Better Collective A/S

Good morning everyone. My name is Mikkel Mång Jakobskog and thank you for joining us today for our Q4 webcast. I'm joined by our co-founder and CEO Jesper Søkå and CFO Fleming Pedersen who will provide today's business update in connection with our Q4 report that was disclosed yesterday. Please follow me to the next slide. We ask you to pay attention to this slide where we display our disclaimer regarding any forward-looking statements in today's webcast. Please turn to the next slide. Here you see today's agenda. Jesper will start by providing a business update including some of the highlights of Q4 and the full year 2024 where I have Fleming who will take you through some of the financials before handing the word back to Jesper for key takeaways. As usual, we will end the call with a Q&A session. Let's get going. Please turn to the next page as I hand over the word to you, Jesper. Thank you,

Mikkel. Good

morning

all.

And thank

you for joining us today. 2024 was a year of unexpected challenges for Better Collective shaped by significant external headwinds. After a strong start to the year, we faced several challenges including the impact of the Google policy update and an accelerating slowdown in Brazil throughout the year due to the anticipation of new online which has come in place by 1st of January 2025. In the US, despite early good momentum, we saw lower than expected activity leading into the NFL season in the second half of the year, influenced by a shift in focus from challenger brands leading to lower marketing activity overall. In response to these market dynamics, we swiftly implemented a cost efficiency program, ensuring our operations are well aligned for 2025. Following the Brazilian regulation, we now anticipate a rebasing of the market and also our financial performance that expectedly will be impacted by new gross gaming tax and added costs on net gaming revenue as well as near term player churn during the transition and unshoring of the market. Despite this, we remain confident in the long term potential of the US and Brazilian markets. These are young markets constantly evolving and we need to be ready to constantly adapt. Just as a reminder, Brazil was insignificant for Better Collective a few years ago, while last year contributing almost 20% of revenues, hence a testament to our strong organic growth in past years. Despite market changes in Brazil and the US, we delivered solid growth in Europe and rest of the world, Canada and with our global esports assets. Our diversified portfolio of leading sports media brands, combined with strong financial discipline, positioned us well for returning to growth. Considering the headwinds we faced during 2024, the year ended with good performance after we adjusted our business to the market conditions. I'm very pleased with our ability to adjust and adapt even to external changes. Looking forward, our focus has shifted towards organic growth, safeguarding cash flow and maintaining financial agility to capitalize on future opportunities. We are confident in our strategic direction and our ability to create long term value for our shareholders. Thank you once again for joining us today. Please turn to the next page. 2024 showed 14% growth mainly driven by M&A as well as solid growth in certain parts of our business like Europe and rest of the world, Canada and esports. In the US market we saw flat growth, which impacted the group's organic growth to be flat. However, we continued to build significant deferred revenue share value on top of the reported performance. We gave some flavor to that in connection with our Q3 report. The EBITDA before special items was up 2% by 2 million euros. Specifically for Q4, our revenues grew 13% with EBITDA growing 14% after seeing revenue in the high end of our expectations and initial effects