A treble of new records for revenue, EBITDA and new customers was the backdrop for German online lottery provider Zeal Network’s biggest ever period of growth in its core business since it was founded.
Group revenue for 2024 climbed 62 per cent to €188.2m while EBITDA almost doubled year-on-year from €32.9m to €61.9m.
Zeal also recorded one million new customers per year for the first time in its history, engaging a total of 1.26 million new players in the 12-month period.
That was more than double the 597,000 new customers engaged in 2023.
Meanwhile, player acquisition costs fell 23 per cent to €35.16 per customer, down from €45.52 in 2023.
“Thanks to targeted marketing measures and very successful new customer acquisition in an exceptionally good jackpot year, we reached the milestones of one million new customers and one billion in lottery billings for the first time,” said Sebastian Bielski, the company’s chief financial officer.
“We are proud to have achieved the highest revenue in our company's history. At the same time, we were able to demonstrate the enormous profitability and scalability of our business model with a record EBITDA.”
Zeal said its Dream House Raffle, the first charity lottery in Germany involving an existing property, exceeded expectations, selling around 14 million tickets between August and October.
“ZEAL was able to generate around €1.8m for charitable causes with the first house raffle alone, including more than € 1.2m for the main charity partner DKMS,” it said.
Revenue in the German lottery business grew 59 per cent to €168.3m, up from €105.7m, while the average number of active customers climbed 25 per cent to 1.43 million.
Zeal said that helped it to increase its online market share from 41.4 per cent to 43.8 per cent.
For 2025, Zeal expects revenue of between €195m and €205m, and EBITDA of between €55m and €60m.
