Betsson AB Class B

Betsson AB Class B

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Q3 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptOctober 22, 2026

Operator

Welcome to Betsson Q3 Report 2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode.

During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO, Pontus Lindwall, and CFO, Martin Öhman.

Please go ahead.

Pontus Lindwall

Thank you very much. Good morning, and welcome to Betsson's presentation of the third quarter 2026.

I am Pontus Lindwall, President and CEO of Betsson, and with me today is also our CFO, Martin Öhman. The high level of customer activity continued during the third quarter, supported by the FIFA World Cup and the start of the major European football leagues.

Customer deposits and total gaming turnover increased, and the number of active customers rose by 40% to a new record. Group revenue also reached a new all-time high for a single quarter, up 10% year-over-year.

This is particularly positive given that the sportsbook margin was considerably lower than in the second quarter, due to player-friendly results in the European football leagues and cups. Growth during the quarter was instead driven by the casino product, with casino revenue also at new record level.

This performance demonstrates the strength of our diversified business model, with a broad geographical presence, several strong brands, and competitive offerings in both sports betting and casino that complement each other. The strongest growth, once again, came from Latin America, where we grow by more than 50% to new record levels, largely due to the successful execution of marketing activities in connection with the FIFA World Cup.

Our long-term investments in products, brands, and local adapted marketing continue to strengthen our positions in the region. At the beginning of August, the acquisition of Rhino Entertainment Group was completed.

Rhino was subsequently consolidated into the group and made a positive contribution to revenue and earnings during the quarter. The acquisition strengthens our geographical and commercial diversification and provides additional opportunities to generate profitable growth over time.

Operating income, or EBIT, amounted to €46 million, an increase compared with the previous quarter, marking the second quarter in a row with sequential growth in EBIT. The EBIT margin also improved quarter-on-quarter, despite a considerably lower sportsbook margin than in the second quarter.

At the end of the quarter, our flagship brand Betsson was launched in Belgium through a rebranding from betFIRST. The rebranding strengthens Betsson as one of the industry-leading global brands and reflects our ambition to drive greater consistency and scalability across the business.

During the quarter, new match kits were revealed for our two main jersey sponsorship partners in Europe, Inter and Club Brugge. Last week, these two clubs met in a thrilling Betsson Derby in Champions League, with plenty of goals scored and Club Brugge walking away with 3 points.

In general, the third quarter was full of exciting news on the sponsorship front. In September, the group round was played in Davis Cup with Betsson as one of the sponsors.

The Davis Cup Finals will take place in Italy in November. Some other news worth mentioning, Inter's women qualified for the Women's Champions League for the first time ever.

There was also another Betsson Derby in Argentina as Racing Club and Boca Juniors went head-to-head in Argentine Cup, both featuring Betsson at the front of their match jerseys. During the third quarter, the online slot game Gates of Inter was released.

This is a casino game developed exclusively for Betsson based on the sponsorship with Inter. Bespoke content is a way to strengthen differentiation and to capitalize on our sponsorship assets.

We have previously released exclusive online slot games based on our sponsorships with Boca Juniors and Atlético Nacional. Betsson's gaming sites are largely operated on a proprietary platform that makes up the core of the offering and user experience.

Our platform manages payments, customer information, and account management, as well as the games we offer. During the quarter, several new onboarding and payment solutions were integrated across some of our most important markets.

For the sportsbook, several new functions were introduced, such as new betting opportunities during extra time in football matches, as well as team and player pages for the main matches in Europe. During the quarter, almost 500 new casino games were released, 40 of which came with some kind of exclusivity.

We also integrated and launched new slot game suppliers in several markets. Another project was the migration of betFIRST in Belgium to our own platform.

As mentioned before, the offering in Belgium was consequently relaunched under the Betsson brand in the quarter. Now a brief update on our sportsbook.

Just like most major international operators, we have invested and developed our own proprietary sportsbook over many years. This has been the right strategic decision, and it has paid off.

Today, sportsbook revenue accounts for about 25% to 30% of group revenue, which provides revenue diversification. In recent years, our sportsbook has been further developed, utilizing the very latest frameworks and versions of the technologies used to develop and operate this product in the cloud environment.

