Playtech Stock

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our 2026 interim results. As always, I will begin with a brief overview before handing over to Chris, who will take you through the financials and the outlook. I will then update you on our progress against our strategic priorities. H1 2026 has been a landmark period for Playtech. The strategic transformation of our business has delivered an inflection point, both in terms of profitability and cash generation. These results reflect the culmination of many years of hard work and disciplined execution across the group. Adjusted EBITDA increased 77% year-on-year to EUR 163 million, and free cash flow reached EUR 101 million.

This was underpinned by continued momentum across our regulated B2B business, where underlying revenue grew 21% alongside a strong contribution from our strategic investments. Importantly, this growth translated into meaningful operating leverage with adjusted EBITDA margin from operations increasing materially. The U.S. and Canada remained a key engine of growth in the half with revenue increasing by 176%, supported by the strength of our partnership with Hard Rock Digital. We ended the period with a strong balance sheet, providing us with flexibility to continue investing in future growth opportunities while supporting shareholder returns.

This performance is testament to the strategic transformation of the business and the execution by the team. And that is something I'm extremely proud of. While we are very pleased with what we have achieved, we believe there is much more to come. I will now hand over to Chris.

Thanks, Mor. On to Slide 5, please, for financial highlights. I'm pleased to report on the group's excellent financial performance. As a reminder, in early July, we updated the market on trading and delivered our third upgrade of the year, confirming that adjusted EBITDA would be more than EUR 155 million for H1 and more than EUR 270 million for the full year. Strong operational execution drove adjusted EBITDA of EUR 163 million in the first half, an increase of 77% compared to the prior year.

The group performed strongly in the Americas with a standout performance in the U.S. and growing contribution from our investment from income. We drove significant operating leverage with adjusted EBITDA margin from operations improving materially to 30.2%, driven by the top line performance as well as business optimization measures and addressing underperforming businesses, which led to B2B costs declining 3% year-on-year. We also had EUR 34 million in adjusted EBITDA from investment income with the majority from our associate, Caliente.

The group saw a step change in free cash flow, which reached EUR 101 million in H1, supported by growing investment income distributions. At the same time, we maintained a strong balance sheet, finishing the half with net cash of EUR 39 million even after repurchasing 1.8% of our equity capital in H1 for a total of EUR 25 million. On to the next slide, please. Looking at our B2B revenue performance. Reported B2B revenue was EUR 395 million, up 14% year-on-year and up 17% on an underlying basis, whereby we exclude the impact of the revised Caliente agreement in H1 of 2025.

On the same basis, regulated B2B revenue grew 21%, reflecting very strong momentum in the Americas. U.S. and Canada delivered 176% growth in constant currency, driven primarily by our growth with Hard Rock Digital as well as success with Tier 1 operators across Live, Casino and the PAM+ verticals. This performance is testament to the group's strong strategic execution in recent years. In Latin America, underlying revenue grew 29%, driven by a strong half from Caliente in Mexico as well as excellent growth in Colombia, which was supported by the continued constructive evolution of the regulatory environment there during the first half.

Europe, excluding the U.K., grew 2%. And when excluding a nonrecurring hardware sale in the prior period, the region achieved growth of 10%, driven by strong results in Poland and Spain. The U.K. was impacted by certain customer-specific changes as well as the increased Remote Gaming Duty. Turning to the next slide. Cost efficiency remains a focus for the group going forward. And in the first half of the year, we removed over EUR 20 million of annual run rate costs from the business. This contributed to B2B costs declining 3% in the period, while allowing continued investments in areas such as the Americas, where we see the strongest potential for long-term returns.

In our Live vertical, we continued investing strategically while also looking at table optimization initiatives and operational efficiencies, which led to Live costs being broadly flat year-on-year. We lowered our R&D expenses through certain optimization measures in noncore areas while maintaining our core R&D investment. We reduced G&A costs, primarily reflecting tight cost control on certain central corporate functions. Our disciplined cost management alongside strong revenue growth drove meaningful operational leverage and a significant improvement in B2B adjusted EBITDA margin to 32.4%.

Going forward, we will continue to manage costs carefully, focusing investment on our areas of strategic priority, particularly in the Americas and Live, while preserving efficiency and driving operational leverage over time. On to Slide 8, where we look at how adjusted EBITDA translates into free cash flow. The strong growth in EBITDA, combined with disciplined CapEx and capitalized development led to significant free cash flow of EUR 101 million in the first half, which is a step change in cash generation compared to around EUR 30 million for the full year of 2025.

Slide 9 and now on to the balance sheet. Looking at our net cash bridge, we began the year with net cash of EUR 29 million. As a reminder, today, the group has one bond of EUR 300 million maturing in June 2028, and we are currently assessing our refinancing options. During the half, we executed a EUR 25 million on-market share buyback program, repurchasing 1.8% of our issued equity capital. As I said in March, at the end of 2025, we had approximately EUR 90 million of cash outflows remaining related to the Snaitech sale. And as planned in the first half, we paid over EUR 60 million of these with the remainder to be paid in the first half of 2027.

I am pleased that despite these outflows in the first half, the strong free cash flow from the business and our investments means that our balance sheet remains very strong, and we ended the first half in a net cash position of EUR 39 million. As well as a reminder, we have our EUR 225 million revolving credit facility, which remains fully undrawn. Next slide, please. As a reminder of our capital allocation policy, which I took you through in March, we look at it in 3 buckets. The first is growth. We continue to prioritize organic investments in priority product verticals such as Live Casino and into high-growth geographies across the Americas, including the U.S., Mexico and Brazil.

A key part of our framework remains our early-stage investments via structured agreement models, where we typically partner with local heroes ahead of regulation and as a result, directly participate in the future upside. This approach has proven to be successful through our long-standing success, including with Caliente Interactive and more recently with Hard Rock Digital. The second bucket is all about maintaining flexibility for uncertainties, including for regulatory updates and tax changes as we've recently seen in certain markets as well as for potential M&A. While there is no immediate plan for M&A, we remain prudent but open to selective opportunities, particularly those aligned with our ambition to strengthen Playtech's position as the leading B2B technology provider.

Beyond those 2 buckets, our intention is to return what we see as structural surplus capital to shareholders. We returned approximately EUR 100 million over the last 12 months through share buybacks and our strong balance sheet and more sustainable free cash flow generation provides increased flexibility to look at both dividends and buybacks in the future while preserving our capacity to invest in growth. There are many factors we consider, including our bond, which matures in June 2028, but there are regular discussions at the Board level to enhance returns to shareholders via dividends and/or share buybacks.

Turning to Slide 11 and our levers to achieve the top end of our medium-term financial targets of EUR 300 million in adjusted EBITDA and EUR 100 million in free cash flow. In the first half, we made rapid progress towards these goals with adjusted EBITDA of EUR 163 million and free cash flow already reaching EUR 101 million, reflecting both the strategic execution and operational efficiency that we promised. Starting with the U.S. The U.S. business is now profitable sooner than we had expected, driven by strong performance across our Live Casino and PAM+ verticals, but in particular, by the significant success of our partnership with Hard Rock Digital.

Last year, I said we had around EUR 20 million of losses at the EBITDA level and EUR 25 million at the cash flow level from underperforming businesses. We've already taken significant action to address these, including the wind down of HAPPYBET, which is now near completion. At the same time, our core B2B operations continue to deliver, and we continue to capture growth from regulated markets. We are investing to further improve and innovate our key product verticals while also optimizing costs and realizing benefits of the attractive economics within our structured agreements.

Partnerships with leading operators remain a core competitive advantage, and we are pleased with the excellent momentum we are seeing with Hard Rock Digital, Caliente and several others across the Americas and Europe. Collectively, these growth levers, coupled with a disciplined approach to cost management and our focus on addressing underperformance are driving significant operating leverage. While we expect H2 adjusted EBITDA to be lower than H1, as we set out in our trading update on the 9th of July, we are ahead of schedule in delivering our medium-term adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow targets. We are focused on execution in the second half, and we will revisit our targets after the year-end.

Next slide, please. Finally, I would like to update you on our trading so far in the second half and the outlook. We've had an excellent start to H2, particularly across the Americas, where we continue to see sustained demand in the U.S., Mexico and other markets. In the U.S., the strong activity we saw in Q2 has continued into Q3 so far. However, as previously flagged, we expect the contribution from Hard Rock Digital to continue at a lower but more sustainable level going forward. In Mexico, Caliente continues to perform strongly, and we expect a further uplift after a successful period of customer acquisition during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Taking these factors together, we are maintaining our guidance for the full year of 2026 adjusted EBITDA of more than EUR 270 million. And I'll now hand back to Mor to cover our strategic priorities.

