profit margins than average across the company’s product mix.
Despite the seemingly strong financial results, Lottery.com made a net loss of $12.9m in Q4 and full-year net loss of $9.3m. This was compounded by $18.1m of interest expenses, which includes a non-recurring expense associated with the conversion of debt to equity at the time of the firm’s business combination with Trident Acquisitions last year.
DiMatteo commented: “In the fourth quarter and throughout 2021, we demonstrated our ability to execute our strategic growth initiatives across the business to generate strong revenue growth and gross profit.
“B2C sales increased compared to the prior year period, despite no digital marketing spending. LotteryLink, our affiliate program, expanded and generated multiple revenue streams.
“I am extremely proud of our team achieving these accomplishments while successfully closing the business combination and taking our company public.”
Strategically, 2021 saw Lottery.com add ICARO Media Group as an affiliate to promote Lottery.com B2C products in South America. Staying with B2C products, the company also enlisted T-Mobile as its exclusive digital lottery brand advertising on T-Mobile platform in rideshare vehicles.
Moving into 2022, the company stated it is testing B2C ad campaigns on multiple digital outlets in the first quarter and intends to use this data to launch broader marketing campaigns in Q2.
Moreover, its Project Nexus blockchain platform to operate lottery, sports betting, sweepstakes, and other forms of online gaming is anticipated to launch early in the second quarter of this year with a focus on increasing the platform’s scalability, security, and the ability to implement product updates.
By Q4 of 2022, it expects to launch Phase three of Project Nexus, enabling the support of a proprietary game that accepts payment in fiat or cryptocurrency, subject to regulatory and compliance requirements.
DiMatteo added: “We entered 2022 with positive momentum and continued focus on executing our strategic growth plan. Fueled by approximately $43m of proceeds from our business combination and $30m received from the sale of LotteryLink credits, we are investing in initiatives to drive growth.
“I am pleased with our execution in the first quarter and am excited about our prospects to scale and grow the business in 2022.”