Century Casinos, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's Century Casino's Q3 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star and 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note this call is being recorded, and I will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Peter Hotziger. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call.

We would like to remind everyone that we will be discussing forward-looking information under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ from those projected. Throughout our call, we refer to several non-GAAP financial measures, including but not limited to adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our news releases and SEC filings, available in the investor section of our website at cmty.com. With me today are my co-CEO, Erwin Heitzman, and our Chief Financial Officer, Margaret Stapleton.

After our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions from analysts.

We announced solid third quarter results yesterday afternoon. Net operating revenue was $154 million, driven by strength in the East and Midwest regions, as well as in Canada, offset by weakness in the West region and in Poland. The quarter started out really well. EBITDA in July was up 7%. August was even better with EBITDA up 22%. But September saw a sharp year-over-year decline due to the following one-time effects. In September of last year, Colorado received a $1 million breakup fee from Tipico. Also in September of last year, Mountaineer had a bonus accrual for half a million reversed. And this September, Poland had extra costs but no revenue from a closed casino. As such, you can attribute the EBITDA declining Q3 all to Poland and the one-time effect in September I just mentioned. Adjusting for those, Q3 EBITDA would have increased by about 5%, beating consensus estimates and demonstrating the continued operating momentum across various segments of our business. Not bad at all, definitely better than it looks at first sight. During the third quarter, Play From Our high value and core customers continued its long-term growth trend, but we did not see further improvements from our low-end customers. The upper customer segments continued to perform well, showing 8% growth, helping to offset a 9% decline in the lower-end segments. Therefore, total rated GGR was essentially flat.

Retail play increased by 4%, resulting in a 2% GGR increase across the US portfolio.

Visitation statistics show a similar picture. Visits by high value and core customers increased 4%, while visits from low segment players declined. Before I hand it over to Erwin, let me come back to Poland for a second. From now on, no license expirations are coming up for at least three years. The Poland should be at its normalized EBITDA run rate for many quarters to come. In any case, however, we remain committed to divesting our Poland operations and will provide updates on the divestment process in the coming month as appropriate. Now over to Erwin for more color on our individual properties and markets.

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone.

Let me start with our results for the third quarter, beginning in Missouri. Our Century Casino and Hotel Caruthersville, which just celebrated its first anniversary, continues to exceed expectations. Gaming revenue grew strongly across all segments. High value up 82%, core up 29%, and retail up 22%. In total, gaming revenue was 29% higher than last year, and EBITDA increased 35% to 6.1 million, up from 4.5 million. Rent expense rose about 1.1 million, reflecting the VG lease that funded the new property. And operating margins remain high. It is worth noting that with our new land-based facilities, we are now reaching new markets. This is particularly evident in the significant increase in customers living 75 plus miles from Parada Swin. Parada Swin has been an outstanding success. Modern, efficient and exceptionally well received by our guests. Our thanks to the entire team for a fantastic first year. Now to Century Casino and Hotel Cape Girardeau. Cape delivered 6.1 million in EBITDA, only slightly below last year's record quarter. The property continues to perform very well against competition from Illinois. Sports Betting launches in Missouri on December 1 and in partnership with BetMGM, we will open a BetMGM branded sportsbook on property and BetMGM will launch its online sportsbook using our skin. We expect Sports Betting to elevate CAPE's profile and create new revenue streams for the property.

Now moving to Colorado.

At Cripple Creek, EBITDA was 1.8 million, flat year over year. In the quarter, our high value and core segments grew, while base and retail declined. Retail play now represents about 30% of total gaming revenue. We believe that Chamonix may capture a larger share of the retail market, still driven by the novelty effect. At Central City, rated play was up 6%, but total revenue was down 4%, again due to fewer retail players. EBITDA came in at 1.2 million, up 20% on a comparable basis, as last year's EBITDA of 2 million included a 1 million one-time payment from Tipico. At both Colorado properties, we have replaced live table games with electronic table lounges, which generate about the same revenue, at significantly lower cost.

That's a solid win for both operations. Now to the east. At Mountaineer in West Virginia, EBITDA was 4.4 million flat to last year.