Thanks, Chris. I will now take you through our investment case strategy, the progress made so far and our ambitions for the future. I want to give you a reminder of our evolved business model, which was a key driver of our performance in the first half. Playtech today is a high-growth B2B technology business serving more than 200 operators across over 50 regulated jurisdictions, providing mission-critical infrastructure to many of the world's leading gambling operators. Our B2B business operates in some of the fastest-growing regulated markets globally and combines leading content and platform technology through value-accretive business models.

This has enabled us to build long-standing partnerships with both major global operators and local hero brands. Alongside our core technology business, our multi-decade experience supporting B2B customers has enabled us to identify opportunities early and invest selectively directly and via our structured agreement framework. Through this strategy, we have built a portfolio of highly valuable strategic assets with a book value of more than EUR 1.2 billion, including our stakes in Caliente Interactive and Hard Rock Digital and a number of other high-growth businesses.

Together, Playtech's leading B2B technology business and portfolio of strategic assets creates a uniquely compelling investment proposition with multiple avenues for value creation. We believe this leaves us exceptionally well positioned to deliver attractive, sustainable value to our shareholders. In March, I outlined our strategic priorities as a focused B2B technology business. Firstly, our clear focus is on regulated and regulating markets where we continue to see attractive long-term growth opportunities. In H1, we achieved very strong performance in the U.S., Mexico and Colombia, and the opportunity across the board is very exciting.

Brazil remains a key strategic focus for Playtech, and we are well positioned to capitalize on the opportunity ahead, even more so since launching our São Paulo studio. Secondly, we continue to invest in product to ensure we stay at the forefront of innovation, and I will talk more specifically on Live in a moment. Finally, we continue to enhance operational efficiency across the business through ongoing cost optimization measures and actions to address underperformance, including the ongoing wind-down of HAPPYBET. We continued our deployment of AI across the business to drive revenue and cost opportunities.

Like I said, I will talk to you shortly about our AI Live virtual host product. As you can see, we continue to deliver against these priorities, which underpinned by our sustainability strategy, provide a clear road map for Playtech to capture the significant opportunities ahead and create sustainable shareholder value. On to the next slide. Mexico represents a meaningful growth opportunity for Playtech, underpinned by our long-standing and successful partnership with Caliente Interactive. The structural tailwinds are compelling.

Mexico's online gambling market continues to grow rapidly with industry forecasts indicating it could nearly double in size over the next 5 years and online GGR per adult remains significantly below comparable markets. Caliente has established a clear competitive moat and remains the undisputed market leader in Mexico with more than a century of brand heritage, deep local expertise and one of the most extensive sponsorship portfolios in the region. In addition to the software from our partnership, our equity holding in Caliente contributed around EUR 30 million to adjusted EBITDA from investment income and delivered dividends of EUR 37 million to our free cash flow while we have also continued to see very strong growth in our software fees, demonstrating the multiple avenues through which Playtech benefits from Caliente's success.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup provided a meaningful tailwind to the online gambling market in Mexico. Co-hosted on local viewing times, the audience figures more than doubled compared to the 2022 World Cup. The tournament further enhanced Caliente's brand visibility, driving successful new customer acquisition, a key driver of future growth. The combination of Mexico's attractive market dynamics, Caliente's market-leading position and the enduring benefits of the engagement during the World Cup provides an exciting opportunity for Caliente and Playtech going forward.

Turning to the next slide and our progress in the U.S. and Canada. The U.S., as we indicated before, is the key growth engine for Playtech. In H1, we achieved further significant milestones. U.S. and Canada revenue increased by 176% year-on-year. And importantly, the business achieved profitability, reflecting growing scale, strong customer demand and the increasing returns from investments made over recent years. Starting with operational expansion. During the period, we further strengthened our market presence to 6 regulated iGaming states following our launch in Connecticut.

Demand from Tier 1 operators remains very strong, particularly across Live, where U.S. revenue increased by around 25% year-on-year. We also continue to expand capacity across our 3 U.S. studios with more than 60 tables now in operation. Alongside this, we continue to invest in our customers through a number of new customer and product launches, including Fanatics across multiple states, FanDuel in West Virginia and bet365 in Michigan. We also successfully launched our iPoker platform with FanDuel across several markets. Product innovation continues to be a key differentiator for Playtech.

During the half, we saw the ongoing success of our Past Motor Racing games with Hard Rock Bet in Florida, while further expanding our portfolio of bespoke and branded content through other partnerships with leading brands. Playtech content is now live with 15 operators spanning more than 50 brands across the U.S. market. Our PAM+ platform also continues to strengthen its leadership position as the #1 third-party iGaming platform in the U.S. Customers such as Parx Casino and Ember Entertainment continue to deliver strong results powered by our platform technology.

The progress achieved in H1 further strengthens our conviction in the U.S. opportunity. Despite the strong momentum delivered to date, we believe Playtech is just at the beginning of an exciting long-term growth journey as the market continues to expand and evolve. Turning to the next slide. I want to highlight a key component of our U.S. growth story, our strategic partnership with Hard Rock Digital. Today, this partnership is stronger than ever. Hard Rock has expanded its footprint across key North American markets and today operates with us across New York -- sorry, New Jersey, Michigan, Florida and Ontario, utilizing a broad range of Playtech products, including casino, Live Casino, Sports and our PAM+ platform.

Over the last year, we have launched many unique products with Hard Rock, including our dual-play tables and Live Trivia in New Jersey. The most impressive has been the successful rollout of the games powered by Past Motor Racing offering in Florida, which is based on historical motor racing results. Our early investment in developing this innovative product meant that we were the first to market with Hard Rock, and this has been a key contributor to the exceptional growth delivered in the first half. In H2, the contribution from Hard Rock will trend toward a lower but more sustainable level as they introduce other third-party suppliers in Florida as expected.

However, we see further growth to come from that level. When we look back to 2023, Playtech invested $85 million in Hard Rock Digital and the return on that investment has been very strong. As well as the software fees and dividends received as at 30 June 2026, our stake has more than tripled in just 3 years, now valued at around EUR 250 million. This success is a result of years of strategic execution, and I'm proud to see that we are now benefiting from all of our hard work. The partnership with Hard Rock demonstrates the full value of Playtech's partnership model, strategic investment, proprietary technology and product innovation, combining to accelerate growth while creating value through both commercial revenues and our investment exposure.

As Hard Rock Digital continues to expand, we remain excited about the opportunities to support its future growth and participate in its ongoing success. Live continues to be a high-growth, high-margin vertical and one where Playtech continues to gain share. With the global live market projected to nearly double over the next 5 years, we remain exceptionally well positioned in key markets such as the U.S., Mexico and Brazil, where growth is forecasted to be particularly strong. Our internal data shows that Live Casino players generate nearly 2x more revenue than traditional casino players, making Live a highly attractive cross-sell opportunity.

During the half, we continued to scale our Live operations to meet rising demand. While our change in leadership last year has come with an increased focus on profitability, our priority remains on driving growth. Live delivered 12% growth in regulated markets while also improving margins significantly, which reflects improved utilization based on table optimization measures and narrowing losses in the U.S. At the end of June, we were operating 480 tables across 20 Live studios globally, which includes venues with our Live dual-table activity. Innovation remains central to our Live strategy. So, in July, we were excited to launch our Live virtual host with several customers.

This product enhances the live gaming experience with an AI interface, the virtual host that guides players through the game, delivering real-time commentary while integrating seamlessly into the Live studio environment. The virtual host is customizable by market and brand, further enhancing a localized and bespoke offering and deeper player engagement at scale. Early customer feedback has been very encouraging. Our ability to develop bespoke live casino content and localized experiences for specific markets is a key differentiator for Playtech. Our São Paulo studio further enhances these capabilities in Brazil, where we are seeing encouraging early success from locally tailored content.

Through a combination of structural growth in regulated markets, continued investment in innovation and growing operational leverage, Playtech is well positioned to drive sustainable, profitable growth in Live while continuing to gain share across key regulated markets. On to the final slide. As you've heard today, H1 2026 has been an exceptionally strong period for Playtech. We delivered a step change in profitability and free cash flow as a result of our execution under our evolved business model as well as strong contribution from our investment portfolio. We achieved excellent performance in the U.S., which sets the base for strong momentum going forward alongside attractive growth opportunities across Latin America and other key regulated markets.

Our strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to invest in high-growth opportunities and to return further capital to shareholders. At the same time, we remain focused on driving efficiencies and addressing areas of underperformance. Today, Playtech is a highly focused B2B technology business with leading capabilities across content, platform, services and data. Combined with our portfolio of strategic assets, this provides a strong foundation for sustainable long-term growth and value creation. And finally, we continue to make rapid progress towards the top end of our medium-term financial targets.

