Shares in Betfair were down on the FTSE 250 in morning trading after the group reported a rise in revenue and pre-tax profit in the full year ended 30 April.

Group revenue on an underlying basis rose 8.1 per cent in the period to £368.6 million, while pre-tax profit jumped 54.4 per cent to £35.1 million.

Betfair said it would be paying a maiden final dividend of 5.9 pence per share, adding that it had net cash of £155 million.

The group said it had seen record site activity during the year, with the number of bets matched rising 20 per cent to 916 million. The group reported a 24 per cent growth in football revenues.

Betfair also listed itself on the London Stock Exchange in the last year and announced today plans to repurchase £50 million worth of shares.

David Yu, Chief Executive Officer of Betfair, said, "The past 12 months have seen significant change at Betfair as the business continued to grow and made the transition to being a public company. A huge amount has been achieved during the period and I'm delighted that we have more customers than ever resulting in a record number of bets placed and that we've reported record revenue and profitability.

"Despite these successes, revenue growth during FY11 could have been stronger but we have delivered a significant improvement in margin resulting in profitability for the year above expectations.

"We look to next year with confidence as we execute a strategy that we believe will cement our position as the leading online sports betting operator. Betfair is a great business with many opportunities for growth. We are focused on delivering long-term shareholder value through a combination of accelerating our revenue growth, driving further margin improvement and returning excess cash to shareholders."

"We are pleased with trading for the first eight weeks of FY12 for non-risk Sports, Games and Poker which is in-line with our expectations. Revenue in the more volatile area of risk Sports, however, is currently below expectations due to an adverse margin performance during May. As anticipated, Core Betfair revenue in this period is lower than the prior year comparative period which was significantly inflated by the World Cup and was the last quarter prior to the migration of our Poker product.

"The last 12 months have presented challenges and we have redoubled our efforts and focused the business on a clear vision of how to deliver stronger revenue growth in the future. FY12 will be an important year of execution for us, albeit against the backdrop of an unclear economic outlook. Many of the new products we expect to drive future growth will launch in the second half of the year. Accordingly, we expect to make progress in FY12 and for growth to accelerate in the following years. The timing and impact of regulatory developments remain uncertain and difficult to predict, although our product plans will leave us well placed to react to any such change. We also expect to continue improving Core Betfair adjusted EBITDA margin towards our medium-term target of 30%."

By 10:30 shares in Betfair were down 0.19 per cent on the FTSE 250 to 770.00 pence per share.

FTSE London