Entain Plc

Good morning all and thank you for joining us for the NTEN Group 2025 Q3 trading update. My name is Carly and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to register a question during the call, you can do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. To remove yourself online or questioning, we'll be star followed by two. And now it's time to hand over to our host, Stella David, CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning everyone and welcome to today's Q3 results call. I'm delighted to be speaking to you all again and sharing another set of good Entain results. I'm joined by Rob Wood, our CFO and Deputy CEO, and our investor relations team. So sticking with our usual running order, I will start with the Q3 headlines and some highlights of our operational progress. Rob will then dig into the trading performance and outlook for the balance of this year. And then we are going to open it up to your questions. So let's kick off. Entane's transformation continues at pace, and we continue to make strong progress with our strategic priorities. We are definitely getting stronger and fitter every day, and our improving operational execution means we can expand our bandwidth, enabling us to do more across more markets in our portfolio. Our technology underpins everything we do, and it's thanks to our hard-working product and tech teams who are supporting our commercial organizations with better capabilities. And these ongoing tech upgrades are the cornerstone to both Entain and BetMGM's improving performances. All of this hard work is focused on delivering for our customers, providing players with improved product and enhanced experiences. Importantly, our efforts continue to deliver results. Entain is back to consistently delivering growth. Q3 is our fifth consecutive quarter of online growth. having started on our transformation journey at the start of 2024. And importantly, we are rebuilding the resilience of our business to deliver sustainable growth. And I'm incredibly proud of both Entain's high-quality portfolio and the teams around the world who are highly committed to delivering results. Looking at the Q3 headlines, total group NGR, so that's including our 50% share of BetMGM, grew 7% in constant currency. Entain Group NGR grew 5%, with online up 6%, while retail grew 3%. Growth was seen across our portfolio, including the UK, Italy, Croatia, New Zealand, Georgia, Spain, Canada, Austria, and Greece. And, as some of you may well already know, September had very customer-friendly sports results. And statistically, it just happens. So, net of digesting that, Q3 was a really pleasing performance. Similarly, BetMGM's impressive year to date is evidence of the success of the tremendous work that the BetMGM team have been delivering and also Entain's product and tech teams in supporting BetMGM. As you heard from Adam and Gary yesterday, Q3 was another quarter that beat expectations. Driven by the significantly strengthened sports product, our leading iGaming offering, as well as BetMGM's successful player engagement approach. As well as BetMGM updating its 25 guidance, its inflection to sustainable profitability means that we are now comfortably in a position to start returning cash to the parents. We had mentioned this expectation during our H1 results presentation in August, as it is a key pillar of Cashflow Outlook. And I'm delighted that BetMGM confirmed yesterday it is estimating at least $200 million coming back to the parents before the end of the year. So in summary, Entain has a high quality and diverse portfolio of podium positions in our attractive markets. And we're embedding a growth mindset in our business. Our transformation is progressing well and we are delivering tangible results. We've reiterated our guidance for 25 and the strong momentum for both Entain and BetMGM supports our confidence in delivering consistent underlying growth and generating over half a billion of annual cash in 2028. There is clearly still a lot of hard work to do, but the prospects are positive and we are excited about the opportunities ahead. So on that note, I'm now going to hand over to Rob to take you through the trading in more detail. Over to you, Rob.

