Thank you very much, and good morning or good afternoon everyone, and welcome to Allwyn's Q2 2024 results call. It's good to be speaking with you again after another quarter of strong financial and strategic delivery.

I am Robert Chvatal, Group CEO. Joining me on the call today are Ken Morton, Group CFO, and Krešimir Spajić, the CEO of Allwyn Digital.

As this may be the first time some of you are hearing from Krešimir, I will briefly pass to him to introduce himself.

Thank you, Robert, and hi to everyone on the call. My name is Krešimir Spajić.

I'm CEO of Allwyn Digital. I lead Allwyn's digital business growth and technology and product development across the whole group.

I joined Allwyn in September of the last year after spending 13 years working in the United States. I have over two decades of international leadership experience across regulated gaming markets, and before joining Allwyn, I was CEO of Betfred USA, and prior to that, I held senior leadership role at Great Canadian Entertainment, Hard Rock International, Rush Street Interactive, and several other multinational companies.

I took this role because I was generally excited about the direction where Allwyn is heading, and I wanted to apply everything what I have observed and learned in this industry to lead Allwyn's expansion beyond its lottery roots. I believe that our business is well-diversified geographically, vertically, and per channel, that we have a clear vision, ambitious goals, and strong team to deliver on it.

Therefore, I personally believe that we are uniquely positioned to take the advantage of the industry changes and new opportunities in years to come. I'll pass it back to Robert.

Thank you. Thank you, Krešimir.

Now I will start by covering both key business highlights, as well as a strategic update before handing over to Ken to cover the financials and outlook. We'll then take Q&A.

My initial slide highlights key financial indicators, and we are very proud to be presenting them as we delivered another strong quarter both in terms of financial growth and strategic execution across the group. Once again, the momentum and quality of the Allwyn platform was on full display in Q2, starting with the financials.

Net revenues increased by 27% year-on-year, and adjusted EBITDA by 29%. Adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx grew even more strongly, up 43% year-on-year.

This reflects continued momentum in Continental Europe, the consolidation of PrizePicks, and a step-up in contribution and cash flow in the UK as we concluded both retail and digital transitions, one of the most comprehensive transitions in lottery industry history. Against this positive backdrop, I am pleased to report that the board has confirmed a €0.20 euro cent per share interim distribution, taking dividends paid in this year to €1.00 per share.

We have also executed around 60% of our current €150 million shares buyback program, and this combination of growth and cash generation and capital returns is Allwyn's undisputed strength and a clear clear differentiator. Turning to next slide, we set out key examples of strategic execution across all our geographies and strategic pillars.

We have delivered across all four businesses and across all pillars of the strategy. Looking at Continental Europe, we maintained strong momentum in digital growth across the region, plus 21% year-on-year in the digital space.

We also continued to advance our global brand strategy, launching the Allwyn brand also in Austria and continuing our rebranding program in the Czech Republic and Greece. Allwyn became consumer-facing brand in this market, and it shows great acceptance and relevance, especially to younger cohorts of our customer base.

By the way, brand awareness climbed over 70% just in 8 months, we are very pleased with the strong financial performance in those markets since launching our global brand of Allwyn back in back in January. This, in my view, is the best testament to our OneBrand initiative, one of the key cornerstones of Allwyn's strategy going forward.

Lastly, on the inorganic side, we agreed to increase our stake in NextLotto to a controlling position. As a reminder, NextLotto is an online reseller of lottery games in the large and as for iLottery underpenetrated German market.

I will leave to Krešimir to comment on the progress of our PrizePicks line of business, but adding one important note on North America lottery business in Illinois. Legislation was enacted there, enabling a 3-year extension of our private management agreement, and this week, we initiate discussions on concrete commercial terms for the next 3 years.

In summary, we have continued to bring positive news and innovate across our markets, which is a key driver of engagement and long-term growth. Now, that takes me nicely to slide 7, where we have shown some examples of product development since the first quarter.

Looking at the left-hand side of the page first, you can see that we continued to invest in and refresh our lottery proposition across our markets. This included, for example, enhanced Lotto game formats in Austria and the UK.

In the UK, we introduced new Lotto, the largest draw-based games there, with two draws and two chances to win, positioning firmly the game as the true UK's millionaires maker. We're actually introducing Eurojackpot Eurojackpot online today in Greece, obviously, an important channel that we could unlock regulation-wise now.

The another example is the launch of new daily lottery in the Czech Republic called 20 Mega, and bringing the US game Powerball to the UK market. It happened in July.

As reference, Powerball is one of the world's largest jackpot games with prizes reaching the billions. This is literally an order of magnitude larger than the largest jackpots previously available in Europe, even by EuroMillions or Eurojackpot standards.

This launch is real landmark in the lottery space, and we are very proud to be the Powerball's first market outside outside the US. On the right-hand side of the page, you can see that we have also been busy in scratch cards.

An important note is that we cemented our next 12 years of exclusive scratch card license in Greece. That's very good news.

In iGaming, where the Czech the Allwyn Czechia launched the FunPark as a trial playground in their website. It was also a dynamic quarter at PrizePicks, both in terms of their portfolio extension into Team Picks, enabled by Prediction Markets, and across the business more broadly, for which I will hand over now to Krešimir.