Given the moving parts, which we explained in our July trading update, we maintain our full year 2026 guidance of more than EUR 270 million of adjusted EBITDA. We entered the second half of 2026 with confidence, well positioned to execute our strategy, capture attractive growth opportunities and deliver sustainable long-term value for shareholders. Thank you for listening. Chris and I will now be more than happy to take your questions. That was quick, Ivor.

Thanks, Mor and Chris. So, we're going to open the floor to questions. We're going to start with questions from the room. [Operator Instructions] Yes, we'll start with you, Ivor, as you're very eager.

Yes, always very keen to get started. I know you're still not directly involved, but in relation to the Evolution case, what happens next? And what do you think happens in the end?

So, I know it's very interesting. But as I'm sure you can understand, we are not going to answer any questions on litigation. We are under legal privilege and confidentiality rules, and we can't simply take questions on the legal situation. We said what we needed to say following the Spectrum report being released earlier this week. So, that's all I can say at this point in time.

Okay.

I have a lot to say, but I can't.

I thought it was worth trying. Chris, you said that you'll revisit targets in the new year. But it'd be really interesting to hear you talk about why it is you have -- you're so far ahead of delivering on those targets in terms of time. I know that's Past Motor Racing and you've talked about that. But going back to the time you set them, what have been the key things that have delivered this remarkable acceleration?

Yes. Thanks, Ivor. Good question. Obviously, I think we look at the targets and the -- what we've achieved effectively 18 months into what were 5-year targets. So, we announced them at the full year results in 2025. The targets were actually set internally as we develop them with the Board and everything in 2024. Obviously, I think we set very ambitious targets given the starting point for EBITDA was roughly the top end of the target required effectively doubling the EBITDA in a 5-year period. And the free cash flow was going from roughly a rebased starting point of 0 to 100.

So, to be 18 months into those targets, I think -- and being well on track to meeting them either partially or in full, and we're all working very hard towards achieving as much of them as we can. I think we're very pleased with how we are, but there's a lot of work that still needs to be done. We will revisit those at the end of the year. In terms of being so far ahead, I think we've had some amazing execution across the business, some of the investments we've made into things like Hard Rock Digital have -- we obviously were very bullish when we made those investments and the opportunities that were ahead, but some of them have even surpassed our own lofty expectations. So, I think we're just very pleased with the execution, both at Playtech and with some of our partners that we've invested in.

If I may just add one comment, right? I think that it actually means that it works, right? It motivated the team. It incentivized the team. We lost a lot of scale. We lost the scale we were at or the level of scale we were at before we sold SNAI. We gathered the team, and we obviously made sure that everyone understands we have gone through a strategic process as part of which we reviewed the strategy. We set the strategy to become a true B2B technology business that is focused on customers and push forward in regulated markets.

And one other thing that -- and I think that, obviously, this plan being in place only helped and motivated people to obviously try and outperform the expectations. I will say one thing which is extremely important. Neither PMR, Past Motor Racing or opportunities that we still look to capitalize on in Brazil, for example, did not exist when we agreed the targets. So, it is actually a culmination of a lot of work by the team, a lot of work by the team that, by the way, wake up in the morning and doesn't really think about this incentive plan, right? They think about Playtech, growing Playtech, getting Playtech to the scale, the necessary scale and outperform the expectations, the internal and external expectations we have.

Maybe just one more before colleagues ask questions. Could you just talk about the valuation of the assets at the first half? Because you said that you had increased the book value of Hard Rock. So, I guess in the back of the notes, we'll find out how. What about the valuation of the Caliente stake? How close is that book value to -- sorry, is the Hard Rock number now, do you think anything related to a market value? And is the -- more importantly, is the Caliente stake book value, anything like a market value?

Yes. I think the valuation of our stakes, it gets quite complicated and each one is sort of treated slightly differently from an accounting perspective. The Hard Rock stake that we have gets revalued every 6 months. We actually hire a third-party firm to do a valuation of that. They factor in the current state of the business, obviously, future projections, growth of the various markets, a business like Hard Rock is in, competitive dynamics, everything you might expect. They also factor in any relevant discounts for the fact it's a private company, et cetera. So, I think, first of all, it's done by a third party. So, it's a balanced and fair valuation.

I think on balance, it's better to be conservative with these valuations rather than aggressive. And I would caution everybody, they are paper valuation, so to speak. And -- but I think the fact that the Hard Rock investment has effectively tripled in value since we made it just over 3 years ago shows the phenomenal success that, that business has had.

The Caliente valuation is different since the new deal -- different from an accounting perspective and how we do it, it's actually quite mechanical now. It was the value when the new structure came in place with Caliente in Q1 of -- sorry, 1st of April 2025, the new structure took into effect. So, we took the stake at that point and it was valued and then becomes quite mechanical from an accounting perspective. So, that is not revalued every period in the same way as the Hard Rock Digital stake is. I don't really want to speculate about what that stake would be worth, but the fact that it was sort of rebased based on the valuation in 2025 and the business has continued to grow, I think you can probably read into that what -- perhaps what a more reflective value of that stake would be.

Does that mean that it will only -- in the future? I hope it won't happen, but it would only be impaired. It won't be revalued upwards as a matter of process?

Not necessarily. It's quite mechanical accounting-wise, we could talk you through this. But basically, every period, you add our share of the income to the valuation, so that goes up. But then if they pay it all in dividends, it goes back down. So, it's kind of -- that's why it hasn't really changed very much in this period. But in theory, in the future, if they didn't pay out the income as dividends, the value would increase based on how the income grows.

Thanks, Ivor. Roberta, we'll come to you next.

It's Roberta Ciaccia from Investec. I would start with a question for Chris on the cost containment side in B2B. It was clear, great. I was wondering to what extent the games evolution and the evolution of revenue at Hard Rock Digital helped in H1. And therefore, what kind of margin should we expect more, let's say, normalized from H2 onwards? And if there is something then operational leverage starts again? That would be my first question.

Okay. So, I think on -- there's a couple of things there. So, I think on costs, as I said, we removed EUR 20 million of annual costs from the business in the first half of the year. Those were in areas where we just either identified inefficiencies, had underperforming businesses or maybe areas that were no longer core to the group. So, we're able to address costs that way. And just to be clear on that, it's EUR 20 million, but without putting a number on it, we're not done at EUR 20 million. We see more opportunities for cost efficiencies going forward.

On the Hard Rock Digital and the games powered by Past Motor Racing product, we actually incurred a lot of the investment in developing that product in 2025. So, we didn't speak about it at the time, but we were basically absorbing in 2025 the costs related to that without any revenues. There was a small amount of revenues when they launched late in the year, but we did incur costs throughout the year that were absorbed in our 2025 numbers. And actually, what's happened in 2026 kind of showcases the beauty of the Playtech business model and that we've incurred the investment. And once you go live with the product, most of the upside from revenue flows through to EBITDA and free cash flow. So, that dynamic from that leverage, combined with the cost efficiencies led to the significant margin expansion.

Now similar to how we talked about EBITDA as a whole normalizing in H2 and to an extent into 2027, there will be a normalization in the EBITDA margin as well. However, even though there's that sort of somewhat rebasing of EBITDA and margins in this period that we've talked about, to be clear, once it's sort of rebased, we expect continued revenue growth, EBITDA growth and further margin expansion, but there will be a temporary period of those numbers rebasing.

Okay. Clear. And second question on Hard Rock Digital. What is next in terms of geographical expansion, if you can comment on it and if there's any plan?

We can't really say much. However, we will say that given the fact that it's now public, they will -- they extended within the U.S. They are now -- they have presence in different territories together with us, it's New Jersey, Michigan and Florida. Beyond that, you have Ontario. Recently, they launched in Mexico. And they do have a plan, they do have a program to extend into different additional states across the U.S. as well as additional countries outside.

Just as a reminder, in the U.S., we provide them with PMR in Florida for the time being, only in Florida. And obviously, gaming solutions, casino and Live Casino in the other states within the U.S. Outside of the U.S., in certain territories like Ontario, like in Mexico, it includes the PAM+, it includes casino, Live Casino and in certain cases, also Sports. So, it's a very comprehensive arrangement as -- which is part of our structured agreement strategy, which is always a combination of services and/or an investment alongside a very comprehensive software arrangement.

Can I go for just a third one? On Brazil, what's the presumable evolution there? And the fact that you haven't yet conclude the agreement we've been talking about for a while. Is it also related to the political and therefore, regulatory uncertainties?

