Century Casinos, Inc. Stock

Century Casinos, Q2 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] 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 Hoetzinger. Please go ahead, sir.

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

With me today are my Co-CEO, Erwin Haitzmann; our CFO, Margaret Stapleton; as well as our new executive VP of U.S. operations, Lyle Randolph. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions from analysts.

I'm pleased to report that our diversified portfolio delivered a strong solid quarter as net operating revenue came in at $152 million, a 1% increase over Q2 of last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $31.7 million, a 5% increase. Both are all-time records for us. We never had higher revenues and higher EBITDA in the second quarter in the history of the company. Congrats to all staff members and management teams at our properties.

The results reflect the continued benefits of our diversified business model, the success of our recent capital investment program and growth in play across our casino portfolio. Poland soiled party a bit. That segment was underperforming due to the closure of the casino at the Hilton motel in Warsaw as well as an unusually low hold on the gaming tables, but we are hopeful and already see signs for improved performance over the next several quarters.

But moving away from Poland, I want you to focus on the North American operations, which had a great quarter and which generates around 9% of our total results. Going forward, the core operational metric that we will focus on in the U.S. plus Canada plus Corporate. That EBITDA was up a strong 12% in Q2 and up 17% year-to-date. Every single property in our North American portfolio has grown revenue as well as EBITDA year-to-date. If most properties growing EBITDA by double digits year-over-year.

In more detail, in the second quarter, U.S. revenue and EBITDA were up 5% and 12%, respectively, and Canadian revenue and EBITDA were up 2% and 11%, respectively, Q-over-Q. [indiscernible] the quarter were the tremendous performance of the market with revenue and EBITDA up 16% and 93%, respectively, as well as strong performances in both Missouri and Colorado. We continue to increase operating efficiencies throughout the business, delivering higher property operating margins than last year. The average margin of the U.S. properties increased from 24% to 26%. In Canada, the margin grew from 28% to 30%.

In the quarter, we benefited from growth across all end retail customers as well as from a predominantly local repeat customer base, our diversified portfolio and limiting exposure to new supply. As mentioned in our last call, we've been seeing solid customer trends since around December of last year despite higher gas prices. In most of our properties, the majority of our customers meet within the 45-minute drive and the over overmine inflation and special employment are more impactful than gas prices alone.

Also benefit from as staying closer to home and spending the dollars closer to home in the last several quarters, as at a result of the general economic factors, including higher airfares and gas prices. And last but not least, we benefited from strong returns from the capital investments we made over the last 2-plus years. These investments have finally entered the contribution phase, contributing to meaningful EBITDA growth.

With that, I'm very happy to introduce you to Lyle Randolph, our new Executive VP of U.S. Operations. Lyle will provide more granularity and background on our U.S. properties, which drives approximately 75% of our total revenue and EBITDA. Lyle, go ahead, please.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. Across our U.S. operations, a clear pattern continues to emerge. We are seeing a portfolio that is performing with greater consistency we are seeing operational improvements translating into stronger financial results. And most importantly, we're seeing the operational work of the past several years begin to pay off. Across our 7 U.S. properties, we have invested in our gaming floors, improved our marketing, strengthened our operations and remain focused on creating a better guest experience. None of this happened overnight, but those efforts are coming together and the second quarter provides another strong example.

During Q2, our U.S. operations generated $111.6 million of net operating revenue, an increase of 5% over the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA increased 12% to $28.9 million. Importantly, adjusted EBITDAr grew more than twice as fast as revenue, demonstrating continued operating leverage across the portfolio. And that momentum extends beyond the quarter.

Through the first 6 months of 2026, U.S. net operating revenue increased 5%, while adjusted EBITDAr increased 16% over the first half of 2025. That is an increase of $7.2 million in adjusted EBITDAr in the first half of the year from the U.S. properties. And that consistency and growth is the real story.

As we take a step back and look broadly across the portfolio, we're reminded that Century does not simply operate 7 casinos. We operate 7 unique destinations across 5 gaming jurisdictions, each with its own history, customer base and competitive position. Together, they represent an important piece of America's regional gaming heritage. From Rocky Gap, the only casino resort operating within a state park in America to Mountaineer where the world's first Racino pioneered a new chapter of regional gaming, to the Riverboat gaming history of Missouri, to Colorado's historic gold mining communities and finally, to the nugget, one of Northern Nevada's iconic gaming brands.

Each property brings something different. Our strategy is to preserve what makes each one unique while applying a disciplined operating approach that drives stronger and more consistent results.

Beginning in the West, the nugget continues to demonstrate why we believe it represents one of the greatest opportunities within our U.S. portfolio. Net operating revenue increased 16% while adjusted EBITDAr increased more than 93%. And more importantly, this was just -- this was nugget's third consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth. The nugget had a strong entertainment calendar in the second quarter, the Brooks & Dunn concert in April sold more than 7,800 tickets and the Keith Urban Show in June contributed to over $0.25 million in incremental profit, but the nugget story is much broader than concerts. Slot 20 increased approximately 6%. Hotel cash revenue increased more than 36%. Hotel occupancy increased 19% and year-to-date retail room nights reached a 3-year high.

We are also making better use of the hotel during historically softer periods. Transient corporate room nights increased more than 300% during the quarter. And we continue to improve the casino itself through gaming floor optimization, stronger marketing, player development and a greater focus on the local customer.

We are also seeing improvement in the quality of the business. The number of guests generating more than 400 in average daily theoretical, increased approximately 20%. The nugget is an iconic brand with a significant hotel and convention operation and includes a major entertainment venue.

Our opportunity continues to be to make all of those pieces work better together. And the last 3 quarters of the nugget tell us that the strategy is not only gaining traction, but we still believe there is still significant runway ahead.

Moving on to the Midwest region. Our Missouri properties continue to be consistent performers. Our Missouri properties combined have now delivered 7 consecutive quarters of year-over-year adjusted EBITDAr growth. Combined net operating revenue increased over 8% in the second quarter combined. Adjusted EBITDAr increased 9.6% at Cape Gerardo and 5.5% at Crothersville.

Just as encouraging is the breadth of that growth. Across Missouri, theoretical win increased across all of our broader player segments. At Cape Gerardo, we continue to see the benefits of improving an established property and becoming more sophisticated in how we engage with our customers.

The Riverview Hotel, our food and beverage amenities, our event center, our retail bet MGM sports book provide additional reasons to visit and more opportunities to extend the customer relationship beyond the casino floor.

At Crothersville, the story is the continued maturing of our investment in that market. Second quarter net operating revenue increased nearly $1.2 million, rated gaming revenue increased 32% and unique guest increased 9%. More importantly, unique guests traveling more than 50 miles increased 15%. That tells us that the new property is not simply serving the existing local customer. It is expanding Crothersville's geographic reach. During the quarter, Cross Mill generated its highest quarterly gross gaming revenue, net revenue, coin-in and slot win in the property's history.

And the performance stands out beyond just our own portfolio. From Missouri's fiscal year reported by the Missouri Gaming Commission ending in June, Crothersville recorded the highest percentage increase in adjusted gross revenue among all 13 casinos in the state. Collectively, Century's Missouri operations also generated the highest year-over-year percentage growth in gaming revenue of any casino operator in the state. So we remain very encouraged by the underlying strength of our Midwest region and the continued maturing of our Crothersville investment.

Let's shift now to -- over into the East region with Rocky Gap. Rocky Gap delivered a resilient second quarter despite a more challenging competitive and consumer environment. There were several encouraging underlying trends. Slot coin-in increased approximately 2%. Golf Cash revenue increased nearly 13%, and hotel room nights increased. Net operating revenue was down slightly less than 1% with essentially all of that decline concentrated in the hotel cash revenue in table games.

