Online casino and poker operator 888 Holdings has announced that it will not be paying a dividend to shareholders after posting a fall in pre-tax profits for the first half of 2010.

The group said that this summer's football World Cup had impacted on the business, with pre-tax profits down 56 per cent on the same period last year, which included US$2.2m (£1.4m) restructuring costs.

A cost-cutting programme has now been implemented in order to help offset the losses, although 888 did report a 10 per cent growth in total operating income during the period.

888 chief executive officer Gigi Levy said: "Our business experienced a difficult first half against the backdrop of a challenging economic environment, with trading impacted by a number of factors.

"A cost reduction programme has been implemented to help mitigate against this impact, the benefit of which will be seen in H2."

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