Thanks, Della. Morning, everyone. I'm delighted that Entain's Q3 results saw us deliver another quarter of consistent growth, including particularly strong results from BetMGM, as you heard yesterday. So let's dig in. And as always, all revenue growth numbers that I quote will be in constant currency. Group NGR, including a half of BetMGM, was up 7%. And within that, online XUS was up 6% and retail was up 3%. Let me start by unpicking the sports margin impact, which took a little shine off the quarter's performance after a run of very customer-friendly results in September. Firstly, and importantly, if we adjust out sports margin noise, then online volumes growth was pleasing at 7% year-on-year in Q3, yet NGR growth was 6% year-on-year. So you can see only a small margin impact on the year-on-year growth. However, the impact versus expected margin was larger than that. And across the quarter, it equated to approximately 20 million pounds of EBITDA. So sports results were unhelpful, but a little volatility is par for the course. And across the year to date, margin is almost exactly in line with expectations. Moving on, and our iGaming business was up strongly again in the quarter with 9% NGR growth year on year. Gaming therefore helped to offset lower sports growth, as sports ended with NGR growth of 1% year on year, on wages growth of 5%. Looking at our markets now, and UK and Ireland continues to perform well, with NGR up 8% in total, with particularly strong growth again in online at 15%. Whilst 15% growth in online is slower than the 21% delivered in H1 as we start to lap the acceleration in the prior year, 15% is likely to again represent market share gains as we benefit from a level regulatory playing field and improved product and marketing. It's also worth noting that UK retail returned to growth in Q3 after a slight decline in H1. Moving to international, where online NGR was up 1% in Q3, as volume growth of 5% was offset by the customer-friendly sports results in September. The impact of adverse results was most pronounced in Brazil, where Q3 NGR was down 11% year-on-year, despite volumes growing by a pleasing 14%. We, of course, expect sports margin to normalize over time, and the volume growth shows why we continue to be excited about the future in Brazil. In Australia, we saw stabilized volumes, but NGR was down 7%, again reflecting adverse sports results. Italy continues to perform in line with expectations and maintain share, with online up 5% year-on-year and retail up 8%. In addition, our high-quality, diverse portfolio saw many other sizeable online markets performing strongly. New Zealand, Georgia, Spain, Canada, Austria and Greece all delivered strong double-digit growth in Q3. This not only showcased our strength across many geographies, but also helped us to digest declines in the Netherlands and Belgium following regulatory changes in 2024. We are now lapping those changes in both markets and therefore expect to see a more stabilized performance looking forwards. Entain CE continues to perform well with NGR up 10%. Online was up 9% and retail was up 11%. Both Poland and Croatia reported strong growth and we continue to be leaders in those markets. Finally, BetMGM, and as you saw from yesterday's updates, Q3 was another quarter of outperformance coming in ahead of expectations. Moving on to Outlook for the rest of the year, and I'm pleased to be reiterating our 2025 EBITDA guidance range of £1,100,000 to £1,150,000. we've managed to absorb the sports margin impact of approximately £20 million and remain comfortable with where consensus sits. We also continue to expect 2025 online NGR growth of approximately 7% on a constant currency basis or mid-single digits on a reported basis. BetMGM continues to see strong momentum and yesterday upgraded both its NGR and EBITDA guidance for the year, to NGR of at least $2.75 billion and EBITDA of approximately $200 million. Significantly, BetMGM also confirmed they anticipate returning cash of at least $200 million to Entain and MGM before year-end. Entain's share of this distribution can be added to our previous guidance of neutral adjusted cash flow for the year, which did not anticipate cash from BetMGM this year. So in summary, Entain is firmly back to continuing to deliver consistent growth quarter after quarter, growing at least in line with our markets. We're making great progress with our strategic priorities, in particular underpinned by significant tech improvements, and we have pre-fits working, both at Entain and BetMGM. Our Q3 results also demonstrate the quality of our business, the sustainability of our earnings, and the strength of our podium positions across our diverse portfolio. Coupled with Entain's earnings growth, BetMGM's milestone of starting to return cash to parents reinforces the clear pathway to our target of at least £500 million of adjusted cash flow from 2028. We're excited for the final few months of 2025, and we're well-placed to deliver on our many opportunities through 2026 and beyond. With that, I'll hand the call to the operator to open for Q&A.

Thank you very much. We've now opened the lines for the Q&A. If you'd like to ask a question, please signal now by pressing the star-filled by 1 on your telephone keypad. If it moves itself a line of questioning, it will be star-filled by 2. As a reminder to raise a question, we'll be staffed by one now. Our first question comes from Ed Young from Morgan Stanley. Ed, your line is now open.

