Good afternoon. On today’s agenda:

• Playtech center stages its Hard Rock agreement potential.

• Gambling.com sees revenues double, adj. EBITDA triple.

• Better Collective talks evolution.

• FanDuel and DraftKings making up ground on BetMGM in MI iCasino.

Put your money on a number anyone can play.

Playtech hard at it

Playtech gave over the stage to Hard Rock Digital as it extolled the benefits of its new strategic agreement.

Rock solid: Playtech said the new agreement announced earlier this month would accelerate its own US strategy as well as provide growth globally. In the subsequent investor meeting, the company gave over the stage to HRD’s executive chair Rafi Askenazi, who praised Playtech as “far and away” the best partner.

• Under the terms of the agreement, Playtech has taken a low single-digit stake in HRD for $85m.

• Asked whether the deal would be as successful for Playtech as its one with Caliente – a deal that is currently subject to a legal dispute – Ashkenazi said it would be “very happy” if the partnership yielded similar levels of success.

Super group: For FY22, Playtech saw revenues rise 33% to €1.6bn while adj. EBITDA was up 28% to €406m. Within that, regulated markets B2B revenues were up 14% to €632m, with Europe ex-UK up 31% and Americas income up 27%, driven in part by Caliente.

• Shimon Akad, COO at Playtech, said the company has benefitted from a ”super-cycle” gambling regulation and effectively replaced income from unregulated Asian markets with growth from “highly regulated” markets, particularly in Europe.

• In North America, the company also recently announced another strategic investment in Canada’s NorthStar Gaming. 

• Earlier this month, NorthStar completed its move onto the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Snai and dry: B2C revenues rose 48% to €983m, with the Snaitech business seeing its online arm achieve revenue growth of 2% despite the reopening of retail during last year. H2 revenue growth hit 10%.

Target practice: The company said its new “medium-term” adj. EBITDA target for Snaitech was between €300m and €350m, while in B2B Playtech is aiming for adj. EBITDA of €200m-€250m.

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Gambling.com doubles up 

North America is set to represent the majority of income in 2023 as revenues double in Q4.

Finders keepers: Revenue from North America almost quadrupled to $10m, helped by the launch in Maryland and the success of the company’s BonusFinder acquisition in Canada. Since the start of the year, affiliate operations have been launched in Ohio and Massachusets.

• No further state launches are expected this year, but North America will still be worth over half forecasted 2023 revenues of $93m-$97m.

• CEO Charles Gillespie said the recent launches were reflective of the success of the strategy of investing in premium domain names.

• He said media partnerships continue to gain momentum. In February, Gambling.com announced a new partnership with Gannett, publisher of USA Today.

• Gillespie said he expected another record quarter in Q1.

Full strength: Gillespie said the acquisition of Casino.com is the “capstan” for Gambling.com’s premium domain strategy. “In our view, the long-term strategic value of this domain could surpass Gambling.com,” he added.

What we’re writing

Sharpr: New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement Deputy Attorney General Anthony Strangia told a recent conference that about half of the state’s licensed sportsbooks accept esports wagers.

Sharpr

Half of NJ sportsbooks accept esports wagers, says NJDGE Attorney General

Hi everyone, Cody here. Today we explore an esports betting session in Las Vegas from earlier in the month featuring representatives from Pinnacle, Oddin, and the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, among others. With it we uncover some interesting insights related to esports betting in New Jersey and the price of doing business under data supplie…

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4 hours ago · Cody Luongo

Compliance+More: The UK Gambling Commission this morning announced a £7.1m fine for Kindred, plus Georgia’s last gasp sports-betting effort.

Compliance+More

Kindred hit by £7.1m UK fines

Good morning. On today’s agenda: Kindred is fined for RG and AML failures with two of its brands. A surprise legislative maneuver in Georgia is heavily criticized. Well-rehearsed arguments are submitted to UK parliamentary inquiry. Economic crime levy…

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4 hours ago · 1 like · Compliance+More

BC evolution

Better Collective said it has evolved from an affiliate into a digital sports media brand.          

Beyond traffic: At the group’s maiden investor day, CEO Jesper Søgaard said Better Collective had evolved from focusing on driving traffic to online sportsbooks to diversifying revenue streams, such as media, advertising and subscription services.  

Phase evolution: Post-2016 the business has been in an “M&A phase”, said COO Christian Rasmussen. Recall, in the past few years BC has acquired paid media specialist Atemi, eSports publisher Futbin and major US sports-betting affiliate Action Network.

• Diversify: Søgaard added that diversification had enabled the group to reduce its reliance on Google traffic from 60% to below 35%, with VIP levels dropping to below 20% vs. 50% since 2018.

• Since listing in 2018 as a mainly Europe-focused business, Søgaard added that Better Collective now generates close to 40% of its revenues from North and South America. 

• The group maintained FY23 guidance of €290m-€300m and EBITDA of €90m-€100m. 

Earnings in brief 

Playmaker Capital: CEO Jordan Gnat said the World Cup was a major factor in generating a 27% increase in user sessions in Q4 as the group announced an organic increase of 102% in Q4 revenues to $19m, with pro forma adj. EBITDA rising 96% to $6.8m.  

• The World Cup enabled Playmaker to activate “more than 300 campaigns with key partners” in North and South America. 

• Traffic to OSB and iCasino sites, the latter helped by the acquisition of casino streaming specialist Wedge in October, was up 200% YoY and represented ~45% of direct sales in the quarter.

Datalines 

Michigan: BetMGM appears to be slightly losing its grip on the iCasino market in Michigan, going by the figures for February. While it maintains its leadership at 33%, this represents a 150 bps slippage on January and 400 bps drop on its 2022 average.

• Meanwhile, competitors are gaining ground. FanDuel was up to 20%, a 110 bps increase on January and 370 bps up on its 2022 average.

• DraftKings and Golden Nugget combined stood at 22% in February, static MoM.

🎲 iCasino market shares in Michigan in February

• Sports-betting GGR was up 7% YoY to $23m, with FanDuel at 61% of mobile GGR, DraftKings second on 14.3% and BetMGM on 13.8%.

Macau: Mainland China and Hong Kong provided the bulk of visitors to Macau at 57k per day in February, the highest since January 2020. Jefferies said it reflected “strong pent-up demand” and was “only 11% lower than Chinese New Year”. 

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Newslines

Rivalry will debut its casino.exe product in its home market with a total of eight games, including several that are exclusive to the region. 

Betfred has announced a new agreement with SIS for access to live racing events from all over the world.

Calendar

Mar 28: 888 investor day

Mar 30: XLMedia, FansUnite 

An +More Media publication. 

For sponsorship inquiries email scott@andmore.media.