of our cost efficiency program. Please turn to the next page. Our primary focus remains on expanding the recurring revenue in our business and I'm pleased to report a 28% growth in Q4 and 21% growth for the full year of 2024. This demonstrates that despite short-term market changes we have delivered the highest quality of financial performance in the company's history. Moreover, as many of you are aware, a significant portion of the new depositing customers we provide to our partners are on revenue share contracts. In these cases we don't recognize any or little value upfront, even though we are delivering the service today. In 2024 we delivered 1.8 million NDCs with 81% or 1.5 million being on revenue share agreements. This implies that we have built significant long-term value towards the future. Please follow me to the next page as we dive deeper into the Brazilian market developments. As mentioned earlier, Brazil's online gambling regulation officially went live on January 1st, 2025. Allow me to spend a few minutes diving into the market, a market I'm very optimistic about. The market launch has been awaited for a long time. I personally first heard about it back in 2016. I'm incredibly proud of how we strategically approach this market opportunity. A few years ago we noticed growing interest from our partners in Brazil, prompting us to start planting organic seeds in the market. These initial efforts performed exceptionally well, leading us to scale up our paid media and media partnership initiatives, while also leveraging our existing brands in the region. This strategic approach fueled exponential growth in recent years. Last year we strategically reinvested a large part of the cash flow generated from this growth to acquire the leading sports media group in South America, Playmaker Capital. This positioned us as the largest digital sports media group in the region, putting us in an ideal position to support our partners in what will undoubtedly be a highly competitive market landscape. However, this success story also presents a challenging comparison for 2025. Last year Brazil generated more than 70 million euros in revenue, primarily from revenue share income piling up during the last two years. From January 1st, 2025, income from gambling and derived revenue share income will be affected by the estimated taxes and added cost on net gaming revenue of around 26%. Additionally, as existing players are required to re-register with sportsbooks, we anticipate extraordinary customer churn within our revenue share databases. These factors will impact not only our revenue but also our bottom line, given the nature of revenue share income. However, it's also worth noting that the players left after this process will be of very high quality with higher lifetime values. As a result, we expect an EBITDA impact of 35 to 50 million euros for 2025 compared to 2024, making it a challenging year for growth. However, once the business rebases, we anticipate a return to growth in the Brazilian market from 2026 and onward. We remain highly optimistic about our strategic positioning in what is poised to become one of the world's largest gambling markets. A quick highlight from the launch is that all our media inventory sold out rapidly, reflecting strong demand for our offerings. It is still too early to conclude on the player conversion and the related churn. However, for January, the developments are following our expectations. We will likely be able to speak more to that after the first quarter of 2025. To summarize, I'm extremely proud of how we approach this market. Our strategy of driving exponential organic growth followed by acquisition of the leading sports media group in the region has positioned us as a crucial partner for sportsbooks in the years ahead. Please turn to the next slide as I hand it over to Fleming.