Thank you. Good morning. I've got three, please. First of all, could you give some colour on Netherlands and Belgium? You mentioned you've lapped the measures taken last year. I suppose that's the largest idiosyncratic change we'll see in Q4. So can you perhaps give a bit more colour on what the underlying picture looks like there at the moment? Second, on the JV cash, it's obviously very positive to start receiving that and it's more material than was expected. Does it lead you in any way to consider reviewing the 500 million adjusted cash target for 2028? And then finally, Stella, you made some recent commentary in the press around UK investment and the outlook for UK betting shops recently. I just wondered if you could give us an update on UK tax and do you think the government understands the potential consequences of a material rise there? Thank you.

Thanks, Ed. So, taking the three questions, I'll obviously take the one on tax, but before I do that, maybe I'll ask Rob just to give me a little bit of an update on the first two questions, please.

Yes, morning, Ed. So, So they're 20 plus percent negative year to date and represent probably 6% of the online mix, something like that. So as we look forwards, that drag has now been eliminated. So that's roughly a percentage point, maybe slightly more of benefits to the growth rate. And that obviously helps to alleviate the deceleration that we'll see in the UK as we lap the acceleration in 2024. So far in Q3, as I say, both of those markets have now lapped the regulatory changes. They've both seen volume year on year growth. So that's very early days, but a good sign coming out of those businesses. And I suppose just continuing that theme, as we think. forwards to 2026, we don't have, as it stands today, touch wood, another Netherlands or Belgium. Aside from potential tax movements, which Stella will come on to, there's no market with material regulatory change on the horizon. So hopefully we won't have another Belgium straight Netherlands in 2026. The second question was around cash. So, yeah, we're obviously delighted with the cash that's coming out of BetMGM. It does help underpin the 500 million guidance. We will keep that under review. We'll probably comment more on it in March. But for now, you'd like to think there's more upside and more momentum to that target than when we first announced it back in March. Stella, back to you.

Yeah, thank you. So, yes, the question of UK tax. I'm glad the question has come up nice and early in this session. It's really important that we as a business and the wider industry have an active engagement with governments on this issue, because tax rates going up is very well proven that every time you increase tax, the black market increases in size. put extra regulation in place that limits opportunity for players, they tend to go to the black market as well. And if you look at what's happened in the Netherlands, which is very clearly documented, they put the tax rates up to over 30%. Now it is well known that over 50% of that market has gone to the black market. And so therefore, it has actually backfired. So the objective is to raise more taxes. Then the best opportunity is to reduce the amount of black market that exists in the UK today, over 500 sites. They look very professional and they promise great rates, no prior protections, no guarantee you get paid out. And from a customer point of view, they pose a real risk. And for government, they pose a real risk of accelerating the bleeding away of tax revenues to people who pay no tax at all. So I'm very clear in my position on this one. We have to have a very close dialogue going ahead. We do. We're in close dialogue with the Treasury. And it's very important that the maths are used rather than emotion to decide what the right course of action is. But, you know, we are already a great contributor to the UK economy. We're a very highly taxed sector already. I think we pay an effective tax rate, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Rob, of around about 65%. So, therefore, we already contribute at a very high level. The industry employs 110,000 people, thousands of shops on the high street, including 2,400 of our own. And so it's about having the right balance here. And let's work together with government and the regulator, payment service providers, to take the black market sites off the market where there are hundreds of millions of pounds of tax lost to people who pay no tax at all. And also restrict the advertising of black market sites in the UK, which is deeply frustrating. The answer to the question is it's an ongoing dialogue, and I believe that the maths should dictate where we end up here.

Thank you. Maybe I'll just double down on that point that we're already a very high taxpayer. So that's one of the points we make when we're in with Treasury. I do like that stat that Stella referred to in the UK. It's actually just over two thirds is our effective tax rate. So that means that for every pound that we make in the UK on a pre-tax basis, two thirds of that is goes to the UK government. And that's why we're a top 20 taxpayer in the UK, but we're obviously not one of the top 20 largest companies in the UK. So these are the kind of points that we're making when we engage with Treasury, as well as the fact that it doesn't matter what tax you put up, if you're going to put any tax up. We're one company and the mitigations available to us will be the same in any instance. And Stella's touched upon some of those, so I won't repeat them. But yeah, these are the kind of messages that we're sharing with Treasury at the moment.