Apples to apples, though, EBITDA was up 0.5 million, as last year's EBITDA was inflated by the reversal of a 0.5 million bonus accrual. Performance across the board was steady, and pari-mutuel handle rose 26%, driven by improved scheduling and race mix. At Rocky Gap in Maryland, EBITDA increased 7% to $4.9 million, as we expected our first team quarter without weather disruptions since the beginning of the year. Growth came from high-value players, while other segments held steady. Now to the West and the Nugget Casino Resort in Reno Sparks. While the Nugget had a standout August, mainly due to our signature Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-Off, overall the quarter was still challenging. We experienced a record EBITDA for August of 4.1 million, the highest single month result in nearly three years, but that was offset by a weaker July and September. Throughout the quarter, we enhanced marketing programs to grow both local and destination play. We are also building out our 2026 concert season. Tickets for Brooks and Dunn in April are already selling extremely well. We began converting unused space into an additional 11,000 square feet of convention space, a 10% increase in square footage to be completed by year end. The additional space will first be used by a major group event that is booked for January 2026. At the Nugget, we're executing on a clear repositioning strategy, shifting away from low ADD players who are no longer profitable and focusing on core players in Reno Sparks in Northern California. In sync with the enhanced marketing to players in the core segment, we're working on further improving the F&B offerings. It takes time, but we're starting to see the results already.

Now to Canada and Europe.

In Alberta, slot coining was up 5.8%, total revenue up 1.6%, and EBITDA up 11.1% to 5.4 million. Growth was broad-based, supported by disciplined cost management. Century Downs and St. Albert led the way, with St. Albert benefiting from this year's upgrade of the facade. In Poland, we're nearing the end of a challenging period marked by license delays and relocations. The main headwind this quarter was the closure of our Warsaw Hilton Casino, which contributed an EBITDA of 1.3 million last year versus a negative 0.5 million this quarter. Our relocated Wroclaw Casino is ramping up well, and the second Wroclaw location will open in January 2026, further strengthening our position there. All current licenses, as said before, are valid through 2028, so we expect stable operations going forward.

With that, back to you, Peter.

Thank you. And before we cover a few balance sheet and capital items, let me explain what led to the filing delay of a couple of days. As described in the 8K we filed with the SEC yesterday, We discovered an error during impairment testing for a goodwill and ROCI gap that required us to restate our 2024 10K and the 10Qs for the first two quarters of this year. The correction of the error will reduce our goodwill balance with an offsetting increase in net loss, less a tax impact. The estimated impacts are described in the 8K. This does not change our revenue or adjusted EBITDA for any of the periods being restated. We are finalizing our review of the amended financial statements and anticipate filing these with the SEC within the next five business days. All right, now back to the balance sheet. Our cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter were $78 million compared to $85 million at the end of Q2. That includes $5 million we spent in capex and $1.5 million we spent on the share buyback programs. We also paid the annual table games license fee of 2.5 million in West Virginia, as well as about a million in closing costs in Poland.

So all in, we were about flat in cash from operations.

The principal amount of debt outstanding was 339 million, resulting in net debt of 261 million. At the end of the quarter, our net debt to EBITDA ratio was 6.9 times. On a lease-adjusted basis, the ratio was 7.6 times. Let me also note here that we have no debt maturities until 2029. And there is no need for significant capbacks this year or next.

This year, we'll spend a total of $18 million, of which we have spent $15 million already. As we look ahead, we are very confident in our business prospects.

Last year was a transitory period for us. but now we see a clear path forward to higher EBITDA and cash flow for 2026 and beyond. Now it's all about harvesting what we have invested last year. When you sort through the noise I mentioned at the beginning of the call, we are encouraged by the trends in our business. While we recognize the level of economic uncertainty, we are more confident in the long-term prospects of our company than we were at any point last year. While the fourth quarter has just started, it's worth noting that the positive customer trends have continued into October, including improved play from both core and retail customers. Preliminary results for October show EBITDA up well over 20% compared to last year. And as we head into next year's tax season, we believe that our core customers around the country will benefit from the tax bill passed by Congress this summer, including new deductions for tips and overtime, and an additional deduction for seniors, as well as a larger standard deduction for all taxpayers. As you know, we are in the midst of a comprehensive strategic review process. At this stage, no decisions have been made, and there can be no assurance that the review will result in any transactions or particular change. We do not intend to make further public comments on the process unless and until the company's board of directors approves a specific course of action, which we do not expect before Q1 of next year. With that, I ask for your understanding that we will not take questions on this topic in our Q&A session, as we cannot share any incremental information at this time.