Thank you Jesper and good morning all. On this page here you see the guidance for 2025. We expect revenue of 320 to 350 million euros, which is down versus last year. EBW4 special items is expected at 100 to 120 million euros, which is at the same level as last year. On the next slide, I will show you how we see the bridge going back from last year to the new guidance for 2025. We have also decided to give a new disclosure of free cash flow guidance of 55 to 75 million euros, highlighting our strong cash conversion. The net debt to EBITDA is to stay below 3X. Please turn to the next slide as I dive more into the guidance. On the slide here, that outlines the key components influencing our EBITDA before special items guidance. We closed last year with an EBITDA of 113 million euros, but we are facing a challenging age one 2024 comparison by 20 million euros. This is largely due to a higher US marketing activity from partners in the first half of last year, boosted by the state launch in North Carolina, and in addition we saw elevated business from the European soccer championships. We don't expect similar large events for 2025. Our cost efficiency program from last year had an early impact on 2024 performance by approximately 15 million euros. Additionally, the recent regulation in the Brazilian market will temporarily affect our revenue growth. As Jesper mentioned, the estimated taxes on gross gaming revenue and added costs on net gaming revenue as well as anticipated player churn are expected to cause a 50 to 70% decline in Brazilian revenue share income in the short term, impacting our EBITDA for 2025 by an estimated 35 to 50 million euros. The positives that will counter this is firstly our efficiency program that will contribute 50 million euros in cost savings throughout 2025. I will provide some more details on the program later. Secondly, better collectives diverse portfolio positions us for growth in Europe, eSports, South America, excluding Brazil and Canada. We expect the US market to show flat growth while still building added value through revenue share. Collectively, these areas are expected to contribute to an EBITDA before special items increase of 20 to 40 million euros in 2025. As a reminder, and as Jesper highlighted earlier, our ongoing focus on recurring revenue growth means that we will continue to deliver new depositing customers to our partners worldwide, building substantial long-term value. Considering these moving parts, our EBITDA before special items is guided at 100 to 120 million euros for 2025. Please turn to the next slide. I will continue with presenting our updated long-term guidance. When we introduced our long-term guidance in 2023, it factored in both organic growth and M&A, as M&A has have and still is a significant part of our strategy. However, given the evolving market conditions, especially in the US and Brazil, and recent share price developments, Better Collective has decided to prioritize other capital allocation strategies in the near term, such as reducing debt and initiating share buybacks. This short to medium term strategic shift coupled with a weaker market outlook has led us to adjust our guidance to emphasize organic growth, which is expected to return to positive territory from 2026 after the Brazilian market has found its new level. Our EBITDA margin target for 2027 is still maintained at 35 to 40 percent, as well as net debt EBITDA to stay below 3X. Yesper will provide more thoughts behind our capital allocation strategy later. Please turn to the next slide, where I will go into more detail with our cost efficiency program. I'd like to add a few words to the program that we launched back in October. We initiated a comprehensive review of our operational cost. This decision was driven by two factors, the integration of 35 acquisitions and the shifting market landscape, making it essential to right size our business. As previously mentioned, the streamlining process unfortunately required us to let go of over 300 colleagues, representing 15 percent of our workforce. This difficult but necessary step was completed by the end of October. As shown, the majority of the cost reductions, 65 percent, stems from the reduction of the 300 positions. Additionally, 10 percent of cost reductions came from editorial optimizations, 10 percent from procurement deficiencies, 3 percent from office closures, and the remaining from various other initiatives. Crucially, we have focused on non-revenue driving cost, ensuring minimal impact on paid media, media partnerships, and e-sports. The most affected regions are naturally those where the market outlook has shifted. As always, Better Collective remains highly adaptable with a proven track record of adjusting to market dynamics and evolving conditions. Our ability to make strategic recalibrations when needed is a core strength that will enable us to navigate the current landscape while positioning ourselves for future growth. With that, I'll hand the word back to Jesper, so please follow to the next slide.