Thank you. Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you would like to raise a question, please sit down now. We're pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Estelle Weingart from J.P. Morgan. Estelle, your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. I've got three questions also, please. The first one is on Australia. It continues to be challenging. You mentioned customer-friendly sports results, but also I think coms were tough to start with on the back of operator-friendly sports results in Q3 last year. For Q3 Australia, you've got minus 6%. Can you just provide more color on the impact coming from these two separate elements? the idea being to quantify this year's adverse sports results specifically. Second question, looking at your product now in the UK for online sports betting versus what it was same time last year, what are the key improvements that have been made and where do you think your position versus the best-in-class equivalent products at the moment? And the third question on prediction markets, I mean, questions were asked at the BetMGM call yesterday already, but today my question is more on this platform's ambition to expand internationally? Does it pose a risk for a sportsbook like yourself in the UK or Australia or any other country? What's your take on this more generally? Thank you.

Hi, Estelle. Thank you for the questions. Let me just – I seem to be doing things in reverse order here. Let me take the third one first, which is prediction markets. And I think Adam yesterday gave a very fulsome answer to the challenge of prediction markets in the U.S., We essentially believe that it isn't it is illegal. And with the regulators that we have to have a relationship with and be licensed through, we are not entering that market. And I think he gave a very clear answer to that question. I think about the bigger question about prediction markets in other parts of the world, you know, you know, We've had things like Betfair in the UK, which is an exchange. So it's not necessarily totally new, this concept. You know, it's similar. So I think looking at Sportsbook and the range of things that we offer, that's what customers are really looking for. And in a regulated market. Sportbook offering is highly superior in my view to what prediction markets are currently offering. But that's not to say we shouldn't be constantly innovating and looking for new things for customers to be engaged with. And if there is a new feature that makes sense to them, clearly we would lean into that. Then back to your second question, which was about where we are in the UK in terms of product. I mean, there's been a lot of iterative improvements to the customer experience in the UK, and it's a range of things from improved builder to navigation of the app to better customer journeys in general, because customer journeys are not just about the product. It's about the ease. of of depositing withdrawing it's about the friction in the in in in the process and making sure that we are aligned with what's expected in the market and so there's there's a lot of improvements a lot of them are a small initiative that you don't tend to see um but they they make a huge difference you know just in terms of navigation around the um The app, for example, making it more intuitive. So there's lots of things that have been done. But let me be very clear, because we like to be very honest, is that this is a journey. You know, the journey is is an ongoing one of iterative improvements rather than, you know, it's not a destination. It's a constant moving forward. So we're very pleased to have the UK performing, obviously, but there's still significant opportunities ahead. And then I'll give most of the Australia question to Rob. But, you know, in terms of sports margins, there was an unbelievably negative for the operators, but joyous for the customers. Rugby match in Q3 in Australia, which was very expensive, not just for us, but for the industry, which... As I said at the beginning of the presentation, you know, sports margins, sometimes the customer wins big and that's not a bad thing. It's just statistically an inevitability. But Australia, a bit more colour, please.

Sure. So I think you've hit the most important point, which is results go for you sometimes. And again, sometimes what's important is volumes. And in Australia, we were a shade positive in Q3. And that's really how we see the market going forwards. Low single digits positive is our best guess of what we see from a volumes perspective in Australia in 2026. So from our perspective, it's stable, albeit wide. Obviously, it looks adverse. Perhaps what we'd also say, we've got a new CEO in Australia. He's doing loads of great initiatives in the pipeline. So we're really excited about what he's achieving in his plans in Australia. And then neighboring New Zealand is continuing to go well. So we delivered over 20 percent growth in NGR in Q3. in online. And we look forward to iGaming coming as well, which could be a nice fillet for us in the latter part of 2026.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Monique Pollard from Citi. Monique, your line is now open.