Importantly, disciplined expense management helped to offset those pressures and adjusted EBITDAr essentially remained flat. That performance is notable, given softer regional gaming trends and the April opening of Happy Valley Casino in State College, Pennsylvania. And we are also reminded that through the first half of the year, Rocky Gap's adjusted EBITDAr remains 9% ahead of prior year. We remain encouraged by the resilience of the business and we'll continue leveraging Rocky Gap's unique position as a true destination resort.

Also in our East region, Mountaineer remains one of the foundational assets within our U.S. portfolio. Once again, this quarter, Mountaineer generated the highest gaming revenue of any property in our company. This reflects the strength of its long-standing customer base in the market. And that market surrounding Mater continues to evolve. Customers today have more gaming options than ever before, including online gaming and mature casino and sports wagering locations. Importantly, these developments do not suggest that demand for gaming has weakened whether they reinforce that the way guests choose to engage with gaming and entertainment continues to change. We believe that creates an opportunity to deliver the experiences guests cannot replicate elsewhere.

Mountaineer's combination of casino gaming, live horse racing, hotel, dinner and entertainment options provide a unique platform to compete in this changing environment. In quarter 2, Mountaineer saw growth in sports betting and iGaming and horse racing revenue increased nearly 40%. At the same time, slots tables and hotel revenue were slightly softer. There were some encouraging customer trends. Gaming revenue from our highest value 400-plus ADT customers increased 7%, and revenue from younger customers, 21 to 39, increased 31%. The hotel comparison also requires some context. Last year, second quarter benefited from a large construction group that contributed nearly $0.5 million of business before those stays ended in June of 2025. Adjusting for that group, second quarter profitability would have been approximately flat with prior year.

Again, through the first half of 2026, Mountaineer adjusted EBITDAr still remains 6% ahead of last year. Mountaineer provides opportunity as it also has the largest active customer database in our company, which provides a significant tool as we continue refining segmentation, reinvestment and player development. And the property's racing heritage remains an important differentiator. This year marks the 75th year of horseracing at Mountaineer. This weekend is the 56th running of the West Virginia Derby. Our focus is to build upon that heritage while creating gaming, entertainment and hospitality experiences that give customers compelling reasons to visit the property.

[indiscernible] Momentum. Central City delivered 1 of the strongest performances in the U.S. portfolio. Net operating revenue increased approximately 11.5% and while adjusted EBITDAr increased more than 32%. Guest volume increased 16%, coin in increased nearly 20% and hotel occupancy reached 74%. Through the first half of 2026, Central City nearly doubled adjusted EBITDA compared with the prior year. The quality of that growth is also encouraging. We saw improvement across carded and non-carded play while marketing expenses declined as we shifted toward more targeted detailed initiatives. So Central City is not simply generating more revenue, we are becoming more efficient in how we generate it.

At Cripple Creek, net operating revenue increased 2% and adjusted EBITDAr for the first 6 months is well ahead of last year. We also saw growth in both rated and unrated play and an increase in unique carded guests. Looking forward, we remain optimistic about both markets. In Central City, continued public investment in the Gregory Plaza in the historic district leading up to the hill to Central City should create additional reasons for visitors to explore beyond Black Hawk's primary casino corridor.

And in Cripple Creek, we continue to view the evolution of Xiaomi as an opportunity in both the short and long term. Shamini continues refining its operations and guest experience. Century remains well positioned to compete for guests, seeking a convenient and established alternative. Looking further ahead, we believe that a successful destination resort directly across the street has the potential to increase overall visitation to Cripple Creek, creating a larger and more vibrant market from which Century is in a great position to benefit.

Taken together, our Colorado properties continue to illustrate an important element of Century's operating philosophy. While we cannot always control how our markets evolve, we can control how effectively we position ourselves to benefit from that evolution.

As we look at all of our U.S. operations, what encourages the most is not any single property, it is the consistency of the progress. Missouri continues its sustained quarter-over-quarter growth. Colorado continues to build momentum. The Nugget has now delivered 3 consecutive quarters of adjusted EBITDAr growth. And in our East region, we continue to protect profitability and build upon the unique strength of those properties. Taken together, we believe this represents something larger than a single successful quarter. The operational foundation we have been building is producing more consistent, higher-quality results.

Again, through the first half of 2026, net operating revenue at our U.S. properties increased approximately 5% and adjusted EBITDAr increased nearly 16%. This is not the result of any one promotion entertainment event or favorable comparison. It is the result of hundreds of operational decisions being made every day across 7 properties by teams that understand their markets.

Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear. We will invest where we see the strongest returns. We will continue improving gaming floor productivity and becoming more sophisticated in how we engage our customers. We will maximize the value of our hotels, entertainment and other amenities. And importantly, we will continue sharing what works across the organization. We are building on operating philosophy around 7 authentic regional destinations. Each has its own history, each has its own competitive advantages. Our responsibility is to preserve what makes them unique while applying the operating discipline that can make each of them stronger.

We remain confident that our U.S. operations are well positioned to deliver profitable growth, disciplined returns and long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Lyle. And I will now give more color on Canada and [indiscernible] international operations. Century Casinos Canadian operations delivered another solid quarter with net operating revenue increasing 2.2% year-over-year to $20.4 million and adjusted EBITDA increasing 11% to $6.2 million. This performance reflects the results of the capital investments and operational improvements we've made in Canada over the last several quarters. Growth was broad-based with all 4 other properties contributing higher net operating revenue, led by strong performances at Century Mile and Century Saint Albert.

Century Mile achieved its highest quarterly EBITDAr since opening, surpassing its previous record established in the first quarter, while Century Saint Albert delivered record coin-in during both May and June following the benefits of its 2025 property enhancements.

We also demonstrated expense discipline as total operating expenses declined 1.3%, driven primarily by lower payroll costs. Operationally, the Alberta portfolio continues to benefit from growing customer awareness of the newly introduced sells sports lounge concept while market share trends remain encouraging. Century Mile significantly outpaced overall [indiscernible] market growth with coin-in increasing 11.2% year-over-year and Century Saint Albert also exceeded the broader market with 6.2% growth.

Looking ahead, management is focused on leveraging Alberta's newly launched open online sports betting and iGaming market by utilizing upgraded sportsbook ready facilities across all 4 properties, while monitoring any long-term impact on visitation and gaming revenue.

The company also continues to defend its competitive position in the Edmonton market following the court decision requiring the proposed Camel's casino relocation process to restart, delaying a potential new competitor near Century Mile. With continued investment in player development, disciplined capital spending and favorable competitive dynamics, the Canadian operations remain well positioned to build on their strong first half performance.

Poland. Central Casinos operation in Poland continued through a period of significant portfolio transition during the second quarter, making year-over-year comparisons less meaningfully. Results reflect the closure of the Rosa Casino in June 2025 following the nonrenewal of its gaming license as well as the continued ramp-up of the company's world-size operations. The newly opening Woof Casino, which began operations in February 2026 in the historic hotel corona overlooking world-class market were generated expected start-up losses as the profitability awareness and establishes its customer base. Otaish Poland's port largest city and one of the country's fastest-growing economic centers, recognized for its thriving technology sector, major universities and vibrant tourism industry.

Although start-up costs weighed on second quarter results, management believes this flagship location represents an attractive long-term opportunity as visitation and customer awareness continue to build.

In addition, table game hold at the presidential vocal Casino was significantly below historical averages during June, reducing gaming revenue by approximately $1 million versus theoretical expectations. These factors contributed to the reported net operating revenue of $19.9 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $0.1 million for the quarter. Despite these temporary headwinds, the underlying outlook for the Polish business is increasingly stable. Prior year comparisons were also affected by approximately $450,000 of onetime adjusted EBITDAr addbacks recorded in the second quarter of 2025, consisting of preopening costs and expenses related to the Hilton Rose closure, further reducing comparability between periods.

More importantly, Century has now completed the transition of its portfolio with no gaming license expirations scheduled over the next 2 years.

Now back to you, Peter.