Thank you, Flemming. Before I summarize the webcast, I'd like to take a moment to highlight some of our recent news from some of our products and platforms, starting with the continued success of Better Collective's leading e-sport brand, HLTV. This year, the HLTV Awards 2024 celebrated the best Counter-Strike 2 athletes, attracting a record number of attendees, both in person and online. The event showcased our strong position within the growing e-sports industry. A segment where we've rapidly expanded since acquiring HLTV in 2020 and FootBin in 2022. Today, our e-sports and gaming media portfolio reaches approximately 100 million monthly visits, contributing significantly to our total sports audience of over 400 million monthly visits across our brands. Our e-sport assets saw revenue of more than 20 million euros in 2024, almost all stemming from advertising sales and sponsorships, which continue to be in higher and higher demand. This momentum underscores our strategic focus on e-sports as a key growth area. I'm incredibly proud of the team's achievements and excited about the continued potential within this space. Please turn to the next slide. Continuing with news from our U.S. business, very recently Better Collective's North American brands, Action Network and Playmaker HQ played a significant role in the Super Bowl experience, engaging millions of fans and supporting our partners. Through our Quickslip product, over 8 million wages were placed leading up to and during the event, highlighting our position as a key player in the U.S. sports media and betting space. During last year, we powered more than 50 million wages through the Quickslip product where bets can be placed directly and seamlessly within our products. We also saw strong brand activations with Playmaker HQ hosting an event in New Orleans featuring live podcast recordings from top sports personalities like Shaquille O'Neal and Marshawn Lynch. The event attracted significant attention from fans and industry partners alike, further reinforcing Better Collective's growing influence in the sports and betting industries. This level of engagement and innovative content solidifies Better Collective's leadership in the North American sports betting media landscape, contributing to our continued success and long-term growth in this important market. Please turn to the next page. Being the biggest shareholder of Better Collective together with my co-founder Christian, capital allocation is a core focus for us together with the board of directors. At Better Collective, we've always placed a strong emphasis on effective capital allocation, understanding its critical role in driving long-term value for our shareholders. Over the years, M&A has been a key growth driver for us and we've seen significant success through strategic acquisitions. However, as we look ahead, now is the time to shift gears in our approach. We recognize that there are multiple ways to create shareholder value and in the current market environment, our near-term focus will be on driving organic growth which will be pivotal in sustaining the strong cash flow we've built. As part of this shift, we'll be prioritizing efforts to reduce our debt and take a more proactive approach to share buybacks. These actions will not only enhance our financial flexibility but also drive increased value for our shareholders. In light of this strategy, we'll be proposing to cancel our current holding of Betco stock at the upcoming AGM. As we believe, this is the right step to take in terms of optimizing our capital structure and ensuring we continue to build long-term value for our investors. Please turn to the next slide. Now, allow me to summarize our webcast with the following highlights. Since we IPO'd in 2018, we've seen tremendous growth and profitability, both through organic growth and highly value-creating acquisitions. We have managed to expand through a well-balanced combination of equity and bank financing. We have moved our business from a European-based affiliate business to becoming one of the leading digital sports media groups globally. We've seen our revenue and earnings grow by approximately 10 times. We've seen new markets opening for business, including many U.S. states and a vastly big Brazilian market, to mention the big movers. Now, we are heading into 2025 and we shall expect to see the Brazilian market rebasing to a new regulated market, where after we expect to see growth coming back. Speaking about new markets, we are as always closely monitoring what is going on in markets that are still very new or yet to open, including more U.S. states, Argentina, Chile, African countries, Thailand and India, just to mention some that are on our radar. Our near-term focus will be to continue optimizing our product offerings and still improve our organizational effectiveness. We will for the time being prioritize allocating capital to reduce debt and or buyback owned shares, as the current relative market valuations doesn't justify M&A. We expect to get back to the M&A agenda at a later stage, as there are still many great opportunities to see growth by being acquisitive. Personally, I believe that Better Collective is in a very strong position with so many great products that are seeing more than 400 million visits every month. And we are seeing an ever-growing demand for sports and all related entertainment. My optimistic view is reflected in our new long-term guidance, where we have decided to remove the M&A component as the agenda has changed, and my hope is also that we can communicate our aspirations more clearly this way. Thank you for listening in and showing interest in our company. We will now open for the Q&A session. Please turn to the next slide and the word back to the operator.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question over the phone lines, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. And to withdraw your question, you can press star 1 and 1 again. Alternatively, if you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click submit. We will start with questions from the phone lines. Please stand by. First question is from the line of Oscar Ronkvist from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning all. Thanks for taking my questions. So my first one would just be a little bit clear on the free cash flow guidance that you put out. So trying to get a sense of the cash conversion down from the EBITDA midpoint of around 110 million. So 55 to 75 million and 65 as the midpoint. So you obviously have some interest payments and some tax payments on the earnings. But then just some color on even sort of working capital movements and also especially looking at the expected capex going into 2025. So I appreciate some color on the expected other investments in intangible assets if that's possible. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks Oscar Fleming here. Yeah, the free cash flow is a new one. And of course we have previously given cash conversion, which is operational cash flow over EBITDA. But this, as you also eluded to, free cash flow also include payments of interest and also tax as the main components. And then we also have below EBITDA we have intangible payments to partnerships. So these three components are to be considered. So this is the free operational cash flow.

