Century Casinos, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Century Casino's Q4 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing star 1 on your phone. Please note this call is being recorded, and I'll be standing by should you need assistance. Now, I'll turn the call over to your host, Peter Hutzinger. Please go ahead, Peter.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. We'd 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 referred 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 cntui.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. Central casinos delivered solid results in 2025,

with full-year adjusted EBITDA increasing 3% year-over-year. We achieved that growth despite the loss of sports betting income in Colorado and the significant licensing disruptions in Poland. Excluding the sports betting income in Colorado and the Poland impact, EBITDA would have increased by 5%, driven by strong performances in Missouri and a nice rebound at Mountaineer in West Virginia. Turning to the fourth quarter. Net operating revenue was flat, impacted by unusually poor winter weather in December, but adjusted EBITDA was up 13%. We delivered double-digit EBITDA growth at several of our casinos, including in Colorado, at Mountain in West Virginia, and in Corradoville, Missouri. And at the Nugget in Reno, EBITDA was up 21%. Across the entire U.S. portfolio, The trend of strong play from our high-value and core customer segments continued, and we are also beginning to see improvements at the lower end of the database. While total rated GR declined a bit, this was offset by growth in the retail segment. I'll turn it over to Erwin now for more color on our individual properties and markets.

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, beginning in Missouri. Our Central Casino and Hotel Caravansville had a fantastic quarter and year. EBITDA in Q4 increased from 4.9 to 6.1 million. EBITDA in 2025 grew from 19 million to 24.4 million, a 5.4 million or 28% increase. Rent due to Vici was 7.5 million in 2024 and 11.6 million in 2025, a 4.1 million increase. A quick recap. We acquired Century Casino and Hotel Caradasville as a 12 million EBITDA per year property in December 2019, when the casino was still on a riverboat. With improvements to the gaming floor and the move to a temporary land-based facility, we grew the property to 19 million of EBITDA by 2023. With the transition to the permanent casino and hotel building accomplished in November 24, Caravansville is now an almost 25 million EBITDA property, effectively more than doubling EBITDA within the last six years. The success of this property comes from its ability to attract more customers from every direction. we see increases across all age groups, value segments and distances. The biggest gains are coming from high-value customers , middle-aged customers , and customers from more than 49 miles away. Building a right-sized, approachable, almost intimate casino paid off. Our investment in the property has been a success and sets us up for sustainable growth for the next several years. Now to Century Casino and Hotel Cape Girardeau. Our property in Girardeau saw declines in both the quarter and the year. EBITDA in Q4 decreased from 6.8 million to 5.9 million. And EBITDA for all of 25 decreased from 25.6 to 24.7 million. In 2025, Central Casino Cape Girardeau lost some market share to our property in Carradosville, which it gained in 24 when Carradosville was in a temporary facility with limited space and amenities. Both properties are only 85 miles apart. When we acquired Central Casino Cape Girardeau, also in December 2019, It was already a beautiful, financially successful property with a well-appointed gaming floor, restaurants and a conference center. Annual EBITDA at that time was 19 million. The only amenity the property lacked was a hotel. So we built one. We opened the 69-room The Riverview in April of 2024. Since then, we have also added a Starbucks cafe and a retail sportsbook. All these amenities complement Central Casino Cape Girardeau, which is without doubt one of the best small casino resorts in the United States. The 2025 EBITDA of $24.7 million was achieved despite a new competitor in one of Cape Girardeau's feeder markets, Illinois, which opened in the summer of 2023. To sum it up, as we have already said on past earnings calls, we could not be happier with our Missouri properties. And we thank our Missouri leadership and their teams for their commitment, strong results, and loyalty. Now moving to Colorado. At Central Casino and Hotel Cripple Creek, EBITDA in Q4 increased from $1.1 to $1.5 million. EBITDA in all of 2025 decreased from $7.5 to $6.3 million. The year-over-year EBITDA comparison, however, is skewed by a one-time termination payment of $1.1 million received from a sports betting provider in 2024. Therefore, without