Thank you, Robert. PrizePicks obviously play a key role in Allwyn leveraging new market opportunities and in the growth of our digital business.

We continue to be the clear leader in daily fantasy sports in the US. We have a large and highly engaged and sizable player base, and very importantly, we have a strong and loved brand, which is visible both in aided and unaided brand awareness results in our key markets.

We also have an agile product- and player-focused team with a proven track record of innovation. As you may know, we have added Prediction Markets to our product portfolio in order to expand the total addressable market and to complement the core DFS offering so our players have more ways to engage with the sports that they love.

If you look at at the right hand of the slide, you can see that PrizePicks Q2 operating performance demonstrates that the Prediction Market opportunity is beginning to translate into additional growth. If you look at an amount staked, which is combined DFS entry fees and Prediction Market volumes, we grew 35% year-on-year.

If you look at solely at the Prediction Market volumes, we grew significantly quarter-on-quarter, though from the smaller base. I think, for me, the most important stat is that average DFS entry fees per player have seen the strong double-digit growth, which outlines that we have increased engagement of our players and lifetime value of our players.

We have also recognized the value and the opportunity to capitalize on the Soccer World Cup in the US, and we decided to increase our marketing spend both to acquire new players and to deepen engagement with existing players. This is very visible in our results, especially in 26 million associated lineups in June and July.

It's important to know that PrizePicks exited the second quarter with a significantly larger active player base than a year ago, approximately 18% year-on-year growth in what is, seasonally, a very quiet season. Summer months are down season in the US.

This has proved as a strong foundation as we approach the NFL season, and later NHL and NBA season, which is the strongest months and quarters in the US sports. Moving to slide 9.

This slide is a good example of one of the PrizePicks key strengths, its ability to innovate quickly and continue to deliver the experiences that satisfy and exceed players' expectations. If you look at the left hand side of the slides, you can see the progression of the Prediction Markets and what we have introduced in terms of the products.

We introduced in November last year Team and Culture Picks products. We introduced the Blended Lineups in May 2024, and we are launching the Fully Blended Lineups just before the start of NFL season.

This last enhancement is important because it will allow customers to seamlessly combine Player Picks, Team Picks, and Culture Picks within the single lineup. If I want to explain this in a simple terms, it makes the experience easier, more flexible, and more engaging for players while bringing the best of the both worlds, daily fantasy sport and Prediction Markets.

It's important to understand that this is just one of the enhancement examples. There is a long list of other enhancements across player engagement, retention, operation, and the overall user experience that is making us quite confident that will continue to be leader in sports entertainment.

As the US sports entertainment market continues to evolve rapidly both from a regulatory perspective and in terms of consumer expectations and competitive environment. I have been in the US market since 2013, starting with regulation of online casino and poker, moving to importance of DFS in 2015 and '16, starting with PASPA repeal and opening and legalization of US sports betting market across the country, and also surgence of many adjacencies like social casino, sweepstakes, and many others.

Regardless of all of this regulatory uncertainty and competitive environment, we are truly convinced that we have a platform, products, brand, talent, and most importantly, a mindset to capture multiple opportunities and translate them into engaging player experiences and increased profitability in any market scenario. Now, I pass back to Robert.

Thank you. Thank you, Krešimir.

My next slide is the summary of strategy of Allwyn. I try to show examples again, because, the best thing is to show examples of execution under each pillar of our strategic framework in in in this quarter.

The key message is simple, that we continue to focus on the proven strategic priorities that have underpinned our industry-leading growth over many years. Ken will give you a clear testament to the success of this strategy when he puts our results for the quarter into historical, past 5 years context.

We also have a couple of nice examples on the slide, for example, our commitment to responsible gaming and CSR, which we really place great importance on for the long-term strength of our business. This is a regulated business.

It's about business of responsible gaming. Being at the forefront of safe place to play position is absolute key for us.

Secondly, the activation of the Allwyn brand in action shown here in in Greece, for example. That leads me to a wrap-up on slide 11 with a update on our board of directors.

I am really excited to say that Petra Ehman will be nominated for election as an Independent Director at the next general meeting. Speaking to her, I am keen and sure she will bring extensive experience in both digital transformation, as well as product innovation, and and artificial intelligence, AI.

Most recently, Petra led group-wide innovation, AI, and product initiatives across a portfolio of digital businesses, and is the founder of an AI HealthTech startup. Her appointment would take an independent representation to 50% as as we committed to during the business combination with OPAP.

We look forward to welcoming her. With that, I'll hand over to Ken.

Thank you, Robert, and hello and welcome to everybody on the call. I'll start with our financial performance, then I'll cover current trading and the outlook before we move on to Q&A.

As always, we've aimed to provide the information that our investors need in a clear and convenient way. There are some slides in the appendix with additional detail, in particular, for our debt investors.

I'd also mention our financial databook, which is intended to make it easy to work through the numbers and to build a model. As usual, we've published a new version with the quarter's data on our website.

Regarding the presentation of the numbers, most of the financial information that we discuss today is presented on a look-through basis, which reflects the underlying performance of the enlarged group. In particular, the comparative numbers for Q2 last year are taken from the reported financials of Allwyn International so you can see the financial performance of today's Allwyn on a consistent basis.