Far in 2026, we have offered bets across more than 50 sports and categories. Football is by far the largest sport in our sportsbook, and this is where we have the broadest and deepest offering.

Consistent benchmarking against industry peers shows that we are among the absolute market leaders in the number of betting markets offered, unique bet types, features, and Bet Builder functionality. The World Cup was a great success for us.

We served more than 800,000 customers, and we took more than 20 million bets during the tournament. Further, the uptime in our sportsbook was 100.0% during the World Cup.

That means full uptime. In September, we launched Betsson Foundation, a registered public benefit foundation that brings together and supports the group charitable community and sports-related initiatives under one organization.

This is primarily a continuation of what we have already been doing. For many years, Betsson Group has contributed to wide range of organizations and local communities across its markets and office locations, from employee-led fundraising and grassroots projects to community and CSR initiatives developed through our partnerships with leading football clubs and athletes.

The launch of the Betsson Foundation marks the next step in Betsson's long-standing commitment to create positive impact. The Foundation will serve as the central organization for coordinating and scaling Betsson Group's social impact activities, working closely with employees, partners, and local organization across Betsson's markets.

Now, I'll hand over to Martin for a closer look at the financials.

Martin Öhman

Thanks, Pontus, and hello, everyone. The third quarter was a solid quarter, with all-time high revenue and increased operating income compared to the previous quarter.

The acquisition of Rhino Entertainment was finalized in the quarter and consolidated as from August, and contributes with two months results to the quarterly figures. Many KPIs are trending the right way, with a lot of all-time highs following increased activity subsequent to the FIFA World Cup this summer.

I will start this section of the presentation by focusing on some KPIs, and after that go into more details of the reported financial numbers. Customer deposits in all gaming solutions, including both B2B and B2C, are up 6% compared to the same period last year.

Number of active customers is the highest number ever, with an increase of 40% compared to last year, and now sums up to close to 1.9 million customers in the quarter. The gross turnover in sportsbook across all Betsson gaming solutions, including both B2B and B2C customers, was up by 8% compared to the same period last year and amounted to close to €1.4 billion.

Sportsbook margin was 8.1%, which is lower than the 8.8% margin in the third quarter last year, and also lower than the two-year rolling average margin of 9%. Sportsbook revenue increased by 1% compared to last year and amounted to 72 million.

The casino turnover increased by 7% year-on-year, and casino revenue increased by 14%, a new all-time high. The difference in growth numbers between turnover and revenue is explained by a shift in mix between B2B and B2C.

Casino revenue represented 77% of the group's total revenue in the quarter, and sportsbook, some 22%. Reported revenue for the quarter amounted to €327 million, an increase of 10% and the highest revenue ever for a single quarter.

The acquisition of Rhino Entertainment was consolidated as of August. Adjusted for the acquisition and FX impact, the organic growth year-on-year was 6%.

Revenue from the B2C business has grown by 28% or €61 million year-on-year, whilst the B2B business showed declining revenue year-on-year by 39% or by €30 million, explained by decreased revenue from one of the group's B2B customers. B2B revenue is also slightly down quarter-on-quarter, mainly explained by a lower sportsbook margin in the third quarter compared to the second quarter this year.

Revenue from the B2B business corresponds to 14% of the total revenue, and B2C revenue to 86%. Revenue from locally regulated markets increased by 35% compared to last year and now constitutes 78% of total revenue, compared to 64% last year.

Splitting revenue by region, we see growth compared to previous year in all regions apart from the Nordics and the Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, the CEECA region, which both are down compared to last year. In the Nordic region, revenue decreased by 10% compared to the corresponding period last year.

The decline is driven by decreased revenue across both sportsbook and the casino product, and in both Sweden and Denmark. However, the revenue from the region increased quarter-on-quarter, and the third quarter shows the highest revenue levels so far this year, driven by the casino product.

The Nordic region represented 10% of the group's total revenue in the third quarter. Revenue from Western Europe increased by 14% year-on-year, or by €8 million, and reported the highest revenue ever for the region in a single quarter.