All right. And that's the free cash flow guidance. Does that exclude any earn out payments or deferred payments to media partnerships?

Yeah, we, you can say it is before any, you can say payment of debt. And to be a bit concrete to any earn out or deferred payments, we have only one material payment left, I think to the tune 8, 9 million euros that has been paid here in Q1. So you can say all debt payments are of course not included in free cash flow. So, but just to give that info on top.

All right. Now I just wonder, I think you have 69 million in other financial liabilities. I think that refers to earn outs and deferred payments to media partnerships. So that was the main item I was wondering about.

No, that is not included and nor is bank debt as an example. So that they are all connected, you can say to normal liabilities that we have. So they are not considered.

All right. And then on the other intangible capex, do you expect that to be like the key driver, I mean, except for the EBITDA interest payments and tax payments to sort of arrive at around 65 million in free cash flow looking at the midpoint, would that be, you know, new media partnerships that you sign up as intangible capex?

Yeah, that is fair to assume that and also payments to existing.

Sorry, so the payments to existing, those are included?

Yeah, so you can say for some partnerships we have to capitalize part of it pending the structure and there can be both variable and fixed components. So the fixed component can go into that line. Got it.

Thank you. Then just the next one, you know, you published the positive organic growth guidance or target for 2026 and onwards and obviously not quantified in anything. So just wondered if you could speak a little bit on your expectations from 2026 and 2027 and just to sort of compare, I think you have just looking at the impairment tests, I think you estimate an 11% sales CAGR between 2028 and just, you know, start off with an expected, you know, double digit organic decline coming from a 2% decline in 2024. So just wondered if you could share some thoughts on the sort of pace of the recovery in 2026 and onwards?

No, I think what we, 4 for 25, we have of course the main part being the rebasing of the Brazilian business and there it is still very early days. We have seen January which is sort of meeting our expectations of that market but in order to sort of be more concrete, we'll have to wait and see as we know more about the market developments in Brazil. So basically we have now given the guidance for 25 and then the signal to the expectation for the future with returning to organic growth in 2026 but that is it for now. But of course we are excited about the market landscape for Brazil looking ahead in the coming years due to the leading position we have in this market and that is of course something we expect to become a strong growth driver for us.

Perfect, understood. My final question, sorry for the detailed one here, I think it's for Fleming, but depreciation and amortization, I think it came down 32%, quarter over quarter, just trying to get a sense of what's the expected run rate going forward on that line item.

I think you can sort of estimate around the Q4 level, 7 to 8 million euros is a fair assumption.

Alright, perfect, thank you very much.

Thank you. Thanks

Oscar.

We'll now take our next question. This is from the line of Sebastian Grave from Nordaer, please go ahead.

Good morning guys and thank you also for taking my questions. I have just a few here. So first is on the guidance for 2025. Really appreciate the upridge from slide 9 which I guess among other things provide a good overview of the negative impacts from usurture and tax and added costs on NGR in Brazil. However, I mean after this rebasing it looks like you assume no underlying growth for the Brazilian revenue share base. So can you help clarify this a bit and maybe talk a bit around sort of your expectations for your underlying activity level in Brazil and the development going throughout the year and beyond?

Yeah, maybe speaking to the comment we have given related to the inventory on our brands in Brazil, we quickly sold out. So there's no doubt we sense a demand in the market. It's probably worth noting that we are still in the phase where the Brazilian Serie A is not active. So we have some bit of uncertainty to how will this market play out when the main football league is live. And then the other part is that now we have seen a lot of sportsbooks getting their licenses and awaiting the full license and some have gotten that and we know there are still others wanting to get a license and into the market. So it's a development of that where yes, we are definitely optimistic but we also have to be realistic about how much we actually know right now.

Okay, but it doesn't make sense to talk about sort of underlying the revenue share base. Obviously you expect churn in your revenue share base but you also allude to the remaining players staying on board. They are high quality, high active players. So what do you expect from those players remaining on board in 2025?

