Ann: Half Year Results - Investor Presentation, page-3

I bought these shares in the early second half of 2020 so my comments below may lack the longer history that other holders may have.

Against a background of less than impressive lottery jackpots - the aggregate was down 52 per cent on the previous corresponding period - it's pleasing that revenue was up nine per cent.

While underlying NPAT decreased 5.8 per cent, JIN had to shell out $15 million for its 10 year licence extension with TAH (amortised at $625000 in the period), and there's also a new service fee payable to TAH that JIN notes saw cost of sales rise by $1.876 million in 1H 21. For its lotteries division, JIN notes that the service fee will continue to increase until FY 2024.

The dividend has decreased marginally to 18 cents compared with an interim of 18.5 cents in 2019-20. EPS decreased to 21.1 cents from 23.1 cents but surely the cash payment for the TAH licence must have been a factor.

Very pleasing that JIN continues to account for a greater percentage of online lottery sales, up in 1H 21 to 32.1 per cent market share compared with 28 per cent previously. This to me is a key metric.

Australian lotteries revenue was basically stagnant, up about in line with CPI but JIN notes that on a net basis, COVID-19 has been a positive as Australians looked for entertainment opportunities from their homes. If only jackpots would rise, the picture in revenue and NPAT for this segment would have been better. The law of averages suggests that jackpots may increase this year - or so I'd like to think.

There was huge growth (from a low base) of SaaS, up 1200 per cent, and 'managed servcies' (the greater involvement by JIN in charities' lotteries), up 700 per cent. I'm guessing these profit centres may become increasingly important to JIN.

ROIC dropped to 16.1 per cent from 18.1 per cent in the previous corresponding period.

It's really pleasing that Gatherwell in the UK is doing well and that JIN was able to note lottery transaction volumes in the UK have shown an increase in the last three months.

Interestingly one of the JIN investor information pages - p9 - discusses charities in Australia, Canada and the UK yet omits the USA. Is there some constraint on JIN operating in the latter regarding this part of its operations?

Total JIN transaction volume was $233 million which on an annualised basis is a long way short of its '$1 billion' target, but others will have a better historical view of that than me.

When I looked at JIN's dividend payment history, a few years ago it was only paying 1.5 cents to 3 cents as an interim (2014 to 2016). Its interim announced today is its second highest ever.