The Italian market reported all-time high revenue, and also reaching new record levels in both deposits and turnover. The growth compared to corresponding period last year is mainly driven by the casino product.

France reported increased revenue compared to the corresponding period last year, but declined compared to the previous quarter due to lower sportsbook margin. Revenue from Belgium decreased compared to the corresponding period last year and compared to previous quarter, explained by a lower sportsbook margin and lower activity in the casino products.

The Western Europe region represented 20% of the total revenue in the quarter. Revenue from the CEECA region decreased by 17% or by €20 million.

Revenue was negatively impacted in the quarter by lower license revenue for system delivery to B2B customers in the region, explained by lower activity in both sportsbook and the casino product. However, the B2C segment in the region continued to perform well, where Croatia, Georgia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia all reported increased revenue compared with the corresponding period last year, driven by the casino product.

The CEECA region represented 30% of the group's total revenue. Revenue in the Latin America region increased by 40 million or by 52% compared to the same period last year, which was the highest revenue ever for the region, driven by strong underlying activity in both the sportsbook and in the casino product, with new record levels across sportsbook revenue, casino revenue, casino turnover, and deposits.

Argentina, Peru, and Colombia all reported strong revenue growth in the third quarter, driven by solid performance across both the casino product and the sportsbook product. The Latin America region represented 36% of the group's total revenue and kept its position as the group's largest region.

The region Rest of the World increased by 106% in the third quarter, following the acquisition of Rhino Entertainment in August, with Canada being the main driver of the region's growth in the quarter. The region now represents 4% of total revenue.

This waterfall graph breaks down the different components in the profit and loss statements to display the development in operating income. Revenue is up year-on-year, but not as much as cost of sales, which has increased by 39 million compared to last year.

The increase is to a large extent explained by change in revenue mix between B2C and B2B in the quarter, where we in this quarter see yet a step down in the B2B revenue as percentage of total revenue. Another impacting factor is increased revenue from locally regulated markets, and following that, increased gaming taxes by some €28 million.

Increased cost of services provided is, apart from gaming taxes, also explained by higher payment provider fees following increased B2C revenue. Year-on-year, gross profit decreased by €9 million and amounted to 181 million, which corresponds to a gross profit margin of 56% compared to 64% last year.

Marketing spend increased by €7 million compared to last year and corresponds to 15% of total B2C revenue and to some 20% when including affiliate marketing costs as well. The increased marketing expenses are driven, as Pontus mentioned, by increased marketing activities in the Latin America region.

Personnel expenses is more or less flat compared to last year, although increased number of employees and maintained focus on investments in product and platform development. Depreciation and amortization cost increased by some 1.5 million year-on-year, as a result of increased capitalized development costs and increased amortization costs following acquisitions and rebranding of some local brands to Betsson.

Other items are slightly up year-on-year, where other external expenses increased due to increased costs for cloud technologies and software licenses. The increase is counteracted by increased capitalized development costs following more initiatives in product and technology development.

Operating income amounts to €46 million, a decrease of 31% compared to last year, but an increase of 9% compared to previous quarter. The EBIT margin was 14.1% compared to 13.6% last quarter and 22.6% last year.

Operating cash flow amounts to 55 million, compared to 65 million euro in the same period last year. The deviation year-on-year is mainly explained by a lower operating income this year, which is somewhat counteracted by positive impact from changes in working capital in this quarter.

Cash flow from investing activities sums up to €75 million, where some 59 million relates to the acquisition of Rhino Entertainment and remaining 16 million to investments in own product and technology development. Cash flow from financing activities impacted the cash flow by 4 million, explained by dividend paid to non-controlling interests and lease payments.

Betsson has, as end of September, a net cash position of €98 million and an equity ratio of 61%. Now, Pontus, back to you to take us through the remaining part of the presentation.

Pontus Lindwall

Thank you, Martin. Now, let's look at how the fourth quarter has started, which I think has started quite strong, actually.

The average daily revenue in the fourth quarter so far, including the 18th of October, has been 11% higher than the average daily revenue of the whole fourth quarter of the last year. During the start of the fourth quarter of 2026, the sportsbook margin has been significantly lower than the average for the last eight quarters.