Yeah, so it relates to the fact that you now have to sign up with your personal ID and verification. And as we have seen in other regulated markets, when you enter the regulated market and you need to provide these documents, there is a stronger lock-in effect for the players to that specific sportsbook, basically meaning you will not be able to open a new account with that sportsbook. So that's sort of the positive for the lock-in effect of the players we have sent that successfully migrate to the onshore market with this operator. They now basically are truly locked in with our affiliate tag to that specific sportsbook.

Okay, that's fair. And more on the 2025 guidance here on the bridge, I see no Missouri State launch mentioned. What do you expect from that in 2025?

Well, it's correct. It's not included. And as with all the state launches, we simply await and see what happens. And obviously we will operationally be preparing for any state launch, but we have not taken it into the guidance.

Okay, that's very clear. And then my final question on the capital allocation. So it sounds like you rule out significant M&A near term and we will focus more on buybacks. Now your full year leverage was around 2x. You're guiding free cash flow in excess of 55 million and you maintain your 3x leverage target. Then why only 10 million euro in buybacks for now? And I mean, is it fair to assume more to come later in the year or what should we think about the sort of the amount of buybacks for 2025?

Yeah, I can take that Flemming. I think we just take it as we go. And of course, we cannot comment or even say further on what we have announced. So I think we sent the signal that this is now the agenda and then we basically look at the development in earnings and cash flow as we go. I think that's as close as I can get.

That's fair. Okay, thank you for taking my questions.

Thanks Sebastian.

Thank you. The next question is from the line of poll, Jessen from Dansker Bank. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I have another question on the bridge looking at the component from Bresil. You have a negative impact from 35 to 50 million, but when you do the full year guidance, you only use the 50 million. Could you put some comments on what the dynamics are if you should focus on the 35 instead or if that is out of question? Is that an addition to your aggregated guidance of 100 to 120 or how should we look at it?

Yeah, I think if you add the numbers, you can say lower high in the bridge, you go from 98 to 133. And this illustrates the movers within the guidance poll. And there is of course a likelihood in some of them. Some of them are known already. The first ones that you see on the slide relating to last year. And then of course the cost efficiency program where there is a likelihood to both the other market growth and the Brazilian one. So I think you should see our guidance just being within that range without going into more mathematical details.

And the 15 million which you already had in the Q4 accounts, you have an underlying of 10 and then you have a bonus part of 5. The 5 million bonus, is that a recurring? I think my question is, is that included in the 50 million next year? Whereas it should be something just isolated for 24.

Yeah, I think when we reported Q3, we mentioned that our cost base was affected by, you can say, that was lower than normal because we have a one-off effect when all variable pay as one example just goes away when we don't meet our guidance. A lot of our variable payments to ourselves and employees are related to our guiding results. So that was sort of a one-off effect to 5 plus million in Q3. And we also discussed that when we presented. So you can say going forward, we of course still expect that we will have a normal compensation including also variable payments. So just that is correct what you're stating basically.

Okay, and then about the license holders, the 14 that initially got a full license, then there are about 50 to 60 which are still having to do some paperwork to get the license. I was wondering if you look at your client base from last year, are the 14 all among your clients from last year or has the business changes that some of your major clients prior to January 1st are left out and thereby not part of the business so far this year or are there any dynamics here we should be aware of?

Yeah, thanks Paul. So in general what we see in this licensing process that there are popping up brands and sports books that we have actually not worked with previously. But speaking to those we have been working with, yeah, the vast majority, they are among those active in the market. And we also sense that some that may not have managed to get there yet, they definitely have an aspiration to get there at a later point in time. So basically we see the majority we know very well and then there are new ones popping up which is of course a good thing to see. And then

just to add Paul, are there any of the major

accounts that are not active by now?

Since the 11 that you mentioned Paul, there has been given 21 more licenses so I think we are somewhere around 35 now. And if you look to that list you will also see some of the names that you know as our big customers globally.

And just to answer that Paul, no there are not some material accounts that are missing for us.

And then just one on the Shabbat bag, I was wondering, yes but you and Christian, are you participating in Purata in the Shabbat bags?