Secondly, we acquired PrizePicks in January this year. We've provided some numbers throughout this section to help you to understand growth without that impact, as well as without the impact of a few factors that impact comparability in the short term, but will roll off in the next few quarters.

In particular, that's higher gaming taxes in Austria from the third quarter last year, and license fee amortization in Italy after the start of the new license in the fourth quarter. Those are the same factors that we highlighted at Q1.

With that, I'll turn to a few highlights starting with net revenue, which was up 27% year-on-year. That reflects good momentum in Continental Europe continuing from Q1, continued digital growth, as well, of course, as the consolidation of PrizePicks.

If we strip out PrizePicks and the Austria tax impact, growth was 5% year-on-year, which we're pleased with given that Q2 last year did benefit from some record jackpot cycles in a number of important games. Adjusted EBITDA increased even more strongly at 29% up year-on-year with a margin of 37% of net revenue.

That's slightly higher year-on-year despite a lower share of profit from equity method investees. That lower share reflects higher license fee amortization at Lottoitalia and the phasing of items below EBITDA at Betano.

Stripping out those items for a like-for-like view, adjusted EBITDA was up 9% year-on-year. Lastly, on the slide that you can see on the screen, there is a breakdown at the bottom of EBITDA between businesses where we own 100%, businesses where there are minorities, and income from our equity method investees.

We hope that that will be useful for modeling that analysis as available also in our databook historically. Moving to slide 14, we've provided a bridge of adjusted EBITDA year-on-year to help explain the underlying performance.

Key takeaway is that organic EBITDA development continues to be strong, up 9% year-on-year, as I've just mentioned. That's, again, against a relatively demanding comparative, as I've already covered.

As in Q1, the year-on-year comparison reflects the effects in Austria and Italy, which represented headwinds of €13 million and €9 million, respectively. Factoring in a full quarter of contribution from PrizePicks, overall, adjusted EBITDA was up 29% year-on-year.

Turning now to slide 15, we summarize performance by business and by product. From the product perspective, sports betting and iGaming were the primary growth drivers with NGR increasing 12% and 24%, respectively, with sports betting also benefiting from the start of the World Cup, of course.

Lottery NGR was down 2% year-on-year, reflecting those very large jackpots in the second quarter last year. Moving now on to slide 16, we recap the split of our business as it stood in the second quarter across geography, across product, channel, and license type.

As you can see, we're very diversified across all those parameters. That's a a real benefit in gaming with our operations under a large number of licenses and fiscal and regulatory regimes.

Financially, it also helps to smooth volatility in our individual businesses and products between quarters, whether that's caused by sports betting margins or jackpots or FX. You can see the benefit of that again in this quarter's numbers.

Strategically, it provides us with great deal of optionality. Our expertise across verticals and geographies has been a key contributor to the success of our inorganic growth strategy.

We see that high degree of diversification as being a key strength, as well as being a key differentiating factor. Now moving on to slide 17 and Continental Europe.

Continental Europe, of course, is our largest business, I'm particularly pleased to say that the good start to the year that we saw in Q1 continued into Q2. Net revenue was up 4% year-on-year or 6%, excluding the Austria tax impact.

This continues the good momentum that we saw in Q1, where underlying growth on that same basis was similarly strong at 7% year-on-year. Performance was led by iGaming and sports betting, as I mentioned, with continued strong growth in the digital channel in lottery and lottery performance reflecting the demanding comp.

Adjusted EBITDA was 3% lower year-on-year. However, on a comparable basis, again, excluding the impact of the factors on on the waterfall, adjusted EBITDA grew by 4% year-on-year.

Turning to slide 18, the charts on this slide show North America on a pro forma 100% basis, so that that means that we include PrizePicks data for each quarter in 2025 and the whole of the first quarter of 2026, the year-on-year trends are cleaner. On that basis, North America delivered constant currency net revenue growth of 6% year-on-year, within which PrizePicks delivered constant currency net revenue growth of 3%.

The year-on-year picture reflected a combination of really good performance in terms of PrizePicks key KPIs, as Krešimir mentioned earlier. Those include MAUs, customer activity, and that was partially offset by exceptionally friendly, operator-friendly, I should say, sports outcomes in Q2 last year, which created a significant headwind for the comp.

The remainder of the North America business continued to perform well, delivering 21% constant currency revenue growth. We were pleased, as Robert mentioned, to see legislation enacted in Illinois to enable a 3-year extension of our private management agreement, subject to agreement on commercial terms.

EBITDA was €37 million lower year-on-year. That reflects the strategic marketing investment Krešimir mentioned targeted at maximizing revenue and customer acquisition around the World Cup, and it also reflects higher variable costs as a result of the significant increase in player activity levels that we saw during the quarter.

I'm pleased to see say that the results of the investment in marketing have exceeded our expectations with record player acquisition, elevated retention, and increased engagement. We carry a strong and engaged player base into the start of the important NFL season and, indeed, the important second half of the year.

I just finish with this on this slide by reminding you that in the second half of the year, we'll have more favorable comparisons for sports outcomes at PrizePicks than we had in the first half of the year when the comparable period benefited from good operator-friendly results. Moving now on to slide 19 and the UK.

The second quarter was a turning point in the UK as we're now starting to see the profitability and cash flow profile turn around following completion of the technology transition in Q1. At the net revenue level, we saw constant currency growth of 3% year-on-year.