I'll be very, very open and straightforward about it, right? There were certain concerns that because it is an election year, and obviously, gaming is a political issue or there were references by politicians throughout the elections about gambling. We have been -- and given the sensitivity around that, we were kindly asked to collaborate with the government with the prospective customer that we are in discussions with to wait until the elections. However, I will say that the expectations remain the same to enter into an agreement and launch sometime by the beginning of -- or at the beginning of next year.

Rich, we'll come to you next.

Richard Stuber from Deutsche. Just a couple of questions left from me. Caliente, obviously very strong this year. Could you say how much the contribution from roughly the World Cup was both in H1 and also presumably you know how it's done in H2, just so we can see the sort of underlying run rate? And the second question is on the PMR product, clearly massively successful in Florida with Hard Rock Digital. Can you leverage that product in other states with other licensees in states which don't have online gaming?

Yes. I'll cover the first one on Caliente and the World Cup and Mor can do the Hard Rock. Slightly complicated with Caliente and the World Cup and there's a few different moving dynamics, both in terms of which KPI you're looking at, but also whether you're talking P&L or cash flow statement. So, I'll try to explain, but if I don't do a very good job, we can take it offline.

So, Caliente, in terms of the World Cup, I think from a -- the most important KPI from their perspective and ours is customer acquisition. So, less about the actual results over the period of the World Cup. And by all accounts, that was incredibly successful, and they're very pleased with how the World Cup went. So, I think that's the most important thing.

In terms of how it impacts the numbers short term in terms of the P&L and cash flow H1, H2, there was significant marketing, as you would expect around -- to drive that customer acquisition. The heaviest months for that were June and July. So, you could expect on a P&L basis, given we take a share of income from that business, that the results for those months would be lower on a P&L basis given the significant marketing investment they put into that business.

On a cash basis, it's slightly different because we receive dividends on a monthly basis. And both of those dividends, so the ones related to June and July will both fall into H2. So, all else being equal, and obviously, they're always subject to sporting results throughout the rest of the year. But on a cash flow basis, I would actually expect H2 to probably be lower than H1, all else being equal, just given the timing of those 2 months and the dividend payments both falling into H2.

And then I guess in terms of talking about specific results, look, any operator is exposed to the results of the World Cup or any other major sporting event. Without getting into too many specifics, they have a lot of exposure to how the Mexican national team does. I think Mexico had a good run through the games that mostly fell in the month of June. And then obviously, we were eliminated, which happened to fall into July. So, you could probably read into that, that July was a stronger month than June, but there's a lot of variables at play. But again, I wouldn't focus too much on that. The focus is on the customer acquisition and that driving growth for them in the rest of this year and into next year.

So, in short, even despite the World Cup, you'd expect good progress next year as well?

Yes, it was -- by all accounts, the World Cup was very successful. So, it's -- I think we're very excited about that business, both the rest of this year and next year. And there's a lot more growth left for them. And the World Cup should only enhance that.

Yes. On the PMR, Past Motor Racing, I will say that this model exists in retail in certain states across the U.S. I will say, however, that we have been investing into this product for more than a year. We worked below the radar without anyone knowing together closely -- working closely together with the Hard Rock Digital to turn it into reality online for the first time, the way it was -- the way we have done that together with them.

We launched it first few months. Obviously, it's early days. It's only since the beginning of the year or just before the end of last year. So, it's early days. Obviously, it operates successfully, right? It delivers very strong results for both Hard Rock Digital as well as Playtech. And we started looking into different other states. We started looking at different other countries. Obviously, very interesting. A lot of regulators and operators alike in different territories find it very, very interesting, both for the U.S. and elsewhere.

The interesting thing, and I mentioned it just now that more than one regulator in the U.S. already approached us and basically asked us about the PMR and said that they are looking to innovate in their own respective states and wanted to hear more about it. So, obviously, it captures the attention of operators. It captures the attention of regulators. And I will say that it's not only restricted to the U.S. Obviously, where gaming is not allowed and only sports is allowed, this is a new format alongside sports betting that can be very compelling for end user customers, operators, regulators, tax collectors or governments alike. But it's early days. I can't refer to specific opportunities as obvious.

Thanks, Rich. Should we come to Citi?

So, it's Lizzie Moore from Citi. I'm just asking a couple of questions on behalf of Jamie Bass, if that's okay. So, firstly, I was just wondering if you could possibly provide some color around how the success of the agreement in Brazil would impact your medium-term guidance? And then the second question was just around we're seeing a large amount of consolidation among operators. So, I was just wondering how you expect that to impact your business as a supplier.

Maybe I'll take the first one on Brazil and guidance. I think when we set the medium-term guidance, as I said earlier, we set it in about 18 months ago at the full year results in March 2025. At that point, we sort of knew of the opportunity, but it wasn't specifically factored into the guidance necessarily. But I think when we set the guidance, we saw -- as I said earlier, there are ambitious targets, and there were not necessarily specific contributors in terms of how you're going to get there other than looking at the overall opportunities across the group.

As we're now, let's say, approaching the targets and pushing hard to meet them either in full or at least partially this year, I think the Brazil opportunity should only enhance those. So, I actually -- to the earlier point where we'll revisit the targets, at the full year results, I think that will probably be the logical time to more explicitly factor Brazil into any revised targets we might potentially issue at that point in time. But I think that should only enhance how the business is currently doing and frankly, enhance probably what the current market expectations are for the group in the years ahead. On the second question on consolidation in the industry.

Yes, absolutely. So, we have gone through a consolidation process or a consolidation period for a long time now, right? It started in the U.K., you had Paddy Power merging with Betfair, then merging with others and FanDuel, then they bought FanDuel and then you had Entain, obviously, which was Ladbrokes and Coral coming together. So, we are quite experienced with that. We saw also consolidation in other countries. It's really hard to say from the outset how it evolves in the short term because sometimes obviously -- and it depends on the arrangements that we have in the -- with the respective parties that consolidate.

In some cases, it's a real opportunity for us, like in the case of Evoke, when 888 and William Hill came together, we have been a strategic supplier to William Hill. We hardly had any business with 888. And when you look together and when you look now -- not even now, soon after they consolidated, there was an opportunity for us to grow our revenues even in the short immediate term, not obviously -- and obviously over the medium, longer term. So, it really depends on the parties that consolidate.

I will say one thing that is extremely important, and I think is the answer to this question. If you look back at all of our accounts, many of which have gone through consolidation process, they are by far bigger today than they -- compared to what they were before when you combine the contribution of both parties before it was they consolidated. So, on a medium long-term basis, I will say it's a fantastic opportunity for us, right? We have a bigger group to work with. Our -- they like what we do. They like the sophistication of the products of Playtech, the depth of the solutions of Playtech, which serves consolidated businesses. And also, they have by far more firepower between the 2 combined or as a combined group to invest into marketing and expand internationally. And there, again, Playtech participates in their expansion plan, but also enjoys the fact that the consolidated group usually have more firepower to invest into marketing in different territories worldwide.

We'll come back to Ivor.

I find it slightly unsettling, Moran. You can recognize the back of my head. We've talked about beating targets today, but can we focus on SaaS or what you call the SaaS products has obviously done tremendously well as well. And really related to your -- the last question about consolidation, how penetrated -- how much do you think Playtech has penetrated the market for SaaS? Do you have all of the customers in all the world and now your opportunity is just to add more product into those customers? What's the opportunity?

In recent years, we are very focused on investing -- very focused on investments I will call it, vertical investment, meaning establishing ourselves as a SaaS provider, as a SaaS platform provider to many different brands. By the way, we are still on a journey. There is still a long list of brands that we would like and we will establish ourselves with. So, it's not yet finished. However, I will say, once we were established with them, what we came to realize in the last couple of years is that actually, while the journey of establishing ourselves with additional brands is moving forward, and we made good progress there, we see a real opportunity to also extend horizontally within the operator.

What we saw in our experience shows that once you set up the SaaS platform as the infrastructure and you start providing games, they want more games. They suddenly come to you and basically say, we want live, we want poker and in some cases, even certain capabilities of the platform. So, I will say that I don't believe that it is -- I truly believe that there is still significant opportunity there, both to establish ourselves with additional brands. But alongside that, and this is something we intend to do in the remainder of the year and in 2027 and onwards, is also to work together with the SaaS platform partners to extend into different products or enhance the presence of Playtech within the sites of the operators.

So, it's the existing games getting more exposure compared to other suppliers. It's additional products. It's extending together with them to additional brands for the same group, additional countries and working together with them to expose the Playtech products as much as possible, like I said, alongside additional brands that currently do not exist with -- that currently are not -- that we don't have any presence with.