Hi, morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Three from me as well, if I can. The first one, Robert, was just coming back to your comment on the impact, the 20 million impact of EBITDA in the quarter from the bad sports results. I guess I'm just trying to understand that because you also call out in the statement and you made the comment earlier that there was a sort of one to two percentage point cut. to the online NGR growth from the sports results. And that sort of, you know, barely will get me to a revenue number of 20 million, let alone an EBITDA number of 20 million. So I don't know, as you say, about this sort of where you expected the margins to go versus them just being flat year on year. If you could just give some clarity on that would be helpful. The second question was just on the 7% constant currency online NGR growth target for 2025. I guess the way I'm thinking about it is we're at 7% constant currency year to date. We've got a 4Q comp for online sports of plus 20% given how bookmaker friendly the 4Q sports results were. So just wondering if that 7% for the full year is now a bit challenging. Understand the points you made on Netherlands and Belgium adding maybe a percentage point. And then final question I had was on CEE. So good growth from CEE. You mentioned that Croatia continues to perform ahead of expectations. Just wondering if you could give us, please, a quick update on Poland and how that is performing, whether the market is still very competitive and whether you think you're back to maintaining market share there. Thank you. Thanks.

Thanks for those questions. I think the first two you've directed at Rob, so I'm going to let Rob answer those. I'll try and do the third one because I like doing the third question first. It's kind of my thing. So Poland, you know, we're trying to do a balance in Poland, which is it's been very competitive. Lots of people have come in and have made little or no money, in fact, significant losses there. And we like to do the balance between maintaining a healthy market share and delivering significant EBITDA. And I think we've actually got that balance right. Now, going forward, how competitive the market is going to be is going to be interesting because the liberalization of casino has been pushed back quite considerably. And so that might change the market dynamics. But our approach to Poland is, look, long term, this is a great market. And when Sino comes in, which we're all confident in the long term, it will. We're in a great position to take advantage of that. But as I say, we are doing a great job of delivering EBITDA out of the market while maintaining a very strong market position. So that's that's our kind of approach to to that specific market. If I now hand over to Rob on the other two questions.

And maybe I'll just add on Poland. We still grew 8 percent in Q3. So I'm pleased with the revenue growth despite the competitive pressure. We just migrated on to the super sport sports book, which is is an upgrade for the offering. So we've got that to look forward to. And as Stella mentioned, you know, I looked it up after my comments yesterday. in the interims. If you look at public filings in 2024, we had a market share of about 85% of net profit. So we're happy with how we're positioned in Poland for all of those reasons. And Croatia continues to grow double digits pretty much every quarter since we've owned it. So to the other questions, EGGR margin impact, 20 million pounds. So, yes, specifically the one to two percent that's quoted is the impact on year on year growth. When you look versus expectation, it was more like a three percentage point impact. And that's where the 20 million pounds of EBITDA comes from. You might notice that the Q3 margin this year was our lowest for two years. And it's all about September. We were actually trending ahead coming into September. Our online NGR growth was very high, single digits. But then it got paired back to six off the back of the adverse results in September. So hopefully that explains that. And then when it comes to this 7% constant currency guidance, so the year to date number is seven and a bit rounding down to seven. So there's a little bit of headroom to still get there in Q4. But you're right to observe that there is. year-on-year margin pressure in Q4 because Q4 last year was exceptionally strong. But based on a normalised set of results in Q4 of this year, we should still get home to seven despite September taking the edge off and taking the headroom, if you like, out of our numbers.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. As a reminder, to raise a question, we'll be staffed by one on your telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from Pravin Gondal from Barclays. Pravin, your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, on the 7% online volume growth in Q3 and then potentially improving structural margins, underlying growth, NGR growth in Q3 excluding sports results is near or a touch higher than your top end of your medium term revenue guide. How do you feel about sustaining this into 2026? And then you have kept FY EBITDA guidance unchanged despite the $20 million EBITDA track. Can you help understand if there were any marketing or other cost adjustments this quarter which had helped you to absorb the sports results track? Thanks.

I think I'm going to hand those ones to Rob. Rob?