GGR was notably weaker year-on-year, which reflects a couple of factors. First, the favorable EuroMillions jackpot cycles in the comparative quarter, indeed, record cycles.

Secondly, as we flagged at Q1, we've seen some friction related to the digital replatforming, including an impact on player journeys. The stronger performance at the net revenue level reflects the start of cost recovery under the UK National Lottery economic model of the license.

That allows us to recover a significant proportion of the €450 million investment we've made to transform the technology program. That flows through from NGR directly to EBITDA and drove a step-up in profitability of €18 million in euro terms year-on-year to EBITDA of €23 million.

We also, if you look at the chart on the bottom left, saw a significant improvement in cash flow as CapEx dropped to a more normalized level and EBITDA adjustments fell away entirely. We're confident in the opportunity in the UK and focused on restoring growth momentum.

You may have seen that we recently announced the renewed leadership in the UK as we enter the next phase for that business. For the rest of 2024, though, we do expect net revenue in the UK to be below the range that we initially anticipated.

Although, as I'll come to on later on, our net revenue in aggregate is our guidance for net revenue in aggregate is unchanged. On slide 20, we move on to Betano, which delivered yet another very strong quarter.

Total revenue increased by 26% year-on-year on both a constant currency and an as-reported basis. This follows growth of 27% last quarter, a really really strong start to the year at Betano.

A nice data point to frame the scale of Betano's growth and the scale of the platform is that at the last World Cup, Betano was present in three markets whose teams were in the competition. This year, that had increased to 12.

You can see that Betano has delivered a really phenomenal pace of expansion over the last 4 years with Betano now being one of the largest, most diversified, and most global online gaming operators. That obviously, to a substantial extent, reflects the single brand strategy and the the platform, as well as the incredible customer focus of the Betano team.

As you can see, Betano also delivered very strong EBITDA growth, broadly in line with revenue at plus 24% year-on-year. At the net income level, our share was down 3%.

That movement is primarily due to the phasing of below-EBITDA items last year. This relates primarily to taxation, as we've commented previously.

When you're updating a model, you'll be it will be very clear when you compare EBITDA with net income in Q2 last year. Finally, Betano paid another significant dividend in Q2, meaning that dividends for the first half of the year are now are up over almost 60% year-on-year.

That highlights that Betano is not only a platform that is able to deliver very strong growth, but also very cash flow positive and cash generative. Turning now to slide 21, our strong free cash flow generation is supported by the low structural capital intensity of our business model.

Over the last few quarters, as CapEx has been elevated as we invest in the UK. However, that investment is now over with total CapEx down 39% year-on-year at €38 million.

That's equivalent to 3% of net revenue in the quarter, which is a more normalized level for for the business. Similarly, EBITDA adjustments stepped down by €10 million compared with Q1.

The Q2 adjustments did still include some transaction expenses related to the business combination and PrizePicks acquisition earlier in the year. Looking forward, we expect EBITDA adjustments to fall away further with the main remaining component being investment in our global brand strategy.

Turning now to slide 22, a few words on our capital structure. Looking at the bottom of the page, you can see a clear commitment to a conservative leverage over time.

As a reminder, during the last several years, we've made significant investments in growth and paid large distributions to shareholders, the low level of leverage that we've maintained is a testament to the strong national natural deleveraging of the business. At the end of the second quarter, leverage was 3.5 times, which is at the high end of our historic range.

The increase over the last couple of quarters obviously represents the strategic investments that we've made over that period, including in PrizePicks and the renewal of the Lottoitalia and Greek scratch card licenses, as well as payments related to the business combination of Allwyn and OPAP, and the payment of the €0.80 per share distribution. All of those amounts were in line with the guidance that we've given previously.

Looking to the second half, the picture is much simpler. The only material outflows to highlight being the remainder of the buyback and the interim dividend of €0.20 a share.

We remain focused on disciplined balance sheet management and committed to our medium-term leverage target. On that topic and turning to slide 23, we've summarized, for your convenience, our capital allocation framework.

In short, the framework ensures the flexibility to invest in value-accretive growth as we've done very successfully over many years, but also provides very clear commitments to capital returns and a conservative, efficient balance sheet. On that note, the board has confirmed the interim distribution of €0.20 a share, which we previously flagged.

We've also continued to execute our current buyback program. As a reminder, that's a program of up to €150 million, €89 million of which was completed at the end of last week.

The buyback reflects our confidence in the long-term growth and cash generation outlook for Allwyn, as well as our view on the attractiveness of our own shares as a capital allocation opportunity. Moving to slide 25 and current trading and outlook.

Since the start of the year, the business has continued to perform and develop well, and trading's in line with our expectations overall. Our group outlook for 2024 is reaffirmed.

We continue to expect consolidated net revenue growth in the mid- to high 20s before one-off impacts, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 37% of net revenue. For Q3, the Austria tax headwind will fall away, and we also come up against softer comparatives for sports outcomes in both PrizePicks and Betano.

The Lottoitalia headwind will also fall away starting in Q4, and I would also remind you that Q4 is typically our biggest quarter of the year. From a macro perspective, we continue to see resilient and growing demand for our products.