Now, let's quickly sum up the highlights of the third quarter 2026. We set new records in group revenue, casino revenue, and active customers in the quarter.

B2C continued to be the growth engine with all-time high revenue. The strong growth continued in Latin America, with revenue up more than 50% year-over-year.

Our investments in products, brands, and marketing continue to strengthen our position in the region. EBIT and the EBIT margin improved quarter-on-quarter versus the second quarter.

However, EBIT was negatively impacted compared to last year due to the revenue mix, higher gaming taxes, and a lower sportsbook margin, which all led to a lower gross margin and dropped through to EBIT. The acquisition of Rhino Entertainment Group was completed in August and contributed to revenue and earnings for the quarter.

We've seen a positive, strong start to the fourth quarter with average daily revenue up 11% versus Q4 last year, despite a significantly lower sportsbook margin than the historical average, indicating continued high customer activity. Thanks, everyone, for listening to the presentation.

Let's move over to Q&A. If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue.

If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad.

Operator

The next question comes from Nikola Kalanoski from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Nikola Kalanoski

Yeah. Hi, gentlemen.

Just a few questions from my end. First, I'm a bit curious on the acquisition of Rhino.

Could you perhaps help us understand how we should think about Rhino's geographical exposure today and maybe in the future? Is this acquisition also a way for you to diversify your B2B exposure geographically, too?

Or am I thinking about this in the wrong way?

Pontus Lindwall

As presented for the acquisition, we acquired mainly a Canadian B2C business from Rhino, but also several B2B assets, such as technology, which will be utilized over a variety of markets by B2B customers to us. In that way, it contributes to increased diversity.

Nikola Kalanoski

Yeah. Fair enough.

Just maybe related on Rhino, was there any acquisition-related cost in the P&L in this particular quarter just to get a sense of whether your P&L was impacted by the acquisition just in terms of costs, like one-off costs?

Pontus Lindwall

Yeah. I'm going to leave that to Martin.

Martin Öhman

Yes, there is some cost for that, but it's not material and it's not nothing that sticks out. We haven't kind of mentioned that as a separate number.

Nikola Kalanoski

Yeah. That's fair.

Just my final one, the performance in LatAm was [great, to say the least?] .

If we look at some news, however, related to the region, it seems like Chile has become a bit challenging. Have you been negatively impacted here, and if so, what alternatives are you considering for this particular country, if you can comment that?

Pontus Lindwall

There are always things happening in certain markets and for all of you that follow the gaming industry, there has been changes and happenings in many countries in Latin America. We have seen no certain happenings for the market that you mentioned that has any impact of material for us.

Nikola Kalanoski

All right. That's fair.

That's all for me. Thanks so much.

Pontus Lindwall

Thank you.

Martin Öhman

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Martin Arnell from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Martin Arnell

Hi, Pontus and Martin. Good morning.

Good

Pontus Lindwall

morning. Good

Martin Öhman

morning.

Martin Arnell

Could we start just elaborating a little bit on the gross margin? Because despite you have revenues up, the gross margin is a little bit disappointing.

Can you just go through the positives and negatives here and in a little bit of an outlook perspective?

Martin Öhman

We normally don't give any outlook, but we can comment a little bit more and give some more details on what we see in this quarter. We have seen for quite some time now that we are growing our locally regulated revenue, which come with increased gaming taxes.

We have also seen a shift towards more B2C revenues, rather than B2B revenues. There's a mix effect in there, and B2C revenues also come with payment provider costs.

What we have seen over quite some time now is a kind of negative shift in the gross margin. Whether that will continue, it depends to see in the future, but as of right now, this is kind of a mirror of the revenue mix that we have.

Martin Arnell

On that topic, what are you doing in order for this not to continue? Or what actions can you take?

You talk a lot about product improvements. How are you implementing that in your B2B?

Sort of what hopes do you have that you will actually start to see growth soon in the B2B business?

Pontus Lindwall

Yes, we have communicated that our B2B business has stabilized, and we are very grateful for that, and of course, we are working hard now to make the B2B business grow even further, because as you said, it has a good impact for the profitability of the company. I also think that what we have seen over the past years, where we have increased the amount of regulated B2C revenues, is all expected.