Yeah. So firstly, online NGR growth and views into 2026. I mentioned earlier that the good news is we don't have any known material adverse regulatory changes in 2026. So no repeats of Belgium, Netherlands. But of course, we won't see what we've seen from the UK in 25 repeated in 2026. Our longer-term spread is 5% to 8% on a multi-year basis. The market's currently sat at 6% for 2026 in terms of online NGR growth, and we're comfortable at that level. EBITDA guidance unchanged. So firstly, no changes to marketing plans. Everything remains as we discussed at the interims in August. Why is the guidance unchanged despite the 20 million? We've had a couple of small good guys. Firstly, FX is slightly more favourable than was anticipated when we set the guidance range. And also Brazil tax. I'm sure you noticed that they withdrew the intended increase in Brazil tax. So that had a small benefit to 2025 as well. The other aspect is we were prior on a volumes basis. And therefore, the net of those things is we were able to fully absorb the 20 million headwind from margin. In effect, that effectively torpedoed our planned upgrade today. So that's the way we think about it. We would have been able to lift guidance a little bit, but with that 20 million headwind, we were not able

Thank you very much. This is really clear. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Ben Shelley from UBS. Ben, your line is now open.

Good morning, guys. Thanks very much for taking my questions. I have two. Stella, I hear you on your UK tax comments. I just wanted to hear a bit more detail on potential mitigation measures. I think you've got a rule of thumb of around 50% in the online business. Would that be accurate? And I'd love to hear a bit more about the retail side as well, just because that's a different business model to online. And then my second question is, you talk about a stabilisation of market share in Italy. Could you clarify whether that's quarter on quarter or year on year and talk about what's driving the stabilisation there? Thank you.

Hi, Ben. Thank you for the questions. So on UK techs, My primary goal right now is to make sure that we put our arguments forward, which is increasing taxation does not lead to increasing revenue for government. And I want to primarily focus on that because that is the right narrative to have and there is compelling evidence out there. So... I come to the second part of the question, which is, say there is an increase, which is unknown at this moment in time. How would we mitigate against that? And there are numbers of levers that we would pull, which include being less generous on bonusing, Maybe not quite as good reduction in marketing. These are all things that one does to mitigate against unwelcome tax increases. And obviously, we don't sit on our hands and not plan for that eventuality. We do plan for that eventuality, but it is a negative place to go. And I really want to focus in on the on the arguments about maintaining the right balance and keeping the black market under control. Because I think as one of our competitors said in the newspaper the other day, you know, increasing taxes, the jackpot goes to the black market. And we've got to be very clear about that communication. In retail, taxation is a different kind of challenges that we face. And clearly, we run a range of shops, 2,400. And some of them are more profitable than others, obviously. And there's no doubt that increases in taxes that affect the retail shops would make some of those shops marginal to unprofitable. And it would have a damaging effect on the high street. And again, it's a sliding scale. The further the taxes go up, the more the impact is. There's no scenario where there's no impact. And we would have to take actions accordingly, unfortunately, in that situation. And then on market share, just I don't know if you've got that number to hand, Rob. That would be really helpful on Italy.

Yeah. Maybe can I just build a little bit on mitigations? I think it's important to think through the various levers that we have. And sponsorships is a really important one to consider. And it doesn't matter which, as I said earlier, tax moves. Sponsorships, inevitably, because there's a longer payback, they're about brand awareness, really. It's an obvious place where operators will go. And the only winners in that situation is the black market, I because they have less competitive disadvantage if the licensed operators are stopping sponsorships. And the losers, of course, is sports and not just football, but some of the smaller sports like snooker, darts, rugby that are heavily reliant on sponsorship from us. So sponsorships is an important area as well as promotions. So bonusing, which again feeds the black market. Just one other thought on retail. It's worth, these aren't exact numbers, but 80-20 rule. 80% of the EBITDA comes from 20% of the shops. What that means is we have a long tail of marginal shops that we keep open. because they support employment, they support the local high streets, but also they support online growth in terms of brand awareness and player acquisition. And so if online players are worth less money even, then that also feeds into it, not just if retail tax moves, but also online tax moves. So I guess we've spoken a lot about this. There's a lot of mitigation available to is still applicable. But let's hope we don't need to implement too many of these measures. And then on to Italy. So the answer is, your question was, is market share stabilised quarter on quarter or is it year on year? The answer is now become both, which is a good place to be. Why is that happening? Part of it is a slower growth in sales. some of our larger competitors as they've sort of driven out a lot of the revenue synergy opportunities that they've had following consolidations. And on our side, a couple of things I call out. One, Eurobet has actually done a reasonable job of maintaining share over this period. But BWIN and Jocko Digitali, while small, was still contributing to that market share decline that we had seen. That's now been somewhat stemmed, not least helped by improving product. And also on the Eurobet side, there's a lot of attention on product and tech at the moment. They've been quite innovative with things like their Qazi bets, which is sort of paying out early if bets almost are successful, and that's proved popular. We have a new app coming as well. So a little bit of actions on our side to stimulate more growth, but equally slowing growth in competitors who have contributed to market share stabilisation.