this, EBITDA at Cripple Creek would have been almost flat year-over-year. At Century Casino and Hotel Central City, EBITDA in Q4 increased from 0.5 to 0.7 million. EBITDA in 2025 in total decreased from 4.9 to 3 million. The year-over-year EBITDA comparison is also skewed by one-time termination payment, in this case of $1.4 million received from a sports betting provider in 2024. At the start of 2025, we eliminated table games at Central Casino, Cripple Creek, and Central City. This turned out to be the right move. At both properties, the loss of table games revenue was more than offset by payroll savings. That revenue did not suffer because of the removal of table games. Over the course of the year 2025, both properties gradually improved due to the efforts of our local management team and are off to a strong start to 2026. Now to the East, starting with Mountaineer in West Virginia. EBITDA in Q4 increased from $2.6 to $3 million, and EBITDA in all of 2025 increased from $13.1 to $14.1 million. Mountaineer's full year 2025 performance may be summarized as follows. The first four months were challenging due to unusually severe weather conditions. That was followed by seven strong months. and the year ended with further weather-related challenges in December. The drivers of EBITDA increase were cost-saving initiatives. Overall, revenues were slightly down, except for iGaming. Mountaineer, situated in the northern panhandle of West Virginia, is the third asset required in December 2019. It is our largest property by gaming revenue. It faces stiff competition from casinos in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where more than 85% of Mountaineers customers come from. The margins at this property have always been low, between 13 and 14%. This is due to West Virginia's gaming taxes exceeding 50% and the thoroughbred horse track. Recent trends have been very positive, and we continue to invest in the property and expect to be able to drive continued growth at Mountaineer. Now we move on to the in the east to Rocky Gap. EBITDA at Rocky Gap in Q4 declined from 3.2 to 2.9 million and EBITDA in all of 25 declined from 14 million to 13.2 million. Rocky Gap in Western Maryland joined our portfolio in July 2023. It is in the most beautiful setting, situated in a state park next to a lake and with a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus. Rocky Cape is also one of the properties where adverse weather conditions can have a substantial negative impact because it is not easily accessible to most of its customers under severe weather conditions. Unfortunately, in 2025, weather hit the property hard, with much of the bad weather occurring on weekends. On the other hand, the first two months of 2026 look very promising for Rocky Gap. We're optimistic about Rocky Gap and hope for a great 2026. Now to the West and the NUCT Casino Resort in Reno Sparks. EBITDA in Q4 increased from 1.1 to 1.3 million. And EBITDA in all of 25 declined from 9.7 to 9.1 million. The Nugget joined our portfolio in April 2023. Since then, we have been focusing further developing the mid-value customer segment. Over the past almost three years, we have significantly improved the amenities at the Nugget and continue to do so. We reduced operating expenses where possible and revamped the marketing programs. As for 2025, we hope this was the last transitional year. For 2026, we have an excellent lineup of concerts, including Brooks and Dunn, who have sold out already, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Shine Town, and Miranda Lambert. The changes to the loyalty program are showing improvements in customer return visits, and crew business is rebounding. We also brought in a new GM with extensive experience, including in the Renault Tahoe market. Now to Canada and Europe. Despite a slow start to the year due to extreme weather conditions, we saw solid performance at our Alberta operations in 2025. We recorded slightly higher results than the previous year, mainly driven by improved performance at our St. Albert property, following the first upgrade completed in the second quarter of the year, and by disciplined cost management across all four sites. In 2025, the slot coin-in was up 4%, net operating revenue up 2% in local currency, and EBITDA up 1% to 20.3 million. In Q4, the slot coin-in was up 4%, net operating revenue up 5%, and EBITDA up 5% to 4.9 million. In Poland, the challenging period marked by license delays and relocations has ended, and we can focus on improving overall results. Our second broad-source location started operations in February 2026, further strengthening our position there. In the fourth quarter, net operating revenue is up 4%, and EBITDA is up 245% to 0.9 million. All current licenses are valid through at least 2028, and we expect stable operations going forward.

With that, back to you, Peter. Thank you.