Thank you, Irwin. And I'll now go over some balance sheet items and share our outlook for the rest of the year with you. Our cash and cash equivalents as of June 30 were $60.2 million, up slightly from the first quarter. During Q2, we vested $3.1 million in CapEx, primarily on gaming equipment bringing year-to-date CapEx to $5.7 million. For the second half of the year, the CapEx forecast is approximately $9.5 million, resulting in total CapEx for 2026 of about $15 million net debt of EUR 26.3 million a small improvement over the previous quarter. Again, later, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio improved to 6.5x, which excludes the onetime [indiscernible] currency, which we paid off earlier this year. We now expect debt ratio to further reduce to well below 6x by the end of the year.

We are now heading into our strongest cash flow quarter and are seeing positive indications that the business is on the right track to more manageable levels of leverage. And as liquidity improves, we look for opportunities to reduce our debt balances.

I'd also like to note that we have no debt maturities for 3 years from now that is until Q2 of 2029.

As mentioned in previous earnings calls, 2026 is a year of execution and harvesting for us, and we're off to a good start. I would say that July seems very much like another month with double-digit EBITDA growth, which is great. Across the board, we're actually feeling really good for the remainder of the year. Even Poland had a much better July, generating almost as much EBITDA in the month as it did in the entire first half of the year.

Regional consumer has been remarkably resilient through the noise that we've seen in the last couple of quarters. Regional and local business was solid. We expect to continue to benefit from strong improvements and performances at the Nugget as well as in Colorado and from the continued ramp of the new land-based facility in [indiscernible].

Cash flow-wise, in addition to higher EBITDAr, we expect to benefit from decreasing CapEx. We spent a total of $18 million last year. We expect that to come down to around $15 million this year. As things move forward, we remain focused on improving our free cash flow generation by optimizing our corporate overhead to remain disciplined with our capital.

So in all, we are pleased with our second quarter performance, which was driven by our diversified business model, broad-based growth in place from our core group in customers and the success of our recent capital investments.

That concludes our remarks, and we are now ready to take questions from analysts.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Jeff Stantial of Stifel.

Maybe starting off in the U.S. and specifically in Missouri, a really strong quarter here. Curious just how much you think this has been driven or health side of February ruling on skill games and enforcement that seemed to have started bought late Q1, early Q2? And then moving forward, if this has been a big tailwind for those assets, how do you think about this moving forward just based on your read of how many machines that are -- or previously in the state have been rendered and active in sort of the pace of enforcement going forward?

Okay. Thanks for the question, Jeff. Lyle, why don't you take that, please?

Yes, absolutely. Obviously, we're very excited about the action that the Missouri Attorney General took this spring and with the ruling regarding these illegal games in the state. And so we do think that there's positive impact. In Q2, those impacts were likely kind of spread towards the -- closer to the end of the quarter as we still saw it locally, especially still locations that had those games. And in fact, we still see some of those. So we think that there's still continued improvement with the enforcement that we may even see additional opportunity as Missouri begins to enforce the law and get those legal games out of these locations.

And our next question comes from Jordan Bender of Citizens.

Lyle, I actually want to maybe start with you. And you ran through a lot of comments and a very comprehensive kind of overview of the portfolio. In the couple of months that you've been here, I guess, can you just talk about any of the low-hanging fruit that you think can immediately be addressed to help -- the assets seem to be performing pretty well. But are there any kind of low-hanging fruit to help these assets perform even better that you can see over the last couple of months?

Well, as I mentioned, there were a lot of the groundwork has been set. But certainly, one of the keys is that we want to ensure that our slot floors are maximized for each of the markets. One of the things we're seeing is that the slot customer is changing today, a customer may see a game on social media. They may watch an influencer playing it, and they come in, they expect to find that game. And we want to be competitive in that environment. That means getting newer games and product on the floor, whether that's conversions, just making sure we're utilizing our least product as best we can. We're going to be very careful about how we do that. We just want to maximize our return on that investment.

We may not, in some of our markets have be able to compete with the newest building or -- but what we can do is we can compete on the quality of the gaming experience on those gaming floors. So to me, that's the key piece. And that's what rest of the business will revolve around, right? The -- making sure that we have the games people want to play, the slot floors optimized and then all the other pieces start to come together, then we can start driving database marketing and pushing those people into give us another try.

I mean there's large opportunities in the -- within our inactive and really those -- that deep in active to get people back to these properties and to show them the improvements that we've made. So again, I think there's I see opportunity really across the portfolio.

That was great. And then maybe on the follow-up or just in general, Alberta online gaming just launched a couple of weeks ago. Are you guys seeing any cannibalization from your properties for people who are now just playing out Casino online?

Thanks for the question. No, we don't. Maybe it's too early, but maybe it's not happening at all. It may well be that it's neutral fertilization to an extent.

And our next question comes from Chad Beynon of Macquarie Group.

This is Aaron on for Chad. Nice results from the nugget again this quarter. It looks like everything is coming together really nicely there. Can you just remind us what operational initiatives, if any, remain unfinished at that property? And how much incremental EBITDAr opportunity you believe remains over the next, let's say, 12 to 24 months?

Great question, Chad. That's a question we asked our sales center. We can give you a detailed answer. And again, Lyle, why don't you take it and guide set for what we've met out?

Yes. I think that -- I mean these initiatives are ongoing, and we're seeing the results of those each week. And as we see the results coming in, we're continuing to see where we've made adjustments, and we're seeing the positive results from that. With that being said, we still think that there's a lot of ramp up and a lot of opportunity as we move forward. And we're going to try to get that. We're going to try to, again, as was previously mentioned, look for that -- the lowest hanging fruit and try to adjust those things.

The things we can we can move quickly are the -- making sure that, obviously, expenses that we're controlling those pieces. But again, driving additional gaming revenue that's going to flow quickly and again, making sure that our database marketing and our marketing efforts in general are focused on driving the right things.

If you go out to the Nugget, you would see I mean these entertainment events, all the different things. We had the fourth of July celebration that brought 10,000 people to the property around our facility. Those things are bringing people and the market is there. Again, we just have to make sure we're prepared to maximize the revenue and the profitability as we bring those folks in. And that's what we're going to be focused on.

Great. That's perfect. And then maybe 1 on Poland. Can you just give us some more color on the signs of improvement that you mentioned in that market? And how we should be thinking about the balance of the year as Recall ramps?

Yes. That's harder to predict. But by experience, we know every time we open a new location, there's a certain ramp-up time. And we see that now with the WartoftCasino as well. So we hope that in the second quarter, this new second otoscasino will ramp up to the full capacity. And other than that, it's really -- we've just been rated with these changes in the licensing. So that is now more pittable. As we said earlier, we don't have any licenses coming up during the next 2 years. So whilst it's hard to predict, we're positive that -- or let's say, the various elements that we had will come back together again soon.

And our next question comes from Ryan Sigdahl of Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Welcome, Lyle, to the call. Lyle, you mentioned theoretical win increased across several of the properties. I guess, I know slot optimization you mentioned. But I guess curious, given fairly known casino floor when theoretical wins, I guess, what's the driving force there?

Look, we absolutely have seen the improved player. I think part of -- most of that is really driven in 2 aspects. Again, we're making sure that we have the slot product that people want to play on the floor, particularly those higher-value customers and then marking to them in the right way. And so those 2 pieces. And again, we see that across multiple properties. Even in some properties where we may have a little bit of decline in some of the lower segments. All of our properties saw that higher ADT customer improve.

And again, I think that's what you're going to see as we continue to work to make sure that we've optimized these -- the slot floor and then really trying to go out and we have to then tell the people, tell those customers that maybe have not visited in a while, here's the reason to come back.

And then maybe for Peter or Erwin. Poland, historically, I thought of this as kind of a $10 million a year EBITDA business. I know several negative moving pieces in Q2 that sounded like they've improved in July. But I guess is that still the right assumption? Or how should we think about that business? Or how do you think about it on a go-forward basis?