All right, that concludes our prepared remarks.

We'll now open the call for Q&A with the analysts. Operator, go ahead, please.

Thank you. At this time, we will open the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star N1 on your telephone keypad, and you'll be placed into the queue in the order received. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing pound N1. If we do not get to your question, please reach out to the company using the investor relations page at cnty.com. Once again, to ask a question, press star 1 now. And our first question will come from Jeff Stantial with Stifel.

Good morning. This is Aiden Young. I'm for Jeff Stantial.

Thanks for taking our question. Maybe starting off on the strong results in your Canada portfolio, can you sort of expand a bit on what's driving that broad-based growth? And as you continue to evaluate the broader portfolio, Do you view these as more non-core with the increasing U.S. exposure, or do you see real synergies with the broader portfolio?

Thank you, Jeff. I think I'll take that question.

Starting the other way around, with regard to your second question, we see a little bit of synergy, but it's more incremental. So it is probably to be seen as a standalone conglomerate of operations for Canadian properties that we have. Concerning the drivers, the one visible driver is St. Albert where we redid the facade outside completely and that had a really good impact. The rest of it is just very motivated management that's really continuing to sharpen the pencil, looks on the cost side, looks on the revenue side. and we have recently been up there. We have a very motivated crew that is really eager to perform well. It's good to see, and I think we have some more upside also given the macroeconomic situation in Canada, which seems by far less impacted or has been impacted than in the United States.

Great. That's helpful. Thank you for that.

Turning to the nugget, can you give us an idea of how you're thinking about timing for the group and convention business to normalize? And to sort of put some numbers around it, how many more room nights can this add? And then on some of the new entertainment programming, can you help us think about how you're underwriting that uplift and how confident you are that this will attract those visits and corresponding gaming revenues that you're underwriting? And then that's all from us. Thank you.

Okay. So you're asking about the timing of the improvements as we see it, the impact it will have on room nights and the impact and the progress of the concerts, correct? Yes. Yeah, okay. With regard to the timing, it's hard to say, but as I mentioned earlier and Peter mentioned as well, we already see in October that a number of the things that we've been fine-tuning on the marketing side is starting to take effect. And we are confident that we should see the full impact of what we are continuing to refine in already now, but certainly going into 2026 as well. We're looking on the one hand on the revenue side of the casino. But combined, but also independent from that, we're also focusing on the retail side of the hotel business as a separate exercise because there's a market segment that comes to the market just to stay in the hotel. and they may or may not be gambling at all. It's not necessarily connected. And in that same context, also as mentioned earlier, we have decided that we continue to focus more and more intensely on the F&B side, possibly expand the offer, but certainly also continue to work on upgrading at least one or two of our outlets. It's hard to quantify with regard to room nights, but let's put it like that. We have three statements for the hotel. The one is the casino side, which is mainly comped, and that is intertwined with what we do with our overall comping program and how much we give back to our customers. The second one is the convention in group business. We said earlier that smaller groups we can do short-term, but the larger groups have quite a long lead time. We're now talking about as far as 2030, 2031 with some of the larger groups. As it looks now, we think that the group business in 2026 will be either the same or better than in 2025. The third one is the retail business. which we market also separately, and we have seen an increase in the retail segment already in 2025, and we believe that more can be done in 2026. Concerning the concerts, we have learned that, to give you the numbers last year in 2024, The concerts stand alone with a profit of around $850,000. This year, the concerts are making a loss of about $300,000. The reason for that is twofold. First of all, we just couldn't book what we wanted to book. It's not so easy. It depends. When you target an act, it depends on what their route is and whether they are in that part of the United States, whether you can book them at the price that one would be willing to pay. But oftentimes, it's not even a price question. They're just not there. And obviously, I'm not willing to travel east-west without intelligent planning. So we've not been very successful and lucky in that respect. The second thing is, That led to the result that we couldn't get as many country acts as we wanted to. In 2026, we think that will be better. And the second thing that we've learned is that we thought in order to reduce the risk, which is quite high in the concerts, when you cannot sell the tickets, we'd rather book X. That costs a little bit less than, for example, a Rod Stewart or so. And that probably was not a good decision. So we are now turning back into trying to book X. Maybe fewer acts, but very good acts like Brooks and Dunn. With that, we think we can fix the concert side. Our goal is that the concerts stand on their own, but from at least half of the concerts, we see a very positive overflow into the hotel, casino, and F&B business.