To summarize, we remain confident in our guidance and confident in, and indeed, excited about the long-term growth, profitability, and cash flow generation profile of the business. I'd like to end the financial section with one of my favorite slides, which puts the quarter in the context of our group's long-term track record.

The track record is something that we're immensely proud of, and a key proof point for our strategy, and a key underpinning of the investment case. Since 2019, we've delivered a CAGR in net revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx of around 20%, more than tripling the size of the business across those metrics.

That's been achieved without raising any equity and while making large shareholder distributions and maintaining conservative leverage. The combination of scale and diversification with growth, high profitability, cash flow generation, and capital returns that Allwyn has been able to deliver consistently is unique in gaming, and in our view, it underpins a differentiated shareholder proposition and a highly attractive shareholder return algorithm.

With that, I'll hand back to Robert to wrap up before we go to Q&A.

Thank you, Ken. Now let me close and sum up with four takeaways from today.

Firstly, first takeaway is the Q2 results. Q2 results could be characterized that they show, as Allwyn aggregate, another quarter of strong growth, profitability, and cash generation, full stop.

Secondly, second takeaway is about strategic execution, Allwyn strategic execution. Here we are absolutely confident that we continued to execute against our strategic priorities, be it bringing new products, or rebranding, under one brand, or keep on working in our on tech stack.

Thirdly, we reaffirm our 2024 outlook, as Ken already mentioned. Finally, this financial performance underpins our commitment to shareholder returns.

Together, Q2 was a great indication of what our platform can deliver, and we are excited about prospects going forwards, and that also reinforces our very compelling and consistent combination of both growth and shareholder returns. With that, we can move to Q&A, please.

hello. I've got two questions, please.

One on Betano and one on PrizePicks. On Betano, revenue growth was very strong in the quarter, particularly compared to peer commentary around Brazil.

Could you give us some geographical color on Brazil growth versus ex-Brazil or by existing market versus new market or somewhere to help understand those trends? Just given your comments on tax phasing, should we expect EBITDA to convert to net income more strongly in H2?

The second question on PrizePicks, you flagged the Fully Blended product launch ahead of NFL season. Do you expect a step change in PM revenue?

Should we see this as a chance for you to gain incremental customers materially who are interested in predictions as a category, or is this more about better retaining and monetizing the base that you've talked to? If I put it simply, how important is Prediction Markets to your mid-teens guidance frameworks?

Thanks.

Sure. I'm happy to start with the question on Betano.

We haven't provided a split of Betano's revenues by geography, but I can maybe provide a bit of a bit of color that that will be helpful. As Betano is the leader in Brazil, and that's a very large market.

Betano's positioning in that market has continued to go from from strength to strength, but Betano is a very large and internationally diversified business as well. If you look at the performance in in in Q2, it's a reflection of of the leadership position and strong performance in Brazil, as well as as well as good performance in in their other markets.

In terms of the EBITDA to net income conversion rate, Q2 last year saw a very high conversion rate, and Q2 this year was a little bit under normalized level. If you're looking forward, you could you could expect a similar, but slightly slightly higher rate in in subsequent quarters.

Krešimir?

Ken. I'll I'll I'll take the the the PrizePicks questions.

Thanks, Ed, for that question. I think that the answer is we are building a a sports entertainment platform.

We are building the products that player demand, player want, and that player will engage with. If to answer specifically your questions, we are seeing Prediction Market also as a way of further engaging our players, because as Prediction Markets are better for certain sports, and just makes our offering much larger and more interesting.

We are also seeing a new consumer base coming in because we have expanded our offering to the teams, and also expanded our sports offering in sports which are not as common in DFS.

If I can If I can, add to to the the very last sub-question on the Prediction Markets overall in general and the future. As everybody is able to observe in the US, the whole US market, sports book, Prediction Markets, is in a bit of a flux.

It's not fully sort of regulated or clear how it will be regulated. It remains to be seen.

Probably, the Supreme Court will judge on on that next year. In general, what else, can we do and we are fully committed to do, to embrace Prediction Markets as an opportunity, and to to increase the addressable base, to increase the the the the the share of wallet by combining and and bundling Prediction Markets that could also that were the way and gateway to the Team Picks, as Krešimir was already mentioned.

That's, I think, important, from the Player Picks to Team Picks as well. I think, by seeing, this bundles, the custom- customers, they don't really distinguish that much, "Oh, this is technically Prediction Markets, and this is technically sports betting, and this is technically daily fantasy sport."

They sort of embrace it, because they like the sport, and they embrace into something which is engaging and entertaining. Closing of, we build up the sports entertainment company with PrizePicks, not a technically daily prediction daily prediction or daily fantasy.

By the way, on Betano, you see that Betano in Brazil was, despite that it pays off to be a market leader, because, it's sort of easier to reconfirm your position. Whatever comes, you are able to water better, the headwinds, and that's exactly what happened to to to Betano.

It was good that they were that relatively early.

Thank you very much, very useful. On Brazil, it's just that peers were reporting, down 15 or or worse.

It would just be Yeah,

yeah.

I was sort of curious if you if you were growing in Brazil or anything else.

I could say that the performance in Q2 is obviously phenomenal performance with it with Brazil as one of the biggest markets. That's a real real testament to the to the strength of the Betano business in in Brazil and and globally.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the presentation.

A couple of questions on my side. The first one is on the EBITDA adjustments, right?