I'm hesitant to predict, Peter, how do you feel about it? I mean the elements are there to come back to the $10 million, but it's hard to say how and how quickly.

Yes, I would say -- also the table hold has normalized since June. That's also the July results. But overall, I think $10 million was really the upper range that we saw over the last, say, 5 to 6, 7 years. I think we had it right after COVID. But the normalized number is more around $8 million, I would say. And as you know, beyond 2/3 of it.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Connor Parks of CBRE.

With all the major properties performing well, another quarter of solid growth here and free cash flow turning in quarter, how has this impacted the portfolio sale discussions and M&A conversation, if at all? And then I guess somewhat related to that, my usual question on the term loan, where are we kind of in the review process and what are the puts and takes of how you are thinking about the deleveraging discussion?

Okay. Peter, can you take that, please?

Yes, happy to. In terms of the sales process, it's an over the last about 3 quarters or so we have looked very hard at that. And given the diverse nature of our portfolio, we've explored a number of different avenues to unlock value. And we're currently focused on monetizing our international operations to become a fully U.S.-centric company and reduce leverage. We made progress on these initiatives slow -- slowly but surely. Poland is the more difficult one with the war next door and that challenging regulatory environment, partly 2 groups are in due diligence works. We've not given exclusivity to anybody. So let's see what the outcome there is we should get more clarity in a couple of months. But -- very hard to say.

And in Canada, we've 2 packages, and we could sell all 4 together or we go the direction of selling the 2 racinos in 1 package and the 2 commercial casinos in another package, there is interest for both. And again, one is a little bit more ahead than the other think that, at least for one of those packages, we should be able to publicly disclose something before the end of the year. And that impacts the term loan B.

Day down because with our current cash position, yes, we have some free delivery, but we'd rather wait until we have more clarity on the asset sales. And then you can make a meaningful pay down. Also, we are in discussions with our lenders. We get more flexibility. So this is all ongoing, and that's all I can comment on. We continue to make progress on all these initiatives and we'll update the market when the definitive transaction to announce.

Great. I really appreciate the color there. And then maybe just last 1 for me. To ask the Alberta iGaming and sports betting question the other way, is there any opportunity in Alberta to be able to partner with any of these operators that have entered the market? Or is there a potential for new customers coming into the casinos as they're exposed to iGaming opportunities or anything of that sort?

I don't see anything.

For the retail or the spot book. That's a possibility for the -- for our retail sports book. not so much for and I would agree with earlier. And it also depends on how those sales negotiations are developing because some interested parties as their own like go way of handling that and some not. So we -- at the moment, we played by year -- some of those sports betting companies have knocked on outdoors, and we are in like, let's say, early stage talks again because we want to wait and see what those sales process is bring.

And that is all the time we have for today. 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. Hoetzinger for closing remarks.

I thank everybody, and we appreciate you joining our call today. token in early November to discuss the results of the third quarter. And then, thanks a lot, and goodbye.

Thank you. This does conclude today's Century Casinos Q2 2026 Earnings Call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's Century Casinos Q1 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] 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 Hoetzinger. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. Before we start, 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 the 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 Investors section of our website at cnty.com.

With me today are my Co-CEO, Erwin Haitzmann; and our Chief Financial Officer, Margaret Stapleton. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions from analysts.

I'm pleased to report that our diversified portfolio delivered a strong solid quarter as net operating revenue increased by 5%. That is an all-time record for us. We never had higher revenues in the first quarter in the history of the company. Congrats to all staff members and the management teams at our properties.

Our performance was encouraging across the board. The growth was broad-based. Every single property in the U.S. and Canada had higher revenues than in Q1 of last year. And that strong revenue performance also translated well to profitability with adjusted EBITDAR increasing 24% year-over-year.

Highlights of the quarter include the 93% EBITDAR increase at the Nugget as well as the ongoing ramp and strong performances of both Missouri properties. And also on the EBITDAR level, every single property in the U.S. and Canada grew compared to Q1 of last year. We achieved that growth despite the extra costs and the slow ramping new casino in Poland. Strong operating discipline led to improved flow-through with some property margins in the high 30s and even above 40%.

In the quarter, we benefited from growth across core and retail customers, from improving weather conditions as well as from a predominantly local repeat customer base, a diversified portfolio and limited exposure to new supply. As mentioned in our last call, we have been seeing solid trends since around December of last year despite higher gas prices. At most of our properties, the majority of our customers live within a 45-minute drive. Hence, the overall economy, inflation and especially employment are more impactful and meaningful than gas prices alone.

And I would say we're also seeing some benefit from tax refunds being higher year-over-year, offset by a less favorable macro geopolitical backdrop. Our properties are spread across five states and one Canadian province. And these positive results were also supported by the ongoing trend of customers staying closer to home and spending their money closer to home.

Across the entire U.S. portfolio, the trend of strong play from high value and core customer segments continued. Overall, rated revenue increased 5%, emphasized by solid growth in the high and mid-ADT segments and in all age groups. And last but not least, we benefited from strong returns from the capital investments we've made over the last 2-plus years. These investments have finally entered the contribution phase, contributing to EBITDA growth and helping us to start deleveraging the balance sheet.

With that, now over to Erwin for more color on our individual properties.

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. In the United States, we had an excellent first quarter with year-over-year revenue and EBITDAR growth at each property. Beginning in the East with Rocky Gap Casino, Resort & Golf in Maryland. There, revenue increased 6.5% from $13.9 million to $14.8 million, and EBITDAR increased 32% from $1.6 million to $2.2 million. Rocky Gap had a strong quarter with total revenue up nearly 10% and NOR up 6.5%, driven by solid gains in visitation in January and February. Slot revenue rose 16%, boosted by improved hold. The property's direct mail digitization initiative, which we introduced for guests aged 39 and younger, is delivering meaningful savings in marketing spend while maintaining engagement.

Payroll discipline continued with total payroll up only 1.6% despite annual increases. Operating expenses were down 5.2%. On the customer side, rated gaming revenue grew 21%, high ADT customers accounted for 33% of total gaming revenue and grew 39%. We are seeing growth across all age groups with seniors up 28% and middle-aged and young adults each up 14%. Non-local customers now account for more than half of rated gaming revenue, reflecting the property's continued draw as a destination resort. We experienced some softness in March, likely driven by higher gas prices. Looking ahead, the team has activated targeted campaigns in Pennsylvania ahead of the opening of a new casino in State College, which is approximately 2 hours from Rocky Gap.

Continuing with Mountaineer Casino, Resort & Races in West Virginia. Revenue increased 3.9% from $23.2 million to $24.1 million, and EBITDAR increased 24% from $2.6 million to $3.2 million. Mountaineer's Q1 result was driven by expense discipline and moderate revenue growth. Total revenue was essentially flat, while NOR improved 3.9% due to a $0.7 million reduction in free play. Our digital channels continued their strong growth. iGaming revenue was up 48% year-over-year and sports betting was up 285%. Hotel occupancy held steady with higher cash and lower comp revenue. Adults 40 to 59 years old grew 12% and young adults grew 24% in rated gaming revenue. These are encouraging signs for the property's customer base development. Local customers grew 11% and now account for 81% of rated revenue, reflecting Mountaineer's position as a regional entertainment anchor in West Virginia's northern panhandle.

Now on to our Midwest portfolio, starting in Missouri. At Century Casino & Hotel Cape Girardeau, revenue increased 6.4% from $17.1 million to $18.2 million, and EBITDA increased 12% from $6.1 million to $6.9 million. Cape Girardeau had a strong quarter. The increase in net operating revenue was driven by excellent slot performance. Slot revenue was up 6.5% and guest volumes were up 8%. Our retail sportsbook, which launched in December '25, is already averaging 17% of Missouri's total sports betting handle and is ranked second in the state, an impressive early result.