That's great. Thank you. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Our next question today will come from Jordan Bender with Citizens.

Hi, everyone. Good to hear from you. It sounds like you're seeing some pretty good success from the ETGs that you've put in Colorado. Do you think it's a strategy you would look to implement across any of your other U.S. assets, just given the cost side helps margins at the end of the day?

Yes, however, not necessarily by completely replacing table games with ETGs. We do have ETGs in other casinos who are parallel to those. We still keep the live game. But in Colorado, it was just so obvious that it's the smaller operations. It wasn't us keeping the few tables open. But in the larger casinos, we do have EGTs on the one hand and table games on the other hand. And as we see it now, we'll keep that also.

Great. Thank you. And on the follow-up, I think you mentioned you bought shares back in the quarter. I'm just curious where your balance sheet sits today, where the cash balance sits. How do you kind of think about buying back shares here versus continuing to pay down debt as we head into 26? Thank you.

Absolutely. Peggy, why don't you take that question, please?

We're currently analyzing the stock buyback versus paying back debt and have not made any real decisions on how to proceed into 2026.

Okay. Thank you very much. Mm-hmm.

We'll take our next question from Ryan Sigdahl with Craig Hallam Group. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. 20% or greater than that EBITDA growth in October, improved play from the core and retail players, if I caught that right in the prepared remarks. Can you elaborate, I guess, on specifically is that pretty broad-based across the portfolio? And then as you look to November and December, are there any weird comps or anything to be aware of on the – plans for this year where that's not a good assumption to kind of continue throughout the rest of the quarter?

We don't see anything unusual that would impact the one or the other way the first quarter. But with regard to the customer trends that Peter mentioned that led to the 20% plus in October, We just hope that the consumer sentiment continues to improve because that has impacted us so negatively in the lower end of the database. Anybody's guess, but I think there is at least a hope that the consumer sentiment will improve during the next, hopefully, the remaining two months of this year.

Peter, would you like to add to that?

Yeah, I think the one and only

A difference we'll see is that last year, in the first week of November, we did open the Caruthersville land-based, the new land-based facility. So in the year-over-year comparison, that one property from the first week of November on will probably not have the same growth rates that we have seen over the last 12 months.

But with all other properties, I also don't see any Great.

Then just on the nugget, July, September were weaker. I'm curious, I guess, going back a year or two, it was the convention business was building, it was going to really be inflecting kind of middle to late this year into 26. I guess, is there a reason, did you have any cancellations or Curious, I guess, the weakness in July and September, as my view, I guess, could have been partially incorrect, but was that the convention business was going to really start to ramp up here?

Yeah, the weakness in September mainly came from the fact that we, as mentioned earlier also, that in 24, we had two powerful, very good concerts. One of them was Jason Eldian, and in September, we didn't have any. Then also in September, we had what is called a bingo blowout, a large bingo event in September, which we didn't have this September. And with regard to the conference business, there was also less conference business in July, September of 25, as compared to 24.

But that couldn't be changed in the short term. Thanks. Good luck, guys. Thank you.

And we'll move next to Chad Beynon with Macquarie Group.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Wanted to ask about Carothersville. You touched on the growth that you can continue to see in the operating leverage of that property. Are you still on track to hit the returns that you originally laid out on the construction CapEx? And then secondarily, Where do you expect most of the growth to come from? Will it be that further out customer in the neighboring states, or are there still opportunities in the closer in catchment area? Thank you.