And I'll now go over some balance sheet items and share our outlook for 2026 with you. Our cash and cash equivalents as of December 31st were 69 million. We spent approximately 4.5 million in CapEx in the quarter, mainly for the new retail sportsbook at KG in Missouri, for gaming equipment and exterior upgrades at Mountaineer and Rocky Cap, as well as for the new casino in Poland. Total debt outstanding was 338 million, resulting in net debt of 269 million. At the end of the quarter, our net debt to EBITDA ratio remained unchanged at 6.9 times. On the disadjusted basis, the ratio was 7.6 times, again unchanged from the third quarter. Let me also note that we have no debt maturities for three years from now, that is until Q2 of 2029. Looking ahead, we see a good path forward to higher EBITDA and cash flow for 2026 and beyond. It's all about harvesting what we have invested over the last couple of years. We expect to benefit from a strong improvement at the Nugget and the continued ramp of the new land-based facility in Carutherswil. Consumer benefits from tax cuts in the OBVP should be additional catalysts in 2026 to drive growth throughout the rest of the year. We also expect our cash flow to benefit from decreasing capex. Whilst we spent a total of 18 million of our cash in 2025, we expect that to come down to between 14 and 15 million for this year. We are just a couple of weeks away from the end of the first quarter, and we are really excited about our progress on all fronts. net operating revenue and adjusted EBITDA are up significantly compared to last year. Every single property in the U.S. and Canada is showing double-digit EBITDA growth, especially highlighting great performances at both Colorado casinos, the Nugget, as well as Rocky Gap in Canada. I'll give you a couple of examples. At KG in Missouri, Net operating revenue in February was the highest total for any February in the property's history. The hotel there achieved its highest monthly occupancy rate since opening. Our sports betting partnership with BetMGM also started out really well. Statewide reports show that the BetMGM sports book at Cape G was the retail book with the highest handle volume in the entire state for the month of January. And in St. Albert, Canada, the coin-in and GGR were the highest total for any 20-day February in the property's history. So as of today, we see a strong growth trend across the entire portfolio in North America and really look forward to telling you more about it in our next earnings call in mid-May. Finally, as you know, we are in the midst of a comprehensive strategic review process. But this process may very well lead to the one or the other divestiture. No final decisions have been made, and there can be no assurance that the review will result in any transaction of particular change. We continue to make progress. Selected assets are under exclusivity agreements, hence we cannot make public comments right now. With that, I ask for your understanding that we will not take questions on this topic in our Q&A session. All right, that concludes our prepared remarks. We'll now open the call for the Q&A session with analysts. Elvis, go ahead, please.

Thank you, Peter. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your phone now, and you'll be placed into the queue and the order received. If we do not get to your question, please reach out to the company using the investor relations page at bnpy.com. Again, that's star 1 for a question, and we'll pause briefly to form our queue. Our first question today comes from Jordan Bender of Citizens Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. Good morning, and thanks for the question. I want to start on the comments around the green shoots that you're seeing in the retail player. Can you just kind of maybe apply or elaborate on where you're seeing that? Is that specific properties, any region of the country? That would be great. Thank you.

Thank you for the question. Your question refers to retail customers across the board in the U.S.?

Yeah. Just kind of where are you seeing that strength? Is it related to certain properties or is it just kind of a general broad?

Thank you. I think we can say that the retail customer is coming back all across the board. We see increases in the retail performance, and that's not only true for the casino. That is also the case in the hotels where we have hotel rooms. So we have increases in hotels on the retail side as well.

Perfect. Thank you. And then just maybe turning to Canada, as we look to kind of what oil prices and I guess gas prices are doing, have you seen any historical precedent that when we do see higher oil that those properties actually benefit during times like these?

Not necessarily. No, we haven't. Neither did we see less business because of higher prices. It's not going that directly. You know, the oil price goes up, but it doesn't mean that the salaries of the employees go up right away.

Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Sure.

Next, we have Ryan Figdahl of Craig Holland Capital.

Hey, Peter Irwin. I want to start with kind of the guidance for Q1. I think I caught it right that you said double-digit growth at every U.S. property. One, confirm that I heard that right, and then two, is there any reason to believe those trends shouldn't continue through the rest of the year, or is there anything unusual happening in Q1?

First question, yes, you heard right with double-digits. And secondly, of course, nobody can tell for sure, but we see all signs positive. So if we had to make a guess, then we would say, yes, we have no reason to believe that this should not continue until the rest of the year.

Great. And then on the nugget, good to see the concert pipeline strong for this year and the pre-sales there. Curious on, as you think about kind of building the corporate pipeline there of conferences, how that looks and then how that kind of looks over the next couple of years, just an update from what you guys have done over the last couple of months.

Right. As you know, the last conference, you said quite some lead time. So in this quarter, we were able to secure a few large conferences for the year 2030, 31 and 32. So it's really a longer perspective we're looking at. But it's still very good. It's good to know that there is still demand and that people like the property. They like it, particularly the large companies like them a lot. And that's a good sign for us and for it. When it comes to the shorter-term bookings, so we call it in the year for the year, we already also see a very positive trend. And everything that we see now is what we've had so far and what we see in bookings coming in. It is, I think, fair to say that in the year for the year, we will be performing better than in 2025. Great.

Good luck, guys.

At the moment, we're up like 15% or so in the year for the year, year over year.

Helpful. Thanks, guys. Good luck.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Chad Bain in a McGuire group.

