When you buy shares in a company, it's worth keeping in mind the possibility that it could fail, and you could lose your money. But when you pick a company that is really flourishing, you can make more than 100%. One great example is Betmakers Technology Group Ltd (ASX:BET) which saw its share price drive 231% higher over five years. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 17% gain in the last three months.

Since the stock has added AU$11m to its market cap in the past week alone, let's see if underlying performance has been driving long-term returns.

See our latest analysis for Betmakers Technology Group

Given that Betmakers Technology Group didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. When a company doesn't make profits, we'd generally hope to see good revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth.

For the last half decade, Betmakers Technology Group can boast revenue growth at a rate of 52% per year. That's well above most pre-profit companies. So it's not entirely surprising that the share price reflected this performance by increasing at a rate of 27% per year, in that time. So it seems likely that buyers have paid attention to the strong revenue growth. Betmakers Technology Group seems like a high growth stock - so growth investors might want to add it to their watchlist.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time.

What About The Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

Investors should note that there's a difference between Betmakers Technology Group's total shareholder return (TSR) and its share price change, which we've covered above. Arguably the TSR is a more complete return calculation because it accounts for the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested), along with the hypothetical value of any discounted capital that have been offered to shareholders. Betmakers Technology Group hasn't been paying dividends, but its TSR of 258% exceeds its share price return of 231%, implying it has either spun-off a business, or raised capital at a discount; thereby providing additional value to shareholders.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 16% in the last year, Betmakers Technology Group shareholders lost 42%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 29%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Betmakers Technology Group (including 1 which doesn't sit too well with us) .