Yes, first question, yes. We are on track with regard to what we expected. And secondly, we think that growth will come both from the geographically closer and further away, group of people with more potential in the 75 plus miles. We think that we can reach out even more into that segment than we did so far. So more growth from the more distant areas, but still growth from the closer areas as well.

Okay, great. And then going back to the

the weakness that you saw in the retail customer, which it appears based on the 20% growth in October, that's abated. Do you know why this, you know, is there any evidence in terms of that this will remain stable? Anything else to point to in terms of why it fell off during the period? You know, was it, could it have been weather related? comparable related, you know, local CPI or unemployment, just any evidence that'll give us confidence that retail could improve here in Q4 and beyond.

Yeah, it's hard to say, but we believe that it has to do with the insecurity around tariffs and the impacts that tariffs may possibly have to the consumers. And that is a worry that typically is more prevalent in the lower end of the database. And we see that also in places like Rocky Gap, for example, where the household income of the catchment area is significantly lower than in other markets that we're active in. That certainly has a strong effect. I'm not as good as others to speculate about the increasing consumer sentiment going forward. But if we had to say something, we would think it looks, there's a friendly outlook. But you probably could make a better judgment on that.

Okay, great. Are there initiatives or cost improvements that you could make if this customer remains volatile?

There's always a possibility to look for more and then tighten the belt further.

But I think if it's not, I don't think that it will get any worse than it was in the worst months of this year. And we've maneuvered through them well. And I think if necessary, we could do that again. There's always, if you keep looking and then there's always a way to save more. The danger always is that you don't go too far in what you're doing.

Great. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you.

Our next question comes from Connor Parks with CBRE.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe another capital allocation one, maybe separate from the debt paydown versus share repo discussion. Just in the context of the cash on the balance sheet and some of the EBITDA growth you've seen this year with all the CapEx rolling off in Missouri, I guess How are you weighing the reinvestment plan at this point? Is there anything maybe outside of Nugget you mentioned that you would like to build or reinvest in or any low-hanging fruit type projects in Missouri, again, that you're weighing at this point in time?

Yeah, let me start out and then hand over to Peter and Peggy. We're thinking about doing a little bit of a facade upgrade also in two of the Canadian properties. That is not a large capex item, but it is some capex. As I said earlier in St. Albert, it was very beneficial for the revenues and for the business there. We may spend a little bit of money in connection with food and beverage at the Nugget, and that would be probably it, apart from the routine upkeep and investment into mainly products of our properties. Peter, can I hand over to you? Maybe you would want to expand on that some more.

Yes, sure.

Listen, Conor, we don't expect any significant or large moves, not on the stock buyback front and also not on the paydown of the debt currently because, as you know, we are in the midst of the strategic review process and it will depend on the outcome of that. We could We could sell something, and then we would have significant amounts of money to pay down the debt. We could do some other transaction that is still up in the air.

So until we have concluded that process, you will not see any significant either stock buybacks or pay down of debt. Great. Thank you.

And then maybe as my follow-up, you've mentioned in this quarter and prior quarters the expected uplift potential in regional gaming around the benefits from the upcoming tax season. I guess if you provided any barriers or tried to quantify any of these benefits around customer bases, spending habits, or anything of that matter for any of the areas of which you operate in.

I wouldn't dare to make a guess here.

It's hard to say. Peter, do you think you could quantify?

No, not really. As Erwin said before, mostly the low ADT players, the lower segments of our database are impacted by that. And depending on which property It's about maybe 15% to 20%, 25% of our customers are in that lower segment. But in general, we are making steps to move away from that and to move towards mid-tier and upper-tier customers in our marketing approach and in everything we are doing. So that should lessen that impact significantly. But I agree, we don't want to quantify that.

Not enough hard facts. Thank you. Thanks, Connor.

And that is all the time we have. If we did not get to your question, please reach out to the company using the investor relations page at cnty.com. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Hotzinger for closing remarks.

Yeah, thanks, Operator, and thanks, everybody. We appreciate you joining our call today. We'll talk again when we present the 2025 full-year results. Until then, thank you and goodbye.

This does conclude today's conference. Thank you for attending.