The Riverview hotel continues to perform well with occupancy rising to 76% from 68% in Q1 of last year. Comp hotel guests are generating an average ADT of more than $400, confirming the strong link between hotel stay and gaming value. Illinois patronage is rebounding with unique patrons up 6% over prior year. The competitive picture, which includes Walker's Bluff and Metropolis in Illinois remains manageable.

Now to our Century Casino & Hotel Caruthersville. There, revenue increased 3.1% from $14.2 million to $14.6 million, and EBITDA increased 5% from $6.1 million to $6.3 million. Caruthersville continues to deliver strong, consistent results from its well-established permanent facility. Both slots and tables delivered positive revenue growth with slots up 7% and tables up 2%. High ADT customers grew 23% and Missouri patronage grew by 22%. Trips from patrons living more than 75 miles away increased by 20%, a clear indicator that the new facility is drawing from a broader geographic catchment area. Also note that there was a onetime favorable settlement of $225,000 in Q1 of last year. On an apples-to-apples basis, EBITDAR growth was 9%.

I continue with Colorado. At Century Casino & Hotel Cripple Creek, revenue increased 8.6% from $4.1 million to $4.4 million, and EBITDAR increased 37% from $1.1 million to $1.5 million. Cripple Creek had a very good quarter. The elimination of table games at the start of 2025 continues to prove its worth. The electronic table games lounge is popular among our guests, especially young adults. Accordingly, this age group shows the strongest growth. Payroll and benefits were down $70,000 or nearly 5% and total expenses fell 1.5%. The result is a clean, lean operation with further improved profitability.

Customer trends show healthy growth in both unrated and non-local play, which we attribute to our successful marketing initiatives and our continued focus on customer satisfaction. Rated gaming revenue grew 5% with mid- and low-ADT segments each up more than 15%.

In the Century Casino & Hotel Central City, revenue was up 4% from $4.4 million to $4.6 million, and EBITDAR more than quadrupled from $200,000 to over $1 million. Central City's improvement continued in Q1. The removal of table games, which we implemented at the start of 2025, has significantly improved the property's cost profile. Total expenses were down $600,000 year-over-year with payroll and benefits alone down $313,000. Slot revenue was flat with prior year. The EBITDAR improvement is substantial and reflects a better managed operation.

We're also seeing some improvement in unrated and non-local play at Central City. Hotel cash revenue was up 10% with a strong Q2 event calendar, including the 20th anniversary challenge, a multi-month promotion culminating in the car, trips or cash drawing on July 5.

Now to the West and the Nugget Casino Resort in Reno-Sparks. Revenue increased 4% from $16.4 million to $17.1 million, and EBITDAR increased 93% from $0.7 million to $1.4 million. The Nugget's EBITDAR doubling is significant as expenses were flat, the increase in revenue was fully flowing through to EBITDAR. Hotel cash revenue was up $1 million, which is a 31% increase. F&B cash revenue was up 7%, demonstrating that the non-gaming amenities are gaining traction. Unrated gaming grew 16%, suggesting growing walk-in visitation, aided by the increased hotel occupancy and improved entertainment offers. The concert lineup for this year is excellent. The Brooks & Dunn concert on April 25 was sold out. The acts still to come include Keith Urban, Lady A, Shinedown, Miranda Lambert and Kansas and Deep Purple.

Now to Canada. Our portfolio in Alberta, Canada consists of Century Casino & Hotel Edmonton, Century Casino St. Albert in the Edmonton Metropolitan area, Century Mile Racetrack and Casino to the south of Edmonton and Century Downs Racetrack and Casino to the north of Calgary. These properties performed very well in Q1, too. Combined revenue increased 10.9% from USD 16.5 million to USD 18.3 million, and combined EBITDAR increased 26% from USD 4.4 million to USD 5.5 million.

We saw another quarter of solid performance at our Alberta operations. The renovation of the exterior facade at our St. Albert Casino, which was completed last year, has significantly improved results. And our Century Mile Racetrack and Casino achieved the best quarterly performance since its opening in 2019. We completed the construction of sports bars at all four sites and are well prepared to offer retail sports betting, which will be permitted in Alberta at casinos and select sports sites later in 2026.

Finally, moving to Poland, where revenue increased 2.3% from USD 20.6 million to USD 21.1 million, and EBITDAR decreased 8% from $550,000 million to -- $550,000 to $0.5 million. The challenging period marked by license delays and relocations has ended, and we can focus on improving overall results. Our second Wroclaw location started operations in February of this year and is expected to further strengthen our position. While revenue is showing a small increase already, EBITDAR is down by 8%. We attribute this decrease to lower-than-normal replacement CapEx given the intent to sell the Poland subsidiary. All current licenses are valid through at least 2028, and we expect stable operations going forward.

With that, back to you, Peter.

Thank you, Erwin. Let's now go over some capital and balance sheet items and share our outlook for the rest of the year with you. As reported, adjusted EBITDAR for the quarter was $24.9 million versus $20.2 million last year. Cash rent was $18 million versus $16.3 million, resulting in adjusted EBITDAR of $7 million this year versus $3.9 million last year, an 80% increase. Our cash and cash equivalents as of March 31 were $60 million. We spent approximately $3 million in CapEx in the quarter, mainly on gaming equipment, the new casino in Poland as well as on other small projects throughout the different properties.

Total debt outstanding was $337 million, resulting in net debt of $277 million. At the end of the quarter, our net debt-to-EBITDAR ratio remained unchanged at 6.9x. Lease adjusted, the ratio was 7.6x, again, unchanged from the previous quarter. Importantly, we are now heading into the stronger cash flow quarters and are seeing positive indications that the business is on the right track to lower leverage to more manageable levels of leverage. Let me also note that we have no debt maturities for the next 3 years, that is until Q2 of 2029.

Reducing leverage is a top priority throughout the remainder of the year as share repurchases are on the back burner. As mentioned in previous earnings calls, 2026 will be a year of execution and harvesting for us. While we have the rest of the year still to deliver, I'm happy to report we are off to a good start. I would say that April feels very much like a continuation of Q1, which is good. We are not seeing any cracks in the armor. Across the board, we're actually feeling really good for the remainder of the year. We see a solid trend continuing into the second quarter, and we see a clear path forward to higher EBITDAR and cash flow for 2026 and beyond.

The regional consumer has been remarkably resilient through the noise that we have seen in the last couple of months. Regional and local business feels firm. We expect to benefit from strong improvements and performances at the Nugget as well as in Colorado and from the continued ramp of the new land-based facility in Caruthersville. Cash flow-wise, in addition to higher EBITDAR, we expect to benefit from decreasing CapEx. Whilst we spent a total of $18 million of our cash for CapEx in 2025, we expect that amount to come down to between $14 million and $15 million for this year. That is all normal capital cycle stuff. We have no big projects around the corner. As you know, we just came off a large capital expenditure program. So it's quite natural that we now spend some time harvesting that cash flow to strengthen our balance sheet.

As things move forward, we will remain focused on improving our free cash flow generation while optimizing our corporate overhead and remaining disciplined with our capital. As for our strategic review process, it is still ongoing, and we continue to make good progress. Selected assets are under exclusivity agreements. Hence, we cannot make public comments right now and ask for your understanding that we will not take questions on this topic in our Q&A session.

And with that, can we please open the line for our first questions from analysts, operator? Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Jeff Stantial with Stifel.

Maybe starting off, I'd love to just dig into the quarter a little bit. The margins was really the piece of things that surprised us the most to the upside. Erwin, you gave us a lot of different data points at the asset level to help us think about it. I guess maybe to tie it all together and think about things at a more macro level, can you just talk about sort of how much of the margin expansion you saw in Q1 was sort of more onetime in nature, whether that's easier flow-through comps on weather impact or certain initiatives that played out versus how much is sort of more structural in nature? I guess, put another way, like how should we think about flow-through, assuming revenue kind of holds stable as the year progresses?