No, not in the sense of selling. So we are not selling any shares in the Shabbat bag program.

Okay,

thank you. Thank you. We will now take our next question. This is from Edward James from Canter Fitzgerald, please go ahead.

Morning, thank you for taking my questions. Three if I may. Just going back to the 2026 growth guidance, could you just help us with a bit of color across the markets of Europe, US and Brazil in terms of understanding how you get to positive organic growth? And also noting that with the FIFA World Cup hosted in the US, that should be quite a helpful driver particularly for the two affected markets being Brazil and the US. So is there any color you could give us on that, whether it's Europe should be up five single digits or anything to that effect would be quite helpful.

Thanks. Thanks for the question. So we are not guiding specifically to the expected organic growth rates but you definitely have a relevant point that we are excited about the FIFA World Cup that is being hosted across countries in North America. And ultimately as we've seen in the past, the FIFA World Cup is the biggest betting event every time it happens, sort of surpassing previous records. So it's of course something we are quite excited about and believe will be a big opportunity for Better Collective.

Okay, understood. And then second question is just on the trend expected in Brazil is I think that impact in your EBITDA bridge for 2025 is likely the biggest component of where your guidance is different to where consensus estimates are today. The question is how have you come up with that impact and is it based on experience in a different market or a prior market which has gone through a similar regulatory or legalization process? And if so, can you just provide some color on how that prior market trended in years one, two and three and if not, if that's not the case, it's not based on prior empirical evidence then just what kind of assumptions you've made to come up with that impact?

Yeah, Fleming, I can try to speak to that. We have seen markets not to the size of Brazil of course, but we have seen markets regulating in different ways where we have experience. So this is based on prior experience and of course insights into the Brazilian market for some years. We have seen in the past Germany to mention one and Sweden also going through the same process coming from an international market to a global market. To a local market with local taxation. In this case however, it is a bit special because there are a lot of requirements for both operators and also companies like us to basically onshore our business with all what it takes. So you actually need to have your operations in Brazil. For the players, there is a fairly simple conversion that you need to make, you need to re-register. So that is a procedure set up, but it is the first time that we see a market with a full onshoring. And of course the size of Brazil has been, you can say, evolving over the past few years for both operators and companies like Better Collective. So it is becoming very big. So it is to some extent known and to some extent also with new aspects to it. So this is as close as we have tried to model it and of course with a mix of prior experience included.

Understood, thank you. And this is my final question. Just stepping away from sports and looking at the casino market in the US. That has been faring pretty well just due to higher competition amongst operators, higher player LTVs, revenue per user, etc. And also it is much earlier on in its, let's say, its state legalization journey and that is essentially supporting higher marketing budgets and less volatile marketing budgets by the operators. So with that in mind, what are your thoughts on investing in the casino markets? Are there ambitions to grow that area of your business to add some level of diversification or to provide a more kind of full circle approach to what you can offer operators that clearly operate across online sports betting and online casino?

We are actually in several ways engaging with the iGaming market as well. And as you rightfully put, there are much fewer states where it is actually part of the regulatory framework. And a very sort of direct way is all our revenue share is obviously that will include the online casino product. So a state where we have been sending sports betting players on revenue share, if that state decides to regulate online casino, we will also take part in that with the commission we receive. So a pretty clear upside with such a regulation. We also active within different parts of our business. As an example, our paid media activities in the US also includes acquiring audience within the casino segment. For Playmaker HQ, with our talent-led media, we also produce talent-led shows within casinos. So we actually have several areas where we are creating content and acquiring audience. Plus we have that sort of revenue share upside with more states potentially regulating online casino that would just sort of click on immediately.