That's helpful. Can I ask a similar question about Live? If U.S. Live was up 25%, what was the rest of regulated Live? And you talked about improving margins. So, it doesn't feel like as much top line growth as there should have been given what's happening in the market. So, are you intentionally consolidating, you're changing the business model? What does the future look like for Live?

Yes, I can cover that. Mor may want to add. I think -- I mean one thing to bear in mind, we did change the Live management team roughly 12 months ago, I think it was. So, there -- I think normally, you have a change in management, there's some changes. So, that's why there's been some optimization and efficiency measures in that business. But to be clear, nothing has changed. We see Live as a huge growth area. So, there's no change in approach other than a short-term sort of rebalancing with the new management team and how they want to approach certain things. But the focus is the same. It's a growth business. It's a focus on regulated markets and regulated market growth.

The U.S. Live business grew faster than the rest of the business, but that's as you'd expect because it's starting from quite a small base. I think we're pleased, but there's a lot of opportunity for more growth in the rest of the business. So, we're not necessarily satisfied with where it is. And I think that business needs to continue being a driver for Playtech going forward. And we certainly -- it will require investment, as I said in the presentation, but it is a business we expect to be a material contributor to our growth going forward.

And last one, following up on Richard's question about Caliente. You talked about it in terms of cash flow around the World Cup. Could you just talk about what's happening at the revenue line? Is Playtech still providing a sports platform to Caliente? So, are you benefiting in the revenue line from sports? And are you still accounting for the payment that was part of the deal to permit the restructuring of the deal? So, were you kind of benefiting twice from the sports side?

Yes, well, we're benefiting from -- yes, we are their sports provider. So, yes, that remains unchanged. I think you're talking to the -- about $140 million payment. So, yes, there still is a component of that, that we're going to receive that over many years. So, there was a component of that in our -- it is spread over 8 years on the P&L. So, there's an eight of that effect of -- well, half of an eight, if you know what I mean, in that in the numbers. So, we do benefit from that. And then we also benefit as a shareholder of the business, obviously.

Thanks, Ivor. Any more questions from the room, Roberta?

Yes, if I may. Just one, first of all. On the potential changes to gaming machines taxes in the U.K., have you -- do you have any opinions or have you calculated what it will mean for you?

I think -- I'll let Mor talk on maybe more broadly. In terms of the financial impact, it's a very small business for us, so I think close to immaterial.

Yes. And originally, we had a fixed fee per machine per day for some of the arrangements because we were a subcontractor of another company. So, obviously, the revenue share component is not very -- is almost nonexistent. So, the impact on Playtech will be very, very limited, very minimal.

Super. Thanks, Roberta. I think we've got time for probably one from the conference call, if there are any.

Our first question is from Ed Young with Morgan Stanley.

So, two questions, if I can. First of all, exceptionals were, I guess, nearly half of adjusted EBITDA in H1, but some of those related to Snaitech, which presumably won't last forever. I think you said there's something else in H1 next year, Chris. But can you give us some guidance about what we should expect in H2 and into next year as your adjusted EBITDA target versus what you'll achieve sort of EBITDA?

And then second of all, on the strategic side, increasingly, the company has been speaking about regulated and regulating markets for quite some time now. And there are a few more, as you rightly point out, New Zealand, Ireland, Finland that look like they're coming. I guess, are you now in a position of sufficient strength with the improvements you've seen in U.S. profitability and the broader group that you could sort of finish the job and consider exiting some of the long-standing unregulated markets like China that have no realistic prospects of liberalization? Or do you think they might liberalize? Or do you just sort of expect to continue to essentially run those businesses with cash and you're comfortable having those sort of permanent unregulated bits within the business?

Yes, I'll cover the first one on exceptionals and leave the second to Mor. On exceptionals, I mean, Ed, yes, you're absolutely right. There is a fairly high amount of exceptionals in this period, in particular. I think the majority of those relate to the legacy things, so to speak, from the Snaitech sale. So, I think it's the most reflective thing to do to give a performance of -- the indication of the underlying performance of the business is to remove those. Most of those specifically related to Snaitech are gone, as I said, but there is a remaining amount that will be in the first half of 2027.

I think more broadly, they will -- the exceptionals number will go down in H2 versus the first half, and it will go down in 2027 compared to 2026. And just more broadly as a topic, I mean, I understand the question. I would love there to not be any exceptionals. So, it's a balance of reducing sort of the items you adjust for, but also I think we have a duty to give the most accurate representation of the underlying performance of the business. So, it's trying to balance those things out, but it's a good question, and then I'll leave it to Mor.

Yes. On regulated versus unregulated, I want to remind everyone, I think that this is a key and very, very important fact, which is the vast majority of Playtech's regulated income is in regulated markets, and it's more than 85%. And we are on a journey and the industry is on a journey. It started back in 2005, '06 when the vast majority of businesses were operating in unregulated markets simply because regulation did not exist. Since 2008, when Italy first introduced when Italy introduced regulations for the first time, we have seen a domino effect that started across Europe, then obviously extended into the Americas first in Latin America, then North America and obviously, in recent years, also the U.S. The same goes with Southeast Asia, certain territories either considered or already regulated like the Philippines.

So, obviously, this is a natural development of our industry. We are not against as principle against unregulated territories, right? We are against people operating in illegal markets, people operating in sanctioned countries, people supporting unlicensed operators in regulated markets. This is not the model of Playtech. Playtech will not be involved. Our unregulated territories consist of countries, some of which were mentioned by Ed, some of which are recent countries that went through regulations like Brazil, people treated Brazil as tacitly regulated and actually accounted for Brazil as regulated even before regulations came into effect. And we continued operating because we had clear guidance from the government.

By the way, the same goes with the Netherlands before it was regulated. I remember the regulator even publishing on the regulator site guidelines to operate in the Netherlands before it's regulated without falling foul with the government, which meant basically not to have customer support in Dutch, not to have it on the ground, but there were clear guidance. So, obviously, unregulated is not illegal. Illegal is illegal. Sanctioned is sanctioned. Supporting unlicensed should not happen, but unregulated markets that are about to become regulated is something that Playtech will likely consider continue doing. And as you would expect from a company like Playtech, we continually assess the regulatory and legal environment across all markets, and we'll continue to support those that we believe over time will become regulated or where we can operate and feel comfortable given the risk assessment by the Board that we do on a continuous basis where we feel comfortable operating.

But you should expect from Playtech to grow its regulated income simply because more markets become regulated. Our investments go into regulated markets. So, the growth in regulated markets for us will grow faster than unregulated markets. And yes, over time, we will likely consider pulling out of certain markets. So, the trend is part of an overall industry trend. I think Playtech has done very, very well compared to other companies. If you look at other companies and their performance and the relative size of Playtech and how it evolved over the years. I think Playtech has done a very good job. It's more than 85%, and we will continue to grow it in the coming future. And you should expect us to grow our -- or to see a lot of growth in regulated markets that eventually will result in our regulated part of our business becoming bigger and bigger over time.

Thanks, Ed. I think we're a few minutes over time. So, thank you, everyone, for joining us for the interim results. With that, we'll close the call, and we'll see you at the full year.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our full year 2025 results. As always, I will begin with a brief overview before handing over to Chris, who will take you through the financials and the outlook. I will then update you on our progress against our strategic priorities.

2025 was a year of strategic transformation for Playtech and one that went better than we had expected. We successfully completed the sale of Snaitech, revised our agreement with Caliente Interactive and transformed Playtech into a highly focused B2B technology business with a portfolio of valuable assets.

Adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 197 million, around 20% ahead of market expectations at the start of 2025. This performance was underpinned by strong momentum across the Americas and material investment income from our equity stakes in Caliente Interactive and Hard Rock Digital.

We ended the year with net cash position of EUR 29 million, reinforcing the strength of our balance sheet, which gives us flexibility to invest behind growth opportunities and consider further shareholder returns.

As a simplified group with strengthened foundations and clear levers in our key markets, we move into 2026 with confidence on track to deliver 2026 full year adjusted EBITDA ahead of market expectations while continuing to make progress towards our medium-term financial targets.

I will now hand over to Chris.

Thanks, Moran. On to Slide 5, please. As we communicated at both our full year 2024 and our H1 '25 results, these financial results for 2025 reflect the impact of the revised Caliente Interactive agreement, which came into effect on the 1st of April 2025.

As a brief reminder, as part of the new agreement, we no longer receive the additional B2B services fee, which is now removed from revenue and direct costs. Instead, Playtech now recognizes its 30.8% share of income from associate from Caliente Interactive within adjusted EBITDA with dividends flowing into free cash flow.

This rebases our reported revenue and affects both adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow, but introduces a more aligned recurring investment income stream. These impacts are particularly noticeable in the year-on-year comparatives given the new agreement came into effect on the 1st of April 2025, but will normalize going forward.