We saw a significant growth in EBITDA adjustments both in the first quarter and the second quarter on year-on-year basis, and already exceeded €100 million in the first half. I wonder if you can provide maybe an updated guidance for the adjustments?

We also saw that quite quite a lot of those adjustments come from the corporate adjustments and Allwyn brand initiative. I wonder if there is any timeline for the for the brand initiative, how long it's expected to to last?

That's important because, as I calculate, it's about adjustments about 30% of operating EBITDA, right? If any color on on that would be very helpful.

The second question is a follow-up on PrizePicks and the US performance. We saw EBITDA declining 26% in the second quarter, and you mentioned higher investments into strategic marketing.

I wonder if this is something that you expect to to continue to in the second half of the year, or those investments into marketing was more of a one-off, and what kind of competition do you see in the in the in the US? Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. Sure.

Very happy to take those. The guidance that we previously provided on one-offs is still good indication of where we expect those to be.

We provided, as as usual, pretty detailed breakdown of what they were in in the press release and in the in the appendix to to the presentation. The key items that contributed in in in Q2 were the brand initiative, which is, as Robert has mentioned, a big big focus for us.

Also, we saw continuation, sorry, the, I would say, for the the last material amount of transaction costs related to the combination of Allwyn and OPAP, and to the purchase of our interest in PrizePicks. Those were pretty substantial transactions.

That kind of cost, transaction cost, is obviously not part of our ongoing ongoing structure. In in subsequent quarters, we would expect the brand investment to be the the key component of our our adjustments to to EBITDA.

The marketing investment in in in PrizePicks, I'm happy to provide a a bit of of context in terms of the numbers, and then maybe Krešimir also can can contribute. It's worth mentioning that Q2 is typically a relatively light quarter in terms of marketing investments in US sports entertainment and DFS in in in particular.

That reflects the the timing of the US sports seasons, so as the seasons end, you typically see a reduction in investment. What that typically means is that it's a it's a relatively good period in terms of revenue, but a lighter period in terms of marketing investment, so that that contributes to high margins as you saw in Q2 last year.

Then in this year, because of the World Cup and also because of the initiatives that we're we're launching enabled by Prediction Markets, we saw an opportunity to invest in order to retain sorry, I should say, to acquire and continue to engage customers in the around the World Cup and carry those customers over into the second half, where, obviously, we have the start, first of all, of the NFL, then subsequently NHL and NBA later later in the year. I would say that the investment in marketing in Q2 is unusual, but a great opportunity for us.

I'd also mention that, clearly, there is heightened competitive [event?] , intensity as regards customer acquisition in in the US, but we're really well positioned in that environment given that we have a very well-known brand, a very engaged consumer base with typically low low churn, and also a very disciplined approach to to marketing.

In Sorry, I realized I didn't answer the question about the extent of the rebranding program. We are still progressing the rebranding in Greece, you can expect that to continue to run for a for a number of quarters still.

Krešimir, anything you'd like to add on the marketing? Yeah.

For sure. Look, I think that what is important to know that we really have a very disciplined approach to marketing spend.

We look at our CAC, we look at our returns, and as you all know, World Cup is happening every 4 years, and World Cup in USA is happening every 2, 3 decades. We just realized that this is a good opportunity to enlarge our database.

We've seen high engagement, and we believe that this engagement is going to carry on in Q3 and and Q4, which are traditionally strong quarters for for for US sports. If I can add one quick comment on international brand, because that was also one of questions.

To share and develop one common brand, both operator and consumer brand, offers obvious opportunities. We strongly believe that having internationally recognized brand can unlock positive spillover synergies, ability to extract value from being present as one, which we are prepared to extract.

I know it's a little bit generic, but we are encouraged by a a very swift and natural recognition of Allwyn. I repeat, especially the younger generation doesn't care much about, decades-long brands.

They want to see something that they recognize even internationally, and it brings a benefit. That's a bit of a rationale behind this adjusted EBITDA and sort of one-off investment to set it up initially, including Formula 1.

Understood. Thank you.

Hey. Thank you so much for taking my questions.

I have two, if I may. The first one is regarding PrizePicks.

We saw a very nice increase in the amount of the amount staked in Prediction Market volumes and in average daily fantasy fees, yet the net revenue growth was relatively modest. Can you help us reconcile the disconnect between these engagement indicators and revenue performance?

Specifically, what were the key factors that limited the conversion of high player activity into revenue growth, and how should we think about conversion rate as we enter the NFL season? Also, could you help us quantify the benefit from a more favorable sport outcomes at PrizePicks during the quarter during the second half of the year, and to what to what extent, we should expect this to normalize going forward?

Thank you.

Ken. I can start, and maybe you can complement this.

Look, we are heavily dependent on on the sports outcome. In comparison with the last year when we have a very, very favorable sports outcomes, this year, we had what we call regular sports outcomes.

This is the difference between the amount of the entries and our net revenues. That that's the main reason.

As the sports outcomes are volatile, but what it matters that over a period of the time or 12 months or whatever, we have a certain net gaming revenue expectations, and we expect that this stabilize. Also, it's important to know that the more events you have, the the more kind of standard returns you can expect.

If I have to answer directly, most of the NGR is related to very favorable outcomes last year, which inflated the the net gaming revenue.

Got it.