We know that these revenues are come with a different cost structure, and we pay a lot of tax. We have all-time high in gaming taxes this quarter, amongst many other all-times high.

This is no news to us. We believe that we will be able to grow the B2B business as well going forward, which should have a positive impact on the gross margin.

Martin Arnell

On B2B and potential for growth, do you think if you're able to grow it, do you think it's sort of mainly driven by new or existing B2B business?

Pontus Lindwall

The actual portfolio is quite diversified and it would be tough to say that we don't expect any growth from our existing customers. We expect them to grow going forward, but we also expect to add on new B2B clients that can add to the growth.

Martin Arnell

The drivers of the growth, Pontus, just so I understand, is both product and market, the normal structural drivers, or is there anything else?

Pontus Lindwall

No, of course, our B2B clients, they will grow with the underlying growth of all the markets where they operate, and we will continue to serve them with good products, which will help them to be in good positions on the market where they operate. It's a combination of everything that we do and also adding on hopefully new B2B clients on top of that.

Martin Arnell

Thank you. Just on your casino revenue, which grew impressive 14% in this quarter, can you give some more color on why that number was so strong so we can understand it?

Pontus Lindwall

Yes. As we mentioned in the presentation, it has been a lot of product development, as always, but that's not something that really stands out for the quarter.

Of course, you can see in the activity figures from the quarter that we have a very high customer activity and it also comes natural when the sportsbook margin becomes a little bit weaker, some money from some customers tend to find their ways into the casino. It's a combination of that.

In a business like ours, it's very important for us to have a broad customer base and a lot of users. As you can see on the numbers for this quarter, it was all-time high with close to 1.9 million active customers.

That's, of course, helps a lot in the casino.

Martin Arnell

Yeah. Thanks.

Just a final question from me. Do you expect to keep those new actives that you've taken in to capitalize on them in the coming quarters with lessons learned from other major events in the past?

Then secondly, if you could just mention something about Brazil, your strategy there, and what do you think about it going forward?

Pontus Lindwall

Yes, we usually see after a big tournament like the World Cup, when we have a nice intake of customers, we see that we reach a new platform with the amount of active customers. Then again, not all customers that came in will continue to be customers forever.

We have as most companies and most industry a level of churn, but it's up to us to make as good as we can out of the customers that we have brought in now. We expect to see continued high activity and high customer levels even going forward.

On the Brazil side, we have stated many times that since regulation of the Brazil market started, we have been in the market, but we have also seen that it has looked a bit unstable. It has been very high competition on marketing side, I think we used the expression that we are on the grandstand a bit and we watch it from the sideline.

Of course, we have invested small amounts of money to be in the market, but compared to some other operators, it's not even comparable what we have done. I think we are in a good position where we didn't take a hit from what has happened in the Brazil market, which was a ban of internet gaming more or less for you who don't know about that.

Looking in the rearview mirror, this is not something that we regret that we have been careful in the market. It's actually the other way around.

It puts us in a good position for whatever going to happen in that market going forward. Our believe is that the market will not be closed forever as it is as of now, because there are no good proof in the market that that is a great way forward.

We think that the market will open up in one way or the other.

Martin Arnell

Perfect. Thank you for all.

Pontus Lindwall

Martin, you want to add something on that? Yeah.

Martin Öhman

Martin, no, not on the Brazil, but circling back a bit to your previous question, Martin, regarding the gross profit. The items in the gross profit are rather fixed for us.

Some of them are things that we cannot impact, such as gaming taxes, et cetera. What we can do in order to kind of leverage our operational model is kind of increase the B2C revenue, which we have seen in the past quarters.

That will then trickle down on the kind of scalability of other operational costs.

Martin Arnell

Perfect. Thanks for that clarification.

Operator

There are no more phone questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

Pontus Lindwall

We don't have any written questions coming in here are

Martin Öhman

[They've been dealt with?] Yeah,

Pontus Lindwall

they have been answered already in the Q&A session as far as we can see. If there are no more questions, then thank you for listening in, and see you next time.

Bye-bye.