Now on to the highlights. I'm pleased to report good financial performance of the group with adjusted EBITDA reaching EUR 197 million, around 20% ahead of market expectations at the start of 2025. Outside of the rebasing of numbers from the full year '25 to reflect the revised Caliente agreement, underlying revenue and adjusted EBITDA were impacted by regulatory headwinds in Colombia and Brazil.

However, overall, the group performed strongly in the Americas with significant investment income contribution from Caliente and Hard Rock Digital. Together, these accounted for the vast majority of the EUR 62 million of adjusted EBITDA from investment income, highlighting the value in our strategic investments.

Free cash flow improved materially in the second half of the year, supported by growing investment income distributions. For the full year 2025, free cash flow is down compared to the reported 2024 figure. However, this comparative includes the impact of Caliente under the previous agreement. When normalizing for this, the starting point was broadly breakeven free cash flow for 2024. And as such, our 2025 result shows significant progress.

At the same time, we maintained a strong balance sheet, finishing the year in a net cash position even after repurchasing 8.3% of our equity capital in the second half for a total of EUR 77 million.

On to the next slide, where we will look at our B2B revenue performance. Reported B2B revenue was EUR 688 million, down year-on-year due to the impact of the revised Caliente agreement. On an underlying basis, regulated B2B revenue grew 6%, reflecting very strong momentum in the Americas. U.S. and Canada delivered over 70% growth in constant currency, driven by continued wallet share gains with Tier 1 operators and strong performance across Live, Casino and the PAM+ verticals.

In Latin America, underlying revenue grew 8% despite the impact from Colombia VAT headwinds and Brazil's particularly stringent transition to a regulated market. Europe ex U.K. performance was driven by strong growth in Poland and Spain, offset partially by the impact of higher hardware sales in the prior year.

The U.K. was impacted by tougher regulatory backdrop and certain customer-specific changes, including the previously communicated in-sourcing of self-service betting terminals by one operator.

Elsewhere, Rest of the World delivered strong double-digit growth, driven primarily by strong performance in South Africa. Revenues from unregulated markets declined year-on-year as expected due to the reclassification of Brazil into our regulated reporting segment.

Turning to Slide 5 -- sorry, next slide, Slide 7. B2B costs increased modestly in 2025, reflecting continued investments in areas where we see strongest potential for long-term returns. In particular, the Live vertical, where we continue to invest in expansion by increasing capacity in our U.S. studios, which accounted for the majority of the increase in Live costs, but we also added new tables in Peru and opened our studio in Sao Paulo to support our growth in the Americas.

During the year, we absorbed higher G&A expenses, primarily reflecting certain nonrecurring costs, professional fees and advisory costs, including some legal expenses. Looking ahead, we will continue to manage costs carefully, focusing investments on our areas of strategic priority, particularly in the Americas and Live while preserving efficiency and driving operating leverage over time.

On to the next slide. Following the sale of Snaitech, our B2C operations now represent a much smaller part of the group. HAPPYBET is considered noncore. And in 2025, we took decisive steps towards winding down the business, which is now nearing completion.

Given the changes to the U.K. gambling tax framework, we have commenced an operational review of Sun Bingo to assess its long-term prospects. Our actions across B2C reflect our focus on building a more streamlined operating footprint.

On to the balance sheet, looking at our net debt bridge. We began the year with net debt of EUR 143 million. The largest cash movements in the year were the EUR 2.3 billion proceeds received from the sale of Snaitech, the payment of EUR 1.8 billion as a special dividend to shareholders and the repayment of the remaining EUR 150 million of our EUR 350 million bond that matured in March 2026. That leaves the group with a single EUR 300 million bond maturing in June 2028.

In addition, we repurchased 8.3% of our issued equity capital at an average price of GBP 2.67 per share for a total of EUR 77 million, which should limit future dilution from employee share plans, including the PTP.

As a result of various cash movements outlined, we ended the year in a net cash position of EUR 29 million, supported by a fully undrawn EUR 225 million revolving credit facility, which together demonstrates the strength of our balance sheet even after the substantial capital returns through the special dividend and share buyback.

Looking ahead, we have a number of remaining liabilities related to the Snaitech sale totaling approximately EUR 90 million, of which around EUR 70 million will be settled in 2026 and EUR 20 million in 2027. Including these upcoming outflows would imply a pro forma net debt position of around EUR 60 million for the group.

Next slide, please. Let me briefly take you through our capital allocation policy. As a reminder, we maintained our previously communicated net debt to adjusted EBITDA target of 1 to 2x. Our balance sheet remains strong.

And while we have a lot going on in the business, I want to put a policy in front of you now in terms of how I think about capital allocation. We look at it in 3 buckets, the first of which is growth. We continue to prioritize organic investments into priority product verticals, namely Live, Casino as well as in the high-growth geographies across the Americas, including the U.S., Mexico and Brazil.

A key part of our framework is our early-stage investments via structured agreements where we typically partner with local heroes ahead of regulation, and as a result, directly participate in the future upside. This approach has proven to be hugely successful through our long-standing success with Caliente Interactive and more recently with Hard Rock Digital.

The second bucket is maintaining flexibility for less predictable events, including M&A and regulatory or tax changes. We remain open to selective M&A opportunities particularly those aligned with our ambition to strengthen Playtech's position as the leading B2B technology provider.

As well, we need to remain flexible given the uncertainty of our industry, as highlighted by recent events such as regulatory and tax changes we have seen in various markets in recent months. And we also need to maintain flexibility for contingent liabilities, including earnout payments on existing ventures.

Finally, shareholder returns. We returned EUR 1.8 billion to shareholders as a special dividend following the Snaitech sale in H1, representing a return greater than our market capitalization earlier in the year prior to the deal announcement. We also returned EUR 77 million in H2 in the form of share buybacks. We intend to continue returning capital to shareholders going forward.

The capital we retained beyond the first 2 buckets I mentioned of, one, investing in growth, and two, maintaining flexibility, is what we will consider to be structurally surplus capital. We intend to return to surplus capital to shareholders going forward. This should also grow over time as we generate increasing free cash flow, as I discussed on a previous slide. Going forward, we will review returns, including dividends and buybacks, in line with this policy.

Turning to Slide 11 and our levers to get to our medium-term financial targets of EUR 250 million to EUR 300 million in adjusted EBITDA and EUR 70 million to EUR 100 million in free cash flow. In 2025, we've made a number of important steps towards these goals.

Starting with the U.S., we have seen strong performance across our Live, Casino and PAM+ verticals as well as good progress with Hard Rock Digital. The outlook is encouraging with a healthy pipeline of new commercial opportunities across our products and services, and we will be profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis in 2026.

Last year, I said we have around EUR 20 million of losses at the EBITDA level and around EUR 25 million at the cash flow level from underperforming businesses. These figures have improved somewhat year-on-year, but more importantly, we have taken decisive action to address some of these units with the wind down of HAPPYBET now nearing completion and the IGS business now classified as an asset held for sale.

At the same time, we continue to capture growth from regulated markets, namely the Americas and selected European jurisdictions. We are investing to further improve and innovate our key product verticals while consistently realizing the benefits of our revenue share business models and the attractive economics within our structured agreements.

Partnerships with leading operators remain a core competitive advantage, and we are particularly pleased with the momentum we are seeing with Caliente, DraftKings and Hard Rock Digital, amongst others. Collectively, these levers coupled with continued focus on cost efficiency and our efforts in addressing underperforming business units will drive operating leverage over time. We remain extremely confident in achieving our medium-term adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow targets.

Next slide, please. Finally, I would like to update you on our 2026 trading so far and the outlook. We've had a very strong start to the year, particularly across the Americas, where we continue to see sustained demand in both the U.S. and Mexico.

In the U.S., the strong activity we saw in Q4 has continued into the new year, and we are encouraged by the healthy pipeline of upcoming launches. In Mexico, Caliente continues to perform strongly, and we expect to see a further uplift from the 2026 FIFA World Cup, where Mexico is a co-host nation and the games will be on a local time zone. This is a once-in-a-generation event that will significantly boost visibility, engagement and betting volumes.

Reflecting the strong start, we now expect to deliver full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA ahead of current market expectations, despite the regulatory headwinds across some of our markets. We expect 2026 full year CapEx, including capitalized development, to be in the range of EUR 90 million to EUR 100 million with the increase compared to '25 due to our expansion plans in Brazil. We expect the group's effective tax rate to be approximately 25% to 28%.

Finally, as I highlighted earlier, both management and the Board of Directors remain confident in Playtech's ability to execute our strategy and to deliver our medium-term financial targets of EUR 250 million to EUR 300 million in adjusted EBITDA and EUR 70 million to EUR 100 million of free cash flow.