Thanks very much, guys.

Thank you very much. As a reminder, to raise a question, we'll be staffed up by one on your telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from Adrian from Bank of America. Adrian, your line is now open.

Thank you very much. Good morning, Rob and Stella. First of all, regarding 2026, would it be reasonable to expect a little bit of a boost on online NGO growth coming from the World Cup? And then secondly, on UK tax again, in your opinion, will the potential tax increase only focus on online, or is there still a remote chance that it also hits retail?

OK, thank you, Adrian, for those two questions. Let's talk about the World Cup, which is, you know, it's a great competition, obviously. And yes, there should be a boost to NGR from the World Cup, naturally. I would be crazy not to say that. And so in terms of our journey, we'll definitely factor that in. And hopefully that's, again, part of our, you know, The opportunities in 26. I mean, we've got to also focus in on what the underlying growth is as well. You know, so, I mean, one off site, the World Cup are great. But then the next year, you've got to have got the underlying growth there to offset that in 27. But, yeah, definitely an opportunity for us there. In terms of UK tax, it's not surprising. Just for online, it's online and retail, which are both equally exposed to increases in taxes. And so, again, I come back to my conversation piece that I had before. Our ongoing debate with the relevant departments in government, including the Treasury, are critical to making sure that we get this done. get this right. Also, working with the Betting and Gaming Council is really, really important. Now, obviously, online is the more vulnerable part of this journey than retail because there are different factors at play in retail, but I don't think it's remote. I think we've got to work on making sure that both the arguments are being put forward firmly and coherently and alternatives, you know, which is we close down the black market together and the government gets hundreds of millions of more in taxation. That's the win-win in the scenario. But yeah, all to play for.

Thank you very much, Stella.

Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Richard Stoddard from Deutsche Bank.

Richard, your line is now open. Good morning. Thank you. Just a couple of follow-ups from me. The first question is, you spoke a lot about September results being very favourable for customers. Just wondering whether you've seen any recycling in the first few weeks of October. And the second question is on Brazil. Obviously, the sporting results heavily impacted NGR. Just wondering how exposed it's a Brazilian market to parlay mix. Is that a big factor of the volatility in margins and could we expect that sort of to continue as we go forward? Thank you.

Great, great. Thanks for those two questions. So yes, September, very happy customers and we're seeing October has got up to a good start. We're very comfortable with where October is. Good margins, good volumes as we'd hope it would be. So yeah, that's Hopefully some recycling that's taking place as people have enjoyed their experience with us. So no watchouts there. I think in Brazil, it's a multi-component market. There are lots of things that go on in Brazil. And you've got to be very agile because there are things like parlay mixes, as you've said, but there's also ongoing ensuring that, you know, we're navigating the regulation well. But, you know, I'll hand over to Rob in a second. But, you know, we were particularly hit on margins in Brazil in Q3, you know, way, way off our charts. Theo, if you like. And some of that was just genuinely bad luck on sports results. They were very unfavourable towards us. But Rob, do you have anything else to add to that?