Thanks. Just as a follow up, I guess given the results in the US relative to the more positive growth seen by peers that are focused on casino, it suggests that clearly online sports betting is the dominant focus of better collective in the US over casino. So I guess the question is, is there an ambition to increase investment in casino to essentially balance that up? Or is better collective strategically going to just remain a sports first business with the casino as this embedded potential upside but not necessarily top of the priority list?

I actually think I just gave a few concrete examples of where we are actively doing business within casino. So yes, we have the predominant part of our business being focused on sports betting, but we really see online casino as a very complementary product and very relevant to our business as well. And we have activities solely focused on producing online casino content. As stated, we have shows around that. So it is definitely an area where we are active and including in the US.

Great.

Thanks.

Thank you. We'll take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Halmar Alberg from Redeye. Please go ahead.

Thank you. A question on the development in North America in terms of revenue mix. Revenue share was pretty good. It looked quarter over quarter, but also year over year. Was this as expected? Anything you can add on what most drove the improvement in revenue share in North America?

I think you can say we are expecting to continue to grow revenue share as we can say this is a fairly new thing in the US. So that is expected. We had some noise on the line, sorry. But yeah, I think we also gave some guidance from next year when we discussed Q3, where we discussed the Q3 year build up revenue share. So this is an ongoing effort that we are really pursuing sending players on that contract.

It

seems like that is the only thing when you are not speaking. So if you could please mute after asking the question, that would be great.

Thanks. Yes, will do. And in terms of sponsorships also had pretty good revenue there. Just to understand that going forward, is that something that could have a negative impact with kind of lower parker activity? Is that something that still can be high? I guess that will be variable on a quarterly basis, but if you can give some flavor on that revenue type.

Well, as you know with Playmaker HQ, it is a business very centered around sponsorships. The same goes for action. And in general, we have seen good developments there and expect that to continue. So basically, we are pleased with that development.

Right. And also if you can give some more flavor on the kind of cost reduction program. I mean, you said that Q4, you saw some quicker than expected cost reductions. So I mean the cost base from Q4, for example, staff costs, would expect that to come down further from here. I guess it will vary from quarter to quarter, but in general over the next couple of quarters.

Yeah, I think we are well on track with the ambitions that we set out with. And yeah, some of it kicked in a bit earlier than expected. And we discussed also the variable components. And when you do such things and don't meet expectations as we faced, then of course some variable components of the compensation goes away. But I would say the cost program continues now into 2025. And there we will see the full year effect of the 50 million that we guided for. And that is well on track.

All right. And then just a question. I'm curious about the Qwiklip product. I guess it's small, but it seems to be doing quite well. Do you feel that Q can grow that further? And do you see any competition in this kind of product?

Yeah, we are quite excited about Qwiklip as it really sort of makes the user journey and user experience much better. It's simply more convenient while you browse, say, action and you're just able to basically place a bet that you find interesting in action. And in other products and collaborations, we use Qwiklip. And it's still a product that we're developing and adding more sportsbook with integrations. So yes, for us, it's all about sort of ramping up the volume that we see going through Qwiklip and get as many sportsbooks on as we can. We definitely believe that it's a very good example of us being relevant in the retention of users and basically driving more business for our partners.

All right. Thank

you very much. Thanks, Jelma.

Yeah, I think there are no more questions on the phone. So I will just read up a question we have gotten here written, and it's about the Brazilian changes that we've seen and maybe a bit technical, but still relevant, I guess. When you talk about Brazilian players having to reactivate their accounts, does this mean re-registering or just activating? And what happens to the current deals that you have with those customers? Do you have to start from a fresh database or do they continue?

Yeah, so basically as part of the unshoring of the Brazilian market, they need to open an account with a Brazilian entity. So they are going through a re-registering. And therefore, when they use the same details, when they go through that flow, they will continue to be tagged to us as customers that we sent historically. And that is where we do expect some churn, which we have referenced in this year's guidance.

Thank you, Jesper. And thank you very much for showing interest in Better Collective. There are no more questions, so this concludes the Q&A. Have a nice day.