And with that, I'll now hand back to Moran to cover our strategic priorities.

Thanks, Chris. I will now take you through our investment case strategy, the progress made so far and our ambitions for the future. But first, a reminder of how we capture value across the value chain.

Our wide product offering gives customers access to best-in-class operational expertise. This is how we have supported local heroes and help them to grow into market-leading operations. Outside of our strong live offering and casino content, we have a very unique selling point, our 25-plus years of data from our customers.

We also have a multi-decade expertise, which will translate into a services offering that supports the optimization of our products and for our customers. With our regulatory expertise and market-leading safer gambling tools, there is no other player in the market that offer solutions across the entire value chain.

Now to our investment case. For those of you looking at our story after some time, we are now a simplified business. Playtech today is a high growth, predominantly B2B technology business, serving over 200 customers across more than 50 regulated jurisdictions and providing mission-critical infrastructure to many of the world's leading gambling operators.

We are recognized for delivering market-leading content and platform technology through value-accretive business models across some of the fastest-growing regulated markets globally. We also partner with many of the world's largest and most influential brands from local heroes such as Totalizator, SNAI and Sisal, to major global operators, including Flutter, Entain and bet365.

Our multi-decade experience supporting B2B customers enables us to identify opportunities early and invest selectively directly and via our structured agreement framework. Through this strategy, we have built a portfolio of highly valuable strategic assets now exceeding more than EUR 1 billion in value on our balance sheet. This is important to understand.

Among these assets, we hold a highly attractive 30.8% stake in Caliente Interactive, Mexico's undisputed market leader. We also have a minority equity stake in Hard Rock Digital, which is performing strongly in the U.S. with the value of our investment increasing by more than 2x since the original investment in March 2023.

In addition, we hold stakes in high-potential local operators such as Galera Bet in Brazil and Wplay in Colombia, as well as LSports, a rapidly growing sports data provider. The combination of our B2B technology platform and our portfolio of highly valuable assets gives Playtech a uniquely compelling investment case with significant optionality.

Coupled with our ambitious medium-term targets and our confidence in achieving them, we believe we are exceptionally well positioned to capture growth and deliver attractive, sustainable value to our shareholders.

Turning to the next slide, where I would like to briefly outline our strategic priorities. Firstly, we remain focused on regulated and regulating markets where we see long-term potential for strong growth. As you will hear in the next few slides, we are making significant progress across our core markets, including the U.S., Mexico and Brazil.

Secondly, we continue to invest in our product suite to ensure we stay ahead of competition. In Live Casino, we are expanding our studio footprint and scaling the capacity. In Casino and PAM+, we continue to prioritize personalization, delivery of bespoke solutions and innovative, high-performing content.

Alongside this, we ensure our customers have access to in-house expertise through our managed services offering where we can take ownership of a customer's day-to-day operations and use our decades of expertise to optimize their operations without needing to migrate platform infrastructure.

We also offer the latest safer gambling technology through BetBuddy, helping customers optimize their performance while maintaining the highest standards of player protection.

Lastly, following the sale of Snaitech, we have intensified our focus on simplifying the organization and optimizing our operating model, ensuring we have the right cost base, the right footprint and the right allocation of resources to support the next phase of growth.

Taken together, these priorities form a clear road map for execution and give us strong conviction in our ability to deliver on our medium-term financial targets while positioning Playtech to capture structural growth opportunities and continue to generate attractive, sustainable value to -- for our shareholders.

On to the next slide, please. I would like to highlight our longstanding partnership with Caliente Interactive and how together we are positioned to unlock Mexico's significant growth opportunities. And I'll start with the market overview.

Mexico's online gambling market is expanding rapidly with industry forecasts indicating it could double in size over the next 5 years. The country benefits from a large mobile-first population of over 100 million adults supported by high online penetration. Importantly, GGR per adult is relatively low at around $35. And when compared with a market such as Brazil at $64, the room for growth is exciting.

Within this context, Caliente is the undisputed leader. With more than 100 years of brand heritage, deep cultural localization and one of the most extensive sponsorship portfolios in the region, Caliente has created a formidable competitive moat that continues to reinforce its dominance.

Under the revised agreement, Caliente contributed around EUR 55 million to Playtech's adjusted EBITDA through our 30.8% equity stake and distributed around EUR 45 million to Playtech in dividends, which flow directly into our free cash flow. The performance has remained strong into 2026.

2026 also brings once-in-a-generation catalyst, the FIFA Men's World Cup, cohosted in Mexico, and importantly, on the local time zone. As the official sponsor of the Mexican national football team, Caliente is set to benefit from unprecedented global visibility during a tournament expected to reach more than 6 billion cumulative viewership engagements.

This creates a powerful platform to accelerate customer acquisition, enhancing cross-sell and driving higher engagement over the next few years. Playtech is well positioned to benefit from this growth.

The combination of Caliente's market leadership as well as the many other operators we serve in the market, Mexico's structural growth drivers and the World Cup catalyst collectively represent a major value driver for Playtech over the medium term.

Turning to the next slide and looking at our progress in the U.S. For the second consecutive year, our U.S. business delivered revenue growth of more than 100% as we continued executing on our strategy and began to realize meaningful returns on the investments made over the last few years.

Live Casino remains a standout growth driver with revenues up over 110% year-on-year. Our ability to deliver high-quality dedicated tables continues to be a clear point of differentiation. With more than 60 U.S. tables in operation at year-end, we continue to scale capacity to meet sustained demand from Tier 1 operators.

In Casino, we are recognized for our bespoke development and our exclusive branded content, which together offer our customers meaningful differentiation. In 2025, we developed and launched several high-performing bespoke titles for FanDuel, Hard Rock Digital and Rush Street Interactive.

Our PAM+ platform continues to be a major contributor to U.S. momentum and is now ranked the #1 third-party iGaming platform in the country. PAM+ supported the successful expansion of Delaware North, including new retail and online sports launches across multiple states and the rollout of casino in West Virginia. In addition, Parx Casino delivered strong performance, exceeding market growth, supported by our platform capabilities.

Finally, I would like to highlight our strong progress with Hard Rock Digital. Together, we developed a first of its kind sports wagering product where outcomes are based on Past Motor Racing events. Offered by the Seminole Tribe, the product has received very positive customer feedback since launch in Q4 last year.

Hard Rock has also continued to expand beyond Florida with further momentum in New Jersey and a new launch in Michigan in Q4 where they quickly go to #4 market share. Our progress in the U.S. highlights accelerating demand across our products and reinforces the scale of the long-term opportunity for Playtech in this market.

And the journey in the U.S. is just beginning. In 2025, we launched with major customers in West Virginia and Delaware and launched earlier this month in Connecticut, bringing our regulated iGaming presence to 6 U.S. states. As you can see on the map, also in the appendix, the number of U.S. states that have not yet regulated iGaming. We are really excited about the opportunity ahead of us as this evolves over time.

Next slide, please. Looking at Brazil, one of the most exciting regulated opportunities globally. According to industry estimates, Brazil's newly licensed online gambling market is expected to generate around 50% of Latin America's total GGR by 2030, underscoring its potential to become one of the world's largest regulated markets.

As we indicated before, Brazil has been challenging in terms of regulatory measures with some of the strictest onboarding requirements globally. However, we view these challenges as temporary. Our confidence in Brazil is grounded in powerful long-term fundamentals, a population of 150 million adults, rising digital adoption and deep national passion for sports, all of which underpin sustained structural growth.

During the year, we completed the build-out of our Sao Paulo Live Studio, purpose-built to deliver highly localized content through native-speaking dealers. We also expanded our local team to over 100 employees, giving us the scale and capability to support a growing demand from customers for our bespoke content solutions. I'm excited about the prospects of this market going forward.

Now looking at Live Casino. Live continues to be a high-growth, high-margin vertical and one where Playtech is steadily gaining share. With the global live market projected to double over the next 5 years, we remain exceptionally well positioned in key markets such as the U.S., Mexico and Brazil, where growth is forecasted to be particularly strong.

Importantly, our internal data shows that Live Casino players generate around 1.8x more revenue than traditional Casino players, making Live a highly attractive cross-sell destination.

During 2025, we continue to scale our Live operations to meet rising demand. Live delivered 10% growth in regulated markets in 2025, excluding the beneficial impact of Brazil moving into our regulated segment. By the year-end, we operated more than 500 tables across 17 studios, doubling our table count since 2020 and adding 11 new studios in the last 5 years.