Jeff, thanks for the question. I think it's twofold. There was a little bit of a weather impact as last year -- in Q1, there was inclement weather in a few of our properties. But that's only for a certain portion of the increase. I think the larger portion is that we ran an initiative across all properties, pushing one more time for really searching for possibilities for cost savings, both on the property side, but also on the corporate level, where we were checking all agreements again for could we not get advantages in purchasing, for example, by combining the purchasing power all across the United States. Just browsing through all the larger and also the smaller agreements, some of which we just said we don't need anymore, we can replace by in-house services.

And as I said, we just wanted to give it a push and encouraged everyone to look at all the costs with a fresh eye. That was the second part. And the third part was that we did the same thing for the marketing side, where again, we encouraged everyone to rethink everything and make new proposals, see whether there is anything we haven't done, we should try and encourage new initiatives. And that showed good results. In some cases, exceptional results.

And then maybe actually just double-clicking on that last point. So the marketing initiatives, I think you talked about marketing costs being down at Rocky Gap. I think you mentioned -- you pulled back that on free play at Mountaineer. Can you just talk about sort of the process a little bit more? How do you decide where to pull back on, whether it's on marketing or promos? And then is there any sort of player level data or analysis that you've put together that you can share with us that shows that this isn't going to have an impact, whether immediately or longer term on player behavior?

Yes, I can -- I mean the format wouldn't allow to go into all details, but I'll give you examples. As I mentioned earlier, in Rocky Gap, we changed the mailers, and we said everybody 39 and younger will only get e-mails and not a physical mailer anymore. That saves money, obviously. And we think we can -- for the obvious reason, that makes sense, and that has been very well accepted and was starting to save some costs.

Another example would be, for example, at the Nugget, where we significantly increased the points that we gave, for example, at the table games. We increased the points we give by fourfold, 4x as many as before. And in the slots for a month or 2, we said we double what we give back, but it's working so well that we might continue with that campaign for a longer period of time. And we'll continue to do more of that. So I could give you more examples, but it's just property by property. As new ideas come up, we encourage them to try and see what works.

And our next question will come from Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum.

Alberta, nice quarter, really strong results, both revenue and profit-wise. How much was there an impact from the macroeconomic, higher oil prices, et cetera, versus company-specific initiatives?

Ryan, thanks for the question. It's really hard to say that. In Alberta, we used to say when the oil prices are high, then the revenues are better, but that's not necessarily true anymore and cannot be linked directly. I think it's a similar thing. We also made a marketing push there and encouraged all the managers who are doing a wonderful job to take some more share ideas with us. And as I said, we encourage them to try new things and some of them work really well. And it seems that the customers -- this fresh wind is also going through to the customers and then ultimately through the income statement.

And just on free cash flow, good to hear kind of the confidence in that increasing. A couple of years ago, you were targeting $30 million plus of free cash flow. I guess, can you talk to -- is that still a realistic target timeline to get there and then the levers you plan to pull?

Peter, can I turn it over to you?

Yes. Ryan, we think that with the improvements that we have made to our portfolio over the last couple of years, our asset portfolio is certainly capable of doing that. We need the low-end consumer to come back a little bit more than what we currently are seeing. And with that, with the continued improvements that we are making, especially the Nugget, which we believe has the highest potential upside, that is certainly the goal in the next 2 or 3 years.

And our next question will come from Chad Beynon with Macquarie.

I wanted to talk about the Nugget. You spoke about the strong concert calendar that we can see on your website here. So it looks really good over the next couple of months and conventions could be up. So not looking specifically for numbers. I mean, really good to see the strong EBITDAR increase for Q1, but is there a way for us to think about just visitation to the market or how meaningful these bigger concerts could be for the summer period? And if you usually see higher play at the slot machines and table games during these periods as well?

Definitely. Thanks for the question, Chad. The concerts are meaningful from various perspectives. First of all, we believe that we have the most attractive outdoor venue in the market, in the Reno-Sparks market. And it's popular not only with the guests, it's also popular with the artists, obviously. Then yes, definitely such a concert is not only -- the economic result of the concert is not only ticket sales minus cost for the artist and production, but it's a lot around it. It's the food and beverage revenue that is made in the Nugget Event Center, which is meaningful. If organized well, contributes a lot.

But then it's also very important to get the customers over to the casino. And we see that there is a significant lift in casino revenue, in food and beverage revenue over at the casino in the various restaurant outlets. And also for the night of the concert and the night before and the night after, we see a significant increase in hotel revenues. Of course, we're also selling packages where we sell hotel rooms together with concert tickets. We market that as well. So such a -- a successful concert can be really meaningful. And Brooks & Dunn was one of those that was sold out and had a fantastic impact on the numbers.

Okay. Great. And then with respect to Poland on the cost side or the margin improvement, does this feel like it's more of a onetime issue in the first quarter and you guys can return to growth when you get past some of that? Or do you need revenues to increase from here to see EBITDAR increase year-over-year?

We mainly think we need the ramp-up of the second Wroclaw casino mainly. So that took a little bit longer than we had hoped for, but it's coming now. And so yes, we are looking for the increase in revenue to increase EBITDA. We've had that before when we had these closures and openings. And sometimes it goes quickly, and in other instances, it takes a little bit longer until the customers are then coming back.

Our next question will come from Connor Parks with CBRE.

I appreciate the comments around leverage and the prioritization of leverage here going forward. I guess, as you hit this inflection point in free cash flow, at what point might you start to use some cash on hand or internal liquidity to start to buy back the loan in the open market, especially considering where the loan has traded over the past few months?

Okay. Thanks for the question, Connor. Peter?

Yes. Connor, that is definitely the thing to do. We are planning to sell Poland, as we have said. And the next market that is noncore after Poland is obviously Canada. And then we have now heading into the stronger months of positive cash flow from operations. So these are the three sources of cash. And as you probably have seen in our 10-Q filing, we have reached an agreement with one holder of the Term Loan B that allows us to tender some of -- up to a certain amount of the term loan at a specified discount. We didn't have that agreement before our Term Loan B contract and the agreement obliged us to use proceeds from asset sales to buy back the Term Loan B at par. And that was obviously not the most productive thing to do. Now that we have that in place, we will definitely use proceeds from either asset sales or positive operating cash flow to pay down some of that Term Loan B, a priority.

Great. All makes sense. And then as a follow-up on that same announcement from yesterday evening, the addition of a new Board member. Impressive gaming background for him, specifically the Mohegan Tribe. I guess what type of role if you're able to share, do you expect him to play, whether it be operationally with the balance sheet or kind of all the above?

That's probably a little bit early to say. Mitchell has just joined our Board yesterday or today officially, and will get started soon. He will start visiting our properties, and he certainly will make his offer to make his experience available and will share his thoughts with us. And we believe this can be very -- we're excited about it. We believe this can be very fruitful and positive to get further input from somebody with a background like Mitchell has for the properties of Century Casinos.

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. Hoetzinger for closing remarks.

I would like to just thank everybody for joining the call. We appreciate that. We'll talk again in August when we'll present the results of the second quarter. Until then, thank you, and goodbye.

Thank you. This does conclude today's Century Casinos Q1 2026 Earnings Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Century Casinos Q4 2025 Earnings Call.

[Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded.

Now I'll turn the call over to your host, Peter Hoetzinger. 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 refer to several non-GAAP financial measures, including but not limited to adjusted EBITDAR. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our news releases and SEC filings available in the Investors section of our website at cnty.com.

With me today are my Co-CEO, Erwin Haitzmann; and our Chief Financial Officer, Margaret Stapleton. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions from analysts.

