Shares digital

The renewal of a contract with William Hill (WMH), a deal with Ladbrokes (LAD), and solid year-end results have sent shares in Inspired Gaming (INGG:AIM) up a chunky 13% to 183.8p.

Inspired Gaming will be supplying 6,301 gaming machines to 1,677 branches of William Hill, representing 75% of the bookmaker’s gaming machine portfolio. It will also supply gaming content to 1,500 of Ladbrokes’ existing ‘Lara’ gaming machine terminals.

Inspired Gaming, which has recently faced the collapse of a planned group takeover and has also been up against a challenging UK pub environment due to the smoking ban, posted a pretax profit of £3.8 million for the year ending 29 September 2007 against a loss of £2 million the year before.

Analysts at Numis have nudged down their 2008 pre-tax profit forecast by 9.9% to £18.6 million and lowered their target price to 328p to reflect a more cautious outlook.

Shares says: Positive news, but the shares have taken a battering of late.