Our investments were focused on strategic capacity expansion, adding tables across our U.S. studios, launching the Live from Las Vegas broadcast studio from the MGM Grand casino floor, opening our new Sao Paulo studio in Brazil and selectively increasing table capacity across Peru and Romania.

Looking ahead, we remain committed to advancing our Live strategy. With expanding studio capacity, differentiated bespoke content and strong commercial momentum, we expect Live Casino to become a material contributor to achieving our medium-term financial targets.

Turning to the next slide, and the opportunities ahead with AI. Playtech was early in applying machine learning within our solutions. And over the past year, we have continued to accelerate our AI adoption.

We established a robust AI governance framework, rolled out AI tooling across the organization and fostering cross-functional innovation through our innovation labs, while continuing to advance our AI-enabled safer gambling capabilities through Playtech Protect.

The models are only as good as the data stack they are trained on. We are a data-centric business, and we have over 25 years of data from our customers across platform and products. This is a core differentiator for Playtech.

As we further our AI adoption, the opportunities are significant. From a revenue perspective, we are already using AI to enhance game development in Casino while exploring AI host and brand customization in Live.

Across the platform, we are improving personalized player journeys and developing more intelligent AI-generated sports bet builders. These initiatives help operators deliver more relevant content, deepen engagement and ultimately grow revenues.

On the cost side, AI is unlocking efficiency opportunities across the organization. We are automating routine tasks. We are also responsibly rolling out Agentic solutions for software development, coding, testing and quality assurance. These areas are already generating early productivity gains with more expected over time.

Overall, AI is becoming an increasingly meaningful contributor across Playtech's operations, driving product innovation, improving efficiency and enhancing how we support our customers.

Next slide, please. 2025 marked the final year of our 5-year sustainability strategy, and I'm pleased to say we delivered meaningful progress across all of our commitments. During the year, we expended the uptake of BetBuddy, further reinforcing our role as a trusted partner in regulated markets. Our female representation in leadership roles reached 32%, up from 23% when laying out our commitments.

We have reduced scope 1 and 2 emissions by 48% against our 2018 baseline, an important step towards our 2040 net zero target. And through our partnership, we supported over 530,000 people in community programs over the last 5 years.

Our efforts were also recognized externally. In 2025, Playtech was ranked #1 in our sector in FTSE Women Leaders Report 2025, Climate Leader by the Financial Times, and we were included in the TIME Statista World's Most Sustainable Companies list. We are proud of the progress made since establishing our 2025 commitments 5 years ago.

In 2026, we will define our next 5-year sustainability road map, building on these foundations with renewed focus to support a more resilient, responsible and future-ready business that delivers long-term value for our customers, colleagues, communities and shareholders.

On to the final slide. As you've heard today, 2025 was a year of successful strategic reset for Playtech. Having delivered EUR 197 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2025, we are off to an excellent start this year and we are now on track to deliver full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA ahead of current market expectations.

We have very good momentum in the U.S. and increasing activity in Mexico as we enter a World Cup year with Caliente and others. We have a strong balance sheet, which gives us flexibility to invest, and we continue to look for efficiencies by using AI and addressing underperforming businesses.

As we finish the first quarter of 2026, we are confident in the outlook on track to deliver our medium-term targets and excited about the future of Playtech. Thank you for listening.

Chris and I obviously will now take any questions you may have. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Ivor Jones from Peel Hunt. You've talked lots about fast-growing markets, but Europe ex U.K. is still a big proportion of the current total. Could you just talk about the growth prospects and whether that region is ex growth? Or you're going to see stronger growth from some of the territories? And I'm not sure really how to ask this question. But in relation to Evolution's litigation and Black Cube, is there anything you can tell us about what you are doing?

Do you want to take that?

I've got some things I can say.

Obviously, we understand it's -- obviously, it's an interesting topic. I think we made our position clear in the RNS we issued back in October. Just to be clear, we have not been added to any case. So there's not really much we can say.

We're not going to be taking any further questions on the topic. Thanks for asking, but I'm not going to say anything further. And we are limited by what we can say under legal privilege and confidentiality rules in the U.S. So nothing further on that topic.

And then Europe ex U.K., I wouldn't describe it as ex growth. Obviously, there's a lot of different markets that make up that sort of bucket in our results. It is one of the largest portions of our revenue, but there's a lot of different moving parts within that.

Certainly, there are growth opportunities within it without question. I think the figures you see from a growth perspective in any particular set of results are going to be a mix of the trends in that period. There'll be some times one particular market and the dynamics there may be sort of drag all the results along with it or perhaps vice versa. But it will be a blend of the different markets. But without question, there are exciting markets within Europe.

Going forward, I think for Playtech, you saw this in 2025 with sort of the strong finish to the year and the upgrade and equally our positive comments today around 2026, disproportionately the growth is going to come from the Americas, right, north and south. There's no doubt about that. That will be -- that's probably been the story of our performance in recent times, and will be probably for much of '26, but that's not to say there are not exciting opportunities within Europe as well.

If I may just further elaborate, I will say the following. One of the things we are very proud of, one of the elements of our strategy that is shared amongst the company is obviously the diversity of Playtech. We have been diversifying our business for many, many years.

We started like many others in the U.K. being one of the first that adopted the framework that allowed regulated gaming even though -- even before it was locally regulated, accepting other jurisdiction and the activity and marketing into the U.K.

I would say that we are very proud of the diversity of Playtech. Obviously, the rest of the business is today by far than the U.K., which was not the case maybe some years ago, many years ago. And we believe that the other markets present a higher growth opportunity for Playtech, and we put a lot of efforts.

Having said all that, experience shows, having been around for 20 years now -- more than 20 years now, I would say that we have seen that already happening a few times with new regulations being introduced, with tax being introduced some years ago.

I will say that given the size, the importance, the significance and the fact that it's driven -- and the fact that the U.K. is driven by well-established operators like Entain, like Flutter, like Evoke and others, given the size still and the scale of the U.K. market, I think the U.K. will remain an important market for the sector. We're fully committed -- we are fully -- we remain fully committed to the relationships that we have in the U.K. and the U.K. market put together.

There will be a reset. Reality shows that some midsize, small size operators will leave the market, will decide -- will probably given the higher taxes and stricter regulations will move elsewhere, allocate marketing as well, which will give an opportunity to the larger operators to take some market share and offset the impact. I think that there will be a reset. But over time, we will see some growth in the future.

Hence why we believe that we should remain committed not only to the relationships, but the market altogether. It will not be -- maybe it will not be as exciting as the U.S., Mexico or Brazil. But still, it comes from not a small base. So obviously, a good contribution for the operators and Playtech and other B2B suppliers alike.

I'll just ask one follow-up question about growth. You mentioned when you were talking about increased CapEx and capitalized DevEx this year. One reason for that will be Brazil. Why does driving Brazilian growth require CapEx beyond the live studios you've already said you opened?

I think it's general infrastructure expansion. We have big plans of Brazil, both with our existing partners there and other opportunities that we've been working on. So it's a market that we're extremely excited about, and it's one of the most exciting ones across the group. And given the dynamics there, it requires some CapEx that we felt needed to be singled out. And just in that CapEx is going up year-on-year. So I just wanted to make that clear as to why that is.

If I may just add one -- sorry, if I may, just to add one more comment, which is, I think, extremely important. Brazil is one of the fastest-growing markets. If you compare it to -- on a state-by-state basis in the U.S. because, obviously, there are 6 or 7, there are 7 gaming states and many other sports-only states, right? But they are very, very different, right?

Market access is different, operators are different. Yes, there is a common denominator. You will find the larger 3 in most jurisdictions, operating in most jurisdictions, but not necessarily midsized operators in each and every state.

So when you compare the states on an individual basis compared to the U.K., which is quite stagnant as we just discussed, in Brazil, which is a fast-growing market, I think Brazil is a very, very exciting opportunity for the industry altogether, given the growth, yes, it has gone through very challenging times in 2025. It has been stable in the last -- it has been stable since the second year of last year, and we now see accelerated growth.

Playtech has a lot to achieve there with local partners. We have a group of brands that we support on a structured basis. Luva.Bet, obviously, Galera Bet, Brazil Bet, Luva.Bet F12, between them, not insignificant. Many, many B2B customers. There are many others we are in the process of establishing ourselves with.

Live Casino, going back to your question, Live Casino will require some CapEx, and we believe that we will see exponential demand for Live Casino formats and we identified some that will be, we believe, very exciting for the Brazilian market together that we developed internally or in collaboration with some companies that we collaborate with.

And we are also looking at certain partnerships that we believe we will be able to deliver within 2026, and those require certain investments. We can't really name them at this point in time. We don't want to set any expectations. I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I think that this is public that we've won certain tenders in the market, and we are preparing for that. And this requires an additional investment