Yeah. I think that that really really answers the question.

I would just just to emphasize, the the comment on the second half is was it was in relation to the comp, right, because the the comp was difficult this quarter and similarly in in Q1 because hold was relatively high during the comparable periods last year. In Q3 and Q4, it was a more normal level, so that the comp is going to be more favorable regardless of the level of the of of actually achieved margins in Q3 and Q4.

Got it. For my follow-up, I was hoping if you could comment on how you see the promotional environment in the US, and if you anticipate to continue to increase your investment in Q3 and in Q4, just to, kind of keep the momentum going with regards to, your introduction of of of PrizePicks in the, Prediction Market segment, and perhaps because some of your competitors are also reportedly increasing their marketing and their generosity in, some of your competing verticals?

Thank you. As

As we have answered previously, we have a very disciplined approach to our marketing spend. Obviously, the Q3 and and Q4 are some of the most important periods in in the US sports season, and you can expect us to to continue investing in marketing activities.

What is also important to know that we are improving our player experiences. The more players we can bring and they have a positive user experience, we expect a higher conversion and higher engagement from these players, and ultimately, quicker return on the CAC that we spend on these players.

I'd I'd also add, Ricardo, that it's probably not not really helpful to think about Prediction Markets as a new product line which needs launch investment in its own right. We see Prediction Markets as an opportunity to expand the products that we offer to our customers broadly.

As Robert was mentioning, customers, at the end of the day, they don't care whether they're playing what is legally DFS or whether they're participating in Prediction Markets. What they they want to do is is enjoy an engaging sports entertainment experience.

Prediction Markets is an opportunity for us to expand the experience that we offer. It's not like a we're offering a new product, we're starting from from scratch.

We're talking about the same players, same customer acquisition that we would be doing anyway.

Thank you so much for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Hi. Hello there, and thank you for taking my questions.

Can I just follow up on on PrizePicks? Given the the commentary about the, the the marketing phasing, let's say.

I'm just wondering, should we expect PrizePicks EBITDA to return to year year-on-year growth in in H2? I guess I'm wondering what sort of margin you think is is sustainable for this business once marketing intensity normalizes?

That's the first question. The second one would be for Or, or I can I can let you respond.

Sorry.

Sure. I think, as we haven't provided specific EBITDA guidance for for any of our businesses, and the reaffirmation of our guidance that we that we just made is for the the guidance in aggregate.

I think we've commented on some of the factors to to bear in mind when thinking about the Q2 number, whether that's in terms of the stakes, or or player engagement, or the sports margin, and and the marketing investment, and also how that can potentially carry into Q3 and Q4. We don't really have anything anything to add in terms of more more specific guidance.

Thanks. That's another one for you, Ken.

Just to take you to the cash flow. That there was a benefit, I think, €80 million-plus increase in trade and other payables in in in Q2, which drove a positive working capital inflow.

Just wondering what drove the payables build and how much was timing-related? Should we expect a reversal in in in H2?

Yeah. Sure.

I the the key item that can affect our payables and indeed our working capital as a whole is is tax payments, which are often quite quite substantial, and depending on the the timing of the actual payment date, that can cause a little bit of volatility in the between between the periods. Beyond that, I don't think there's anything specific to call out as being unusual in in Q2.

In general, the the the business has slightly positive networking capital and volatility. There is a bit of a bit of volatility between periods, but typically not a key driver of cash flow in the in the longer term.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for taking my questions. I've got three quick ones, if if if that's okay.

The first one's on free cash flow. It was significantly better than that than what we saw in Q1 with meaningful improvements across dividends from JVs, interest, and tax.

Is there anything timing-related there, because if you look at the free cash flow conversion, it was basically north of 100% versus versus a more normalized sort of 50-ish percent level? That's my first question.

Second one Sorry, do you want to go ahead with the first question, and then I can jump to the next two?

Why Why not? Yeah.

I I think that there's nothing no very large movements to to to highlight in in the quarter. I think if you look down the summary cash flow that that we have in the press release and that that that we have in the databook, you can see that EBITDA was a bit higher, adjustments to EBITDA were a bit lower.

We had larger, as you mentioned, dividends from equity method investees. That primarily reflects higher inflow from Lottoitalia, which typically pays a significant part of the annual cash flow generated out in Q2.

If you if you want to get a better sense of how that typically phases throughout the year, we we have a slide in the appendix with the the dividends from that entity going back over over some long period. Net finance costs, there is sometimes a bit of a swing between periods just reflecting the timing of interest payments and similar similarly for tax.

Q2 is actually a a relatively lower number, and I think you can continue to refer to the guidance that we've provided for both of those of those items. Then reduction in CapEx, I think, we we already covered, and when you add these small improvements in a number of items together, obviously, it does add up, and it it was it was a stronger quarter in terms of cash flow generation.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

That that makes sense. The second one I wanted to check on, on North America margins, especially within within OpEx, we saw a material step-down in in personnel and in agent commissions when we compared to Q1.

Can you maybe touch a bit on on on that? My last one is actually on the UK.

GGR was down, I think, 16-odd percent with the net revenue growth basically driven by lower gaming tax and and good cause contribution. I was wondering if you, look at it on a on a on a pure top-line growth perspective, it was quite weak and, in fact, worsening quarter-over-quarter.