Century Casinos delivered solid results in 2025 with full year adjusted EBITDAR 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, EBITDAR 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 cold winter weather in December, but adjusted EBITDAR was up 13%. We delivered double-digit EBITDAR growth at several of our casinos, including in Colorado, at Mountaineer in West Virginia and in Caruthersville, Missouri. And at the Nugget in Reno, EBITDAR 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 GGR 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 Century Casino & Hotel Caruthersville had a fantastic quarter and year. EBITDAR in Q4 increased from $4.9 million to $6.1 million. EBITDAR in 2025 grew from $19 million to $24.4 million, a $5.4 million or 28% increase. Rents 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 & Hotel Caruthersville as a $12 million EBITDAR 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 EBITDAR by 2023. With the transition to the permanent casino and hotel building accomplished in November '24, Caruthersville is now an almost $25 million EBITDAR property, effectively more than doubling EBITDAR within the last 6 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, that's $400-plus ADT, middle-aged customers aged between 40 and 59, 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 & Hotel Cape Girardeau. Our property in Girardeau saw declines in both the quarter and the year. EBITDAR in Q4 decreased from $6.8 million to $5.9 million. And EBITDAR for all of '25 decreased from $25.6 million to $24.7 million.

In 2025, Century Casino Cape Girardeau lost some market share to our property in Caruthersville, which it gained in '24 when Caruthersville was in a temporary facility with limited space and amenities. Both properties are only 85 miles apart.

When we acquired Century 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 EBITDAR 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 sports book. All these amenities complement Century Casino Cape Girardeau, which is without doubt one of the best small casino resorts in the United States.

The 2025 EBITDAR of $24.7 million was achieved despite a new competitor in one of Cape Girardeau's feeder market, 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 Century Casino & Hotel Cripple Creek, EBITDAR in Q4 increased from $1.1 million to $1.5 million. EBITDAR in all of 2025 decreased from $7.5 million to $6.3 million. The year-over-year EBITDAR comparison, however, is skewed by a onetime termination payment of $1.1 million received from a sports betting provider in 2024. Therefore, without this, EBITDAR at Cripple Creek would have been almost flat year-over-year.

At Century Casino & Hotel Central City, EBITDAR in Q4 increased from $0.5 million to $0.7 million. EBITDAR in 2025 in total decreased from $4.9 million to $3 million. The year-over-year EBITDAR comparison is also skewed by a onetime 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 Century 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. Both 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 for 2026.

Now to the East, starting with Mountaineer in West Virginia. EBITDAR in Q4 increased from $2.6 million to $3 million and EBITDAR in all of '25 increased from $13.1 million to $14.1 million.

Mountaineer's full year 2025 performance may be summarized as follows. The first 4 months were challenging due to unusually severe weather conditions. That was followed by 7 strong months. And the year ended with further weather-related challenges in December. The drivers of EBITDAR 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 we acquired 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 Mountaineer's customers come from.

The margins at this property has 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 -- in the East to Rocky Gap. EBITDAR at Rocky Gap in Q4 declined from $3.2 million to $2.9 million. And EBITDAR 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 Gap 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 '25, weather hit the property hard, with much of the bad weather occurring on weekends. On the other hand, the first 2 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 Nugget Casino Resort in Reno-Sparks. EBITDAR in Q4 increased from $1.1 million to $1.3 million, and EBITDAR in all of '25 declined from $9.7 million 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 3 years, we have significantly improved the amenities at the Nugget and continue to do so. We reduced the operating expenses where possible and revamped the marketing programs.

As for 2025, we hope this was the last transitional year. For 2026, with an excellent lineup of concerts, including Brooks & Dunn, who have sold out already, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Shinedown and Miranda Lambert.

The changes to the loyalty program are showing improvements in customer return visits and group business is rebounding. We also brought in a new GM with extensive experience, including in the Reno-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 [ facade work ] completed in the second quarter of the year and a disciplined cost management across all 4 sites.

In 2025, the slot coin-in was up 4%, net operating revenue up 2% in local currency and EBITDAR up 1% to $20.3 million. In Q4, the slot coin-in was up 4%, net operating revenue up 5% and EBITDAR up 5% to $4.9 million.

In Poland, the challenging period marked by license delays and relocation has ended, and we can focus on improving overall results. Our second Warsaw location started operations in February 2026, further strengthening our position there. In the fourth quarter, net operating revenue is up 4% and EBITDAR 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 31 were $69 million. We spent approximately $4.5 million in CapEx in the quarter, mainly for the new retail sports book at Cape G in Missouri, for gaming equipment and exterior upgrades at Mountaineer and Rocky Gap, 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-EBITDAR ratio remained unchanged at 6.9x. On a lease-adjusted basis, the ratio was 7.6x, again unchanged from the third quarter. Let me also note that we have no debt maturities for 3 years from now, that is until Q2 of 2029.

Looking ahead, we see a good path forward to higher EBITDAR 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 Caruthersville.

Consumer benefits from tax cuts in the OBBB should be additional catalyst 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 million 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 EBITDAR are up significantly compared to last year. Every single property in the U.S. and Canada is showing double-digit EBITDAR growth, especially highlighting great performances at both Colorado Casinos, the Nugget as well as Rocky Gap and Canada.

I'll give a couple of examples. At Cape G, 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 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 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 or 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.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Jordan Bender of Citizens Bank.

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 opine or elaborate on where you're seeing that? Is that specific properties? Any region of the country? That would be great.

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

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

I understand, yes. 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 increase in hotels on the retail side as well.

Perfect. 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 oil or gas prices. Nor did we see -- it's not going that directly. The oil price goes up, but it doesn't mean that the salaries of the employees go up right away.

Next, we have Ryan Sigdahl Craig-Hallum Capital.

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 presales 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 large conferences have quite some lead time. So in the large -- in this quarter, we were able to secure a few large conferences for the years 2030, '31 and '32, so it's really long perspective we're looking at. But it's still very good. It's good to know that there is still demand and that we're able -- people like the property, they like it. Particularly the large companies like them a lot. And that's a good sign for us and solid.

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

Our next question comes from Chad Beynon of Macquarie Group.

Thanks for the commentary at the outset. Focusing on Missouri, great to see everything that's occurred there at Caruthersville 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?

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

Okay. And do you have a sense of -- are there a number of these machines just within proximity? I know Caruthersville is a farther-out-reaching catchment area, but I'm assuming there's games close in the 30-mile range. Is that -- I guess, maybe just confirm that that's the case for the 2 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 that could accelerate?

We don't see anything unusual with regard to promotions from them and also 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 to hear the progress in January and February. Thank you.

From Stifel, we have Jeff Stantial.

Maybe starting off on Missouri. Erwin, 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 OpEx base that we should be contemplating?

Okay. Concerning the cost and stabilization, I think Caruthersville is a model property when it comes to cost. I mean 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, there is -- we see upside on the revenue side. We will continue to market the hotel rooms. There is still some room for both -- in both properties of Missouri, and we are 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, hotel -- both casino and hotel.

One thing that might be worth mentioning is that, as you know, we said it earlier, we have the sports book facility in Cape Girardeau that is so successful that in itself helps a lot also to further solidify and have as a round product and a resort area where players find everything they want.

That's helpful, Erwin. And then maybe just as a quick housekeeping item, is there any chance, do you know off the top of head what -- how much of an impact weather had on revenues and EBITDAR 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 really anything to mention.

Okay. So no number to share for Q4, but it sounds like it was relatively...

I can't give you a number, but there wasn't like a disastrous snow weekend. So we didn't have that, so which is good.

Next, we have Connor Parks of CBRE Investment Bank.

Maybe just a capital allocation one for me, maybe absent the strategic review that remains ongoing. I guess what's the approach to share repurchases against debt paydown 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, how are you looking at maybe weighing share repo against the balance sheet at this point in time?

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

Yes. 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-a-vis share repurchases.

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 paydown.

Understood. Looking forward to hearing more on that. I'll leave it at that. We covered a lot of ground here.

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.

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 will 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 Investors section of our website at cmty.com. With me today are my co-CEO, Erwin Haitzmann; 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. EBITDAR in July was up 7%. August was even better with EBITDAR up 22%, but September saw a sharp year-over-year decline due to the following onetime 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 $0.5 million reversed. In this September, Poland had extra costs but no revenue from a closed casino.