Hi. Good morning, Peter and Erwin. Thanks for all the commentary at the outset. Focusing on Missouri, great to see everything that's occurred there at Carothersville and the growth on the revenue and EBITDA side. I know in February there was a court ruling – or a federal ruling against some of these video lottery terminal games that are fairly prevalent throughout Missouri. If those are removed, do you think you could see a benefit from that, or do you believe your customer is a different customer than those playing these unregulated games? Thank you.

We think this will be definitely good for our casinos. No doubt about it.

Okay, and do you have a sense of, you know, are there a number of these machines just within proximity? I know Carothersville is a farther outreaching catchment area, but I'm assuming there's games, you know, close in the 30-mile range. Is that, I guess, maybe just to confirm that that's the case for your two properties?

Yes, that's the case for both properties.

Okay, great. And then I wanted to ask about the promotional environment. You talked about West Virginia. Obviously, it's been very competitive against Pennsylvania and Ohio, and you mentioned the competitive nature at Cape Girardeau. What are you seeing in terms of promotions from some of the other land-based operators in the space? Has that changed? And if retail...

accelerates if retail play accelerates do you think you know that could that could accelerate thank you we don't see anything unusual with regard to promotions from them and those from us and also within the retail sector other than what we said earlier that retail is getting strong everywhere nothing that would be worth pointing out that would be out of the so to speak ordinary okay great

Great to hear the progress in January and February. Thank you. Thank you. From Stiefel, we have Jeff Stanchel.

Hey, good afternoon, Peter Irwin. Thanks for taking our questions. Starting off on Missouri, Irwin, can you just give us an update or talk through some of the initiatives that are in place to sort of continue driving more trialing and repeat visitation from new carded play, whether that's further out over the border or even closer to the property. And then on the cost side of things, are you sort of at stabilized margin staffing, those sorts of things, or is there still sort of optimization in the OPEC space that we should be contemplating?

Okay. Concerning the cost and stabilization, I think Carradasville is a model property when it comes to cost. They have super high margins and I think they are at the point where we can't really squeeze more percentages out. However, a little bit might be possible in Cape Girardeau, but not a whole lot either. However, we see upside on the revenue side. we will continue to market the hotel rooms. There is still some room in both properties of Missouri, and we're marketing those heavily. And if we just continue to do what we've been doing diligently, then there is no reason why we should not gain some more upside in the revenues on both casino and hotel. One thing that might be worth mentioning is that, as you know, We said that earlier. We have the sportsbook facility in Cape Girardeau that is so successful that in itself helps a lot also to further solidify and have a round product in a resort area where players find everything they want.

That's helpful. Thank you, Erwin.

And then maybe just as a quick housekeeping item, is there any chance, do you know off the top of your head, what how much of an impact weather had on revenues in EBITDA during the fourth quarter. And then I just want to be clear, I didn't hear it mentioned when you talked about operating trends, which are really quite healthy, Q1 to date. Did you see much of an impact from any of the adverse weather across your portfolio?

In Q4, as we mentioned, a few properties were hit in December a little bit. And in the first quarter so far, not not really anything to mention okay so no no number to share for q4 but it sounds like it was uh real i can't give you a number but there wasn't a likely disastrous snow weekend or so we didn't have that so uh which is good perfect that's all from us thanks thanks everyone thank you thank you jess next we have connor parks of cbre investment bank hey everyone good morning thanks for taking my question um

Maybe just a capital allocation one for me, maybe absent a strategic review that remains ongoing. I guess, you know, what's the approach to share repurchases against debt pay down or the view on the balance sheet for 2026? Now that CapEx is stepping down a bit and it's maybe just maintenance from here, you know, how are you looking at maybe weighing share repo against the balance sheet at this point in time?

Sure, thank you for the question, Conor. Peter, why don't you take that question, please?

Yes, thanks, Conor. For 2026 and also looking into 2027, of course, subject to cash flow, operational performance, and divestitures, our main focus would be on debt paydown vis-à-vis share purchases. We don't make any... concrete amounts available on this call. As we said, we have some assets under exclusivity, so we expect decisions for divestitures fairly soon. And once we have that on the table, we'll be able to share some more detailed info with you. But in terms of where the focus is, it's going forward, it's definitely in debt paid out.

Understood. Looking forward to hearing more on that.

I'll leave it at that. We've covered a lot of ground here, so thank you. Thanks, Connor. Thank you, Connor.

This is all the time allotted for questions. Again, if we did not get to your question, please reach out to the company using the investor relations page at cnty.com. Peter, back over to you for any additional or closing comments.

Thanks, Elvis, and thanks, everybody. We appreciate you joining our call today. We'll talk again in a couple of months when we will present Q1 results. Until then, thank you and goodbye.

That concludes our meeting today. You may now disconnect.