In terms of drivers, is there anything to note there besides tough comps and the the tech transition that you that you flagged? That's that's it for mine.

Thank you. Yeah.

In the UK, those are those are the those are the two factors. As as I mentioned, the performance at the GGR level was was disappointing.

Net NGR, obviously, the picture is better because the benefit from the recovery of the cost flows through above the above the NGR level as a reduction in tax, so that's the kind of continued to be the case going going forward. In North America, I would say that the movement in cost items reflects the the the PrizePicks transition, which was partially adjusted for by the sorry, the the the acquisition of of PrizePicks in Q1.

There are some items which were booked in personnel costs, which were we subsequently adjusted out because they were transaction-related items like transaction bonuses, that kind of thing.

Got it. Just just a quick follow-up on on the UK, please.

In terms of the the cost reversal mechanism, is is it fair to assume that it sort of phases out at at some point in 2027 in terms of the benefit that you might get?

Oh, no, sorry. Sorry.

No. No, that's that's that's not the case.

We we recover effectively a fixed nominal amount each quarter over the remainder of the license, the contribution basically is flat from Q2 this year until until the end of the license.

Understood. Thanks.

I think on the on the UK on the UK, it's worth mentioning as well that this tech transformation in we believe established solid foundations and platform for future growth. That's why we started to bring the innovation or novelization of both the existing Lotto business and completely new game called Powerball, as we as we indicated.

There is we we believe that one phase is done, but I think we need to double down on fighting, because the UK market also did not stand still. The UK market, as we see now, sees a range of lottery-like or, prize draws-like propositions, which are definitely less regulated.

This is not a, excuse. It's just a, statement that this is what it is.

We are prepared also with the new CEO, Phil Walker, who knows UK market, who knows the digital landscape, who we believe is the right leader for the next phase after we successfully do the both retail and digital cutover, one of the biggest in the industry. That's that's going to be our that's going to be our job.

It's not easy, but at the same time, we also are aware that UK, being part of Allwyn, brings also not non-financial benefits, because if we, crack things in such a scale in transition, there's not much of such an experience in transition, it should be beneficial for Allwyn's future lottery tenders. I overall still believe that, being a competent lottery operator and combining with other, gaming verticals is is a is a is a platform that is definitely worthwhile keep establishing.

Perfect.

Thank you

so much for the answer. Thank you.

good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions.

Uh, first one is on Illinois. Uh, appreciate it's early days and potentially quite sensitive about what you can say, but I'd just be interested in knowing, uh, or getting a feel for what is potentially up for grabs with renegotiation.

Could it be potential scope in the revenue, games offered, that type of thing? My second question is on the UK.

I'd just be interested in what you're seeing on player behavior post the introduction of the, the larger games uh, versus the, the core core portfolio? Thanks.

Yeah. On the Illinois, as we indicated, we just started this week, we don't want to publicly speculate, what is going to be exact shape.

It's also up to the lottery commission in in the state of Illinois. What we know is that there's clearly awareness also in Illinois that since the last time, that there was a private management agreement contract in place, and where where this private management agreement contract, especially under the Allwyn stewardship, brought extraordinary, better results compared to the state-run lotteries.

Let's let's make it very clear. We are also and so this new landscape in the state of Illinois, which brought much more forms of gaming and optionality to the consumers, means that, the the the Illinois lottery, state lottery, has to be competitive in the digital space, has to be competitive in the propositions that are engaging for the customers, and also in the product innovation.

These are the three areas. The commercial settlement, has to reflect absolute alignment between the interest of the state and the commission, something that we know well when it was designed nicely well in the UK.

We have experience in design of such a scheme from the UK into the state of Illinois. Last thing I say, Khalid Jones, our new CEO, who used to be both the CEO of Virginia Lottery and the regulator, again, and and knowing Khalid is absolute is is a true Allwynner, innovative, hungry, and and prepared to show that the lottery, can grow and and expand.

I I pause here. On the on the UK, and I think it's too early to say, we assumed even certain cannibalization between the the three instead of two big jackpot games when introducing Powerball.

Far, this we are talking a few weeks experience. Far, this, this, shares and and and and and and sort of, propositions are are showing according to our expectations.

Thank you very much.

Yeah. Thank you for for the presentation.

Uh, just a clarification, uh, regarding the the corporate adjustments. Uh, so, should we expect, uh, uh, uh, branding initiatives to remain at, uh, the Q2 levels and then, uh, uh, the transaction costs and everything else to to decline over the next few quarters?

Approximately. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for all your questions.

At times, it seemed like always Allwyn is only only about PrizePicks, but it is understood that you like to see the, double-digit developments across many areas on front from, PrizePicks, understood. I just remind ourselves that, Allwyn is a a group, an aggregate of and diversified group.

We consider this is our strength. This is what Allwyn's story is about, being present geographically in multiple markets and being present in multiple gaming verticals.

I would dare to say this is unprecedented. We are the second largest gaming listed gaming company in the world, but we are definitely much, much more diversified.

With that, I sort of look forward, our continued discussion. I'm quite certain that, the slide 26, which Ken showed, of a historical context, is simply continuing.

Thank you very much, esteemed and numerous audience, for our Q2 2024 calls of Allwyn, and please stay tuned for the next quarters. Thank you.