As such, you can attribute the EBITDAR decline in Q3 all to Poland and the onetime effects in September I just mentioned. Adjusting for those, Q3 EBITDAR 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 U.S. 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 Irwin, let me come back to Poland for a second. From now on, no license expirations are coming up for at least 3 years. So Poland should be at its normalized EBITDAR run rate for many quarters to come. In any case, however, we remain committed to divesting our Poland operations and we'll provide updates on the divestment process in the coming months 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 VICI lease that funded the new property and operating margins remain high. It is worth noting that with our new land-based facilities, we're now reaching new markets. This is particularly evident in the significant increase in customers leaving 75-plus miles from Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs 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-owned 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 pace in 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. EBITDAR came in at $1.2 million, up 20% on a comparable basis as last year's EBITDA of $2 million included a $1 million onetime 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, EBITDAR was $4.4 million, flat to last year. Apples-to-apples, though, EBITDAR was up $0.5 million as last year's EBITDAR was inflated by the reversal of a $0.5 million bonus accrual. Performance across the board was steady and parimutuel handle rose 26%, driven by improved scheduling and race mix.

At Rocky Gap in Maryland, EBITDAR increased 7% to $4.9 million as we expected our first clean 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 Rip Cookoff, overall, the quarter was still challenging. We experienced a record EBITDAR for August of $4.1 million, the highest single month result in nearly 3 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 Dan 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 ADP players who are no longer profitable and focusing on core players in Reno Sparks and Northern California. In sync with the enhanced marketing to play in the core segment, we are working on further improving the F&B offerings. It takes time, but we are seeing -- we are 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 in 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 Wrocław Hilton Casino, which contributed an EBITDA of $1.3 million last year versus a negative $0.5 million this quarter. Our relocated Wrocław Casino is ramping up well and the second Wrocław 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 8-K we filed with the SEC yesterday, we discovered an error during impairment testing for goodwill and ROCE GAAP that required us to restate our 2024 10-K and the 10-Qs for the first 2 quarters of this year.

The correction of the error will reduce our goodwill balance with an offsetting increase in net loss less the tax impact. The estimated impacts are described in the 8-K. 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 5 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 program. We also paid the annual table games license fee of $2.5 million in West Virginia as well as about $1 million in closing costs in Poland. So all in, we were about flat in cash from operations.

Total 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 6.9x. On a lease-adjusted basis, the ratio was 7.6x. Let me also note here that we have no debt maturities until 2029. And there is no need for significant CapEx 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 EBITDAR 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 EBITDAR 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 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.[ id="-1" name="Operator" /> [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Jeff Stantial with Stifel.

This is Don Young on for Jeff Stantial. 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 noncore with the increasing U.S. exposure? Or do you see real synergies with the broader portfolio?

Thank you. 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 stand-alone conglomerate of operations the Canadian properties that we have. Concerning the drivers, we have -- the one visible driver is that St. Albert, where we redid the facade outside completely, and that had a really good impact.

And the rest of it is just, I think, 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 quite far less impacted or has been impacted than in the United States.

Great. That's helpful. 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.

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 consult, correct?

Yes.

Yes. 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 -- I mean already now, but certainly going into 2026 as well.

And we're looking on the one hand, on the revenue side of the casino -- but combined, but also independent from that, we are also focusing on the retail side of the hotel business as a separate exercise because there continue to be -- there's a market segment that comes to the Nugget just to stay in the hotel, and they may not -- 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 intensely on the F&B side, possibly expand the offer, but certainly also continue to work on upgrading at least 1 or 2 of our outlets. It's hard to quantify with regard to room nights, but it's -- let's put it like that. We have 3 segments 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 and group business. And 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.

And the third one is the retail business, which we market also separately, and we have seen an increase in the retail segment already in '25, and we believe that more can be done in 2026. Concerning the concerts, we have learned that to give you numbers last year in 2024, the concert stand-alone made a profit of around $850,000. This year, the concerts are making a loss of about $300,000.

So 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 are 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 -- so 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 have learned is that we thought in order to reduce the risk of the -- which is quite high in the concerts when you cannot sell the tickets, we rather book acts that cost a little bit less than, for example, Stew so. And that probably was not a good decision. So we are now turning back into trying to book maybe fewer acts, but very good acts like books and done.

So with that, we think we can fix the concert side. And we see that -- our goal is that the concepts stand on their own. But from at least half of the concepts, we see a very positive overflow into the hotel, casino and F&B business.

[ id="-1" name="Operator" /> Our next question today will come from Jordan Bender with Citizens.

You're seeing -- it sounds like you're seeing some pretty good success from the ETGs that you put in Colorado. Do you think this strategy -- if 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 replacing -- completely replacing table games with ETGs. So we do have ETGs in other casinos are parallel to those. We still keep the nice game. But in Colorado, it was just a question of the -- it was just so obvious that it's smaller operations, it wasn't worth keeping the few tables. But in the larger casinos, we do have ETGs on the one hand and table games on the other hand. And as we see it now, we'll keep that also.

Great. 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?

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.

[ id="-1" name="Operator" /> We'll take our next question from Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum Group.

20% or greater than that EBITDAR 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 that -- anything unusual that would impact the one or the other way the fourth 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 negatively in the lower end of the database in anybody's guess, but I think there is at least a hope that the consumer sentiment will improve during the next, hopefully, remaining 2 months of this year. Peter, would you like to add to that?

Yes. I think the one and only 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, also I don't see any abnormalities.

Great. Then just on the Nugget, July, September were weaker. Curious, I guess, think going back year 2, 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?

Yes. The weakness in September mainly came from the fact that we -- as I mentioned earlier also that in '24, we had 2 powerful, very good concepts. One of them was Chase and Eldion and in September, we didn't have any. Then also in September, we had what is called a bingo blow a large bingo event in September, which now -- which we didn't have this September.

And with regard to the conference business, there was also less conference business in July and September of '25 as compared to '24. But that was -- that couldn't be changed in the short term.

[ id="-1" name="Operator" /> And we'll move next to Chad Beynon with Macquarie Group.

I wanted to ask about Caruthersville. You touched on the growth that you 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?

Yes, we -- 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 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 -- 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? Was it -- could it have been weather-related, comparable related, local CPI or unemployment? Just any evidence that will give us confidence that retail could improve here in Q4 and beyond?

Yes, 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 are 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 is a friendly outlook, but you probably could make a better judgment on that.

Okay. Great. And 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 tighten the be further. But I think if it's not -- I don't think that it will get any worse than it was in the worst month of this year. And we've maneuvered through them well. And I think if necessary, we could do that again. There is always, as I said, 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 are doing.

[ id="-1" name="Operator" /> Our next question comes from Connor Parks with CBRE.

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 EBITDAR growth you've seen this year with all the CapEx rolling off to 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?

Yes. Let me start out and then hand over to Peter and Peggy. We will -- we're thinking about doing a little bit of facade upgrade also in the Canadian -- 2 of the Canadian properties. That is not a large CapEx item, but there is some CapEx. And 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 then investment into mainly slot products of our properties. Peter, can I hand over to you? Maybe you would continue want to expand on that some more.

Yes, sure. Connor. 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 sell something, 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 won't -- you will not see any significant stock buybacks or pay down of debt.

Great. And then maybe as my follow-up, you've mentioned in this quarter and in prior quarters, the expected uplift potential in regional gaming around the benefits from the upcoming tax season. I guess have you provided any barriers or try 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 have to make a guess here. It's hard to say. Peter back over to you, do you think you could quantify?

No, not really see it. 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. But I agree, we don't want to quantify that not enough hard facts that we have [ ever ].

[ id="-1" name="Operator" /> 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. Hoetzinger for closing remarks.

Yes. Thanks, operator, and thanks, everybody. We appreciate you joining our call today. I will talk again when we present the 2025 full year results. Until then, thank you, and goodbye.

[ id="-1" name="Operator" /> This does conclude today's conference. Thank you for attending.