Gambling.com Group Limited

Greetings. Welcome to Gambling.com Group's fourth quarter 2022 earnings results call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. The question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone today should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll take this conference over to Peter McGough, Vice President of Investor Relations. Peter, you can have it again.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Gambling.com Group's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results call. I am Peter McLaughlin, Vice President of Investor Relations, joined by Charles Gillespie, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, and Elias Mark, Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast live through the Investor Relations section of our website at gambling.com forward slash corporate forward slash investors. And a downloadable version of the presentation is available there as well. A webcast will be available on the website after the conclusion of this call. You may also contact investor relations support by emailing investors at gdcgroup.com. I would like to remind you that the information contained in this conference call, including any financial and related guidance to be provided, consists of forward-looking statements as defined by securities laws. These statements are based on information currently available to us and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results, performance, and business prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these statements. Some important factors that could cause such differences are discussed in the risk factors section of GAMLA.com Group's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the statements are made, and the company assures no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions, or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking information, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws. During the call, there will also be a discussion of non-IFRS financial measures. A description of these non-IFRS financial measures is included in the press release issued earlier this morning, and reconciliations of these non-IFRS financial measures to their most directly comparable IFRS measures are included in the appendix to the presentation and press release, both of which are available in the Investors tab of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Charles.

Thank you, Peter. Welcome, everyone. This morning we reported fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. As a reminder, the two most important quarters of the year by far for us are Q4 and Q1. With today's market update, we are giving full details on Q4 and significant color on Q1. I am very pleased to report that we delivered an all-time record revenue performance in Q4 and that we expect another record performance in Q1. These results have enabled us to exceed full year 2022 revenue expectations and set us up for another record revenue and adjusted EBITDA year in 2023. I will now turn to a review of the business highlights from the fourth quarter. For those with the slide deck, I'm on slide four. Fourth quarter revenue rose 107% to 21.3 million, reflecting a more than 300% increase in North American revenue and continued strength in the UK and Ireland, with revenue growth of 54%. We generated 6.9 million of adjusted EBITDA and 6.2 million of operating cash flow. We continued to deliver both extremely high growth and high profitability in the quarter. which makes us unique among many companies, particularly those within online sports betting, media, and iGaming in the United States. We delivered over 82,000 new depositing customers for our online gaveling operator clients, an increase of 193% over Q4 2021. The terrific growth in NDCs continues to be driven by an increase in the footprint of our portfolio of assets, our improving ability to monetize our audience through proprietary technology, and our entry into new markets. Now on slide five. For full year 2022, revenue increased 81%. On a constant currency basis, the figure is even more impressive at over 100%. I am delighted with this overall result, but most impressed with our continued ability to deliver industry leading organic growth, which is the foundation of these overall figures. We delivered a tremendous performance with 39% year on year organic growth, which on a constant currency basis was well clear of 50%. This is in line with our organic growth CAGR from 2017 to 2021. which was also 50% and substantially higher than our industry peers over the same period. Our long-term organic growth rate highlights our consistent ability to create shareholder value through capital efficient growth of our core business. Overall, our record 2022 results again validate our strategy and market position, our investment in our people, and our multi-year investment in our industry-leading websites and technology stack. On to slide six. Progress with our strategic objective to grow our North American business was again evident in Q4. After growing almost 300% year-over-year in Q3, fourth quarter North American revenue grew 364% year-over-year to $10 million. The increase in North American revenue was driven by both strong growth from existing North American markets during the U.S. sports season, as well as the successful launch of sports betting in Maryland. We expect North America will continue to be our primary growth driver in 2023 and will represent a majority of group revenue for the full year, complemented by continued growth in our more mature markets outside North America. Revenues from the UK and Ireland grew 54% year over year to a quarterly record 8.1 million. It is notable that we achieved this growth more than 10 years after we entered into regulated markets in Europe, which illustrates a key investment theme we continue to highlight, that as online gambling markets mature, performance marketing affiliates are increasingly important to consumers in those markets and thus increasingly critical and valuable to operators. In terms of our 2022 acquisitions, BonusFinder was again ahead of plan for the quarter, and their exposure to the Canadian market continues to complement the growth we are achieving in the United States. Our mission to add on incremental high-margin performance marketing revenue to Rotowire made major progress in the fourth quarter, and further accelerated since the start of the year. Now on to slide seven. Our media partnership initiatives continue to gain momentum. In February, we signed our biggest partnership yet with Gannett, the largest publisher of daily newspapers in the United States and the publisher of the USA Today. We are proud to call both McClatchy and Gannett partners, and we note that the two organizations have complementary market footprints. We expect to generate material revenue from these partnerships as the U.S. sports season ramps up this autumn. On to slide eight. Our current portfolio of monetized websites is complemented by a large portfolio of websites that are in place for the possible launch of additional regulated markets at the state level. Some examples of the sites that are positioned for future regulation are Bet California, BetTexas, and BetCarolina. We believe that our website portfolio is optimized for the company to continue generating strong organic growth in 2023 and beyond. Our recent launches in Maryland, Ohio, and two weeks ago in Massachusetts offer great evidence of the return we generate from our strategy to invest in premium domains and the new websites ahead of the launch of sports betting in any new state. We've had great early success in each of these markets led by our Bet Maryland, Bet Ohio, and Bet Massachusetts properties. Each has delivered impressive levels of new deposits and customers to our partners in each of these states. In fact, our strong performance in Maryland and Ohio helped drive record revenue in January. And while it is still very early days for Massachusetts, given the state's population, rich sports tradition, in the competitive marketplace for operators. We expect our operations there will similarly contribute to our growth trajectory this year. As Elias will highlight in his review of our guidance for the full year, we are not currently projecting any additional states to come online for either sports betting or iGaming over the balance of 2023, yet we have multiple levers to drive organic growth over the record 2022 levels. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, Elias Mark, to discuss our fourth quarter and full year financial performance in greater detail.