Yeah, so Brazil's high football mix and yes, high parlays. And interestingly, it wasn't just European football, so that the worst week of all in September was led by the it was the first week of the Champions League. So that had an impact in Brazil, but also local football was also adverse. So it compounded it. And in Brazil, we have a strong 2R. offer which many of you guys will be familiar with and that paid out on a few matches so that was more customer friendly as well overall in Q3 Brazil's GGR margin was single digits and you very rarely see that so hopefully just an exception and we trend more towards that double digit volume growth as we look forward that's great thank you thank you very much

Our next question comes from David Brohan from Good Buddies. David, your line is not open.

Good morning, guys. Two questions for me. Firstly, on Brazil, you've talked a lot about sporting results. Could you give any colour on the argument performance in Brazil in Q3? And then secondly, just on AUSTRAC, any latest developments there or what kind of timeline should we be thinking about for that? Thank you.

Thank you, David. I'll take the second question first, and then I'll hand back to Rob on Brazil. So on AUSTRAC, I mean, it's a journey that we're on. I mean, I think the first thing I'd say, we're very pleased with the program of compliance we have in place in Australia now. I think we're probably market leading, which I think is a great point. In terms of the historical challenges that we have with AUSTRAC, and clearly there is a journey that we are on with them and there is a process which is the legal process which you know ends up potentially with us working this out in court but there's also the other program that goes on in parallel which is the mediation process which we are obviously engaged in and I think the answer to the question this will take as long as it takes to get to the right point. There's no point in us trying to rush a process which has a cadence that we need to work within. So we're comfortable that we are engaging proactively, leaning into it, and we have a very good compliance programme in place now. So I think it's one of those ones which is we've given the kind of parameters that these cases have ended up in previously when working with Oztrax. So I think we know what the guardrails are. And so we just keep on that journey. In terms of Brazil, iGaming, yeah.

Yeah, I'll take that. So iGaming is not particularly strong at the moment and all the growth is coming from sports. Same themes as we spoke about at the interims and I think in our key ones as well. So content is a bit limited and game authentication has been slow. So we think this is a market wide trend. phenomena not not just ntane um and even of those games that have been authenticated sometimes the rtp levels are not where we would choose them to be so um with the good news is we think there's a lot more growth to come out of gaming as we look forwards but so far in 2025 it's it's been slow okay thank you very much

Thank you very much. And our final question today is from Andrew Tain. Your line is now open from Rothschild & Co.

Hi, good morning. Just one quick one on UK tax. How do you think through the potential for second order impacts in terms of the potential hikes in a driving sector consolidation? Is there a market share gap? gain opportunity for larger scale operators like yourself relative to some of the smaller subscale operators who would likely see outsized impacts from hikes notwithstanding the black market? Thanks.

Okay, great. Thanks for the question. And the answer is yes, there is always opportunity in a situation where taxes go up that the smaller operators get squeezed. And that would be part of our mitigation program against hikes. Tax increases and these things play out because the brand awareness is lower, the level of marketing goes down, the level, you know, it just naturally goes in that direction. So it's a very good point to call out. However, it's on the negative side of the fence. You know, we've got to go back to let's work against the black market growing, which which is, you know, a huge challenge. I mean, you know, and I do this with a very, very serious point of view. There are no player protections, whether it's about the amount many people spend or whether they have limits or whether they have appropriate marketing and even whether they get paid out. So I do want to come back to the other side of the line if we can. But. In the event of increases, definitely market share increases would be on the table. Hopefully that answers that question.

Just to put a number on it for you. The answer is particularly pronounced in iGaming, where we estimate around a quarter of the online UK iGaming market sits with tier three and smaller. So that's a long tail that inevitably would be up for grabs in the event that there's a material move in the iGaming tax rate.

Thanks, Rob. Was that the last question? Okay, so before we finish, I think I'd just like to wrap up and say thanks, everybody, for joining. I hope you get a sense of positivity and commitment that we have to the future. We really believe that we are putting the foundations in place for continued growth through 2025 on into 2026 and beyond, and the opportunities are very significant going forward. So thank you all for listening. Very much appreciated.

Thanks, all.