Welcome to XLMedia's full year results for the year ended 31 December 2021. I'm Rowan Ellis, Interim CFO, and I'd like to take this opportunity to walk you through both the financial and operational highlights of the last twelve months. Now before we get into the heart of the presentation, I want to touch on a number of business highlights which best capture some of the group's progress over the last twelve months. Turning to the key financial highlights. At a group level, we've driven an uplift in all metrics. Pleasingly, group revenue increased 21% to GBP 66.5 million, underpinned by a 78% increase in new money income to GBP 42.3 million. EBITDA increased 24% to GBP 10.9 million and adjusted EBITDA increased 47% to GBP 17.9 million, reflecting the strong underlying performance of the business.
Finally, net profit was up 612% to GBP 5.6 million. Turning to our operational highlights, 2021 proved to be a busy year for the group, underpinned by strong performance from the group sports business. We saw North American revenues grow year-on-year by 178%. Seasonal growth for 2020 and 2021 season was 574%, buoyed by the acquisitions of Sports Betting Dime and Saturday Football Inc., which has helped build a sizable U.S. footprint capable of capitalizing on the ongoing legalization of the North American sports gaming market. Looking more broadly at the group, our improved financial performance has been supported by our renewed focus on cost reduction and we are on track to complete our organizational redesign in H1 of 2022.
XLMedia is now right-sized and focused to address high growth regulated markets. We will deliver an annualized cost savings of between GBP 5 million and GBP 6 million and are now wholly focused on expanding our portfolio of premium branded assets alongside delivering ongoing financial operational efficiencies. Looking at the current year, I'm pleased to say we've made a strong start to 2022. Our North American sports business has gone from strength to strength, having signed a number of key commercial agreements, including amNewYork, a leading news site in Manhattan and New York City. To give people a flavor of the positive momentum we are building in North America, our U.S. sports season year-on-year revenue has increased by 574% with the 2020-2021 season generating $5.7 million.
To put our growth in perspective, the 2021-2022 season, which is not yet concluded, has already generated $38.4 million. Just to recap, the season runs from September to April. Turning to the financials. As you can see from this slide, the group has been dominated by the strong performance of our sports vertical, which is now 50% of group revenues up by 23% year-on-year. Personal finance was up 4% to $8.7 million, with casino down 27% to $23.2 million, which was expected due to the decline in our tail revenue. Also, the decline in sports old money represents the impact of the Finnish regulation.
This slide really highlights that the active shift in our business model is gathering momentum with an increase in sports and a decline in casino, also represented by an increase in CPA and a decline in revenue share. We would expect this trend to continue as our U.S. sports footprint grows and casino activities become less central to our growth aspirations. Looking at the EBITDA to adjusted EBITDA reconciliation, I thought it would be useful to show the bridge, which further highlights the progress the business has made. As you can see, we reported EBITDA of GBP 10.9 million for full year 2021, which when taking into account transformation costs, M&A, marketing, and share-based payments, means we've delivered a credible adjusted EBITDA of GBP 17.9 million for the period. Now turning to the business review in a little more detail.
Our strategy over the last few years has been clear. Focus on regulated markets to minimize risk to the business. Expand from our traditional European footprint into international markets with a focus on North America. Diversify from our core casino vertical into higher growth opportunities such as U.S. sports. Develop our own brands to be more consumer-focused business. Expand our operating model to target new money opportunities. Finally, to rightsize the business in terms of people and cost base. We've made progress across all of those fronts. Looking at our sports vertical in a little more detail.
We've delivered a strong performance across our North American assets, which have outperformed our expectations with revenues of $31.4 million in full year 2021, more than doubling our 2020 numbers. XLMedia are now active across 15 states, including New York, which is the No. 1 market for legalized sports betting, and we have a strong commercial team working across a considerable North American portfolio. We have now created a highly scalable blueprint, which we fully intend to leverage as more states and provinces legalize for online sports betting in 2022 and 2023. Central to our success has been a good number of media partnerships signed in the period, which adds scale and increasing coverage. Our European sports vertical delivered a solid 7% uplift in revenue performance while migrating operations from Israel to BlueClaw in the U.K.
This has created a strong backbone of expertise here in Europe. This slide really highlights the tremendous opportunity that exists in North America. The sports betting industry is predicted to reach revenues of approximately $7 billion by 2025, and by the end of 2022, circa 29 states will have some sort of legalized sports betting covering 65% of the U.S. population. Of the top 10 most populated states, only four have gone live, and of the big four, which are Texas, Florida, New York and California, only one has gone live, and that's New York. After just weeks of taking mobile bets, New York became the largest sports betting market in America, and we now have coverage across 15 states and a solid platform for further U.S. North American expansion.
Here we just wanted to remind you all just how we've been able to develop such a strong North American base. We started our acquisition journey late in 2020 with CBWG and followed that up in 2021 with Sports Betting Dime and Saturday Football Inc. We've been steadily adding media partners, which has accelerated our customer reach, both building market traction and accelerating our revenue growth. Regarding our business areas, as previously highlighted in our earlier trading update, we continue to manage the decline in our European casino assets, delivering a profitable performance in full year 2021. This has been achieved from a smaller, more efficient cost base. We do, however, expect this vertical to come under trading pressures as tail revenues decline and our Finnish casino assets, as previously highlighted, face a prolonged period of adjustment to the new regulatory environment. This is anticipated.
Our personal finance delivered a flat performance in 2021 with 2022 revenue expected to be less than 2021, with trading challenging but profitable. The migration of the personal finance team to North America from Israel is now complete and we expect all personal finance assets to be re-platformed during full year 2022, and this will ultimately improve SEO and customer experience performance. Allow me to sum up by way of a few takeaway points. To conclude, our North American business continues to outperform expectations. Regulation will underpin growth opportunities in this market, and we now have a number of key strategic partners to really drive positive growth and momentum. We've made excellent progress in rationalizing and de-risking the business with transformation initiatives complete in H1 2022.
In closing, we now have a right-sized and refocused business attacking some very exciting growth opportunities, and we remain excited by the future and look forward to updating you on our progress during the year. I hope it's been a useful and encouraging update today. As announced a little while ago, our newly appointed CFO, Caroline Ackroyd, is now on board and will have the pleasure of speaking to you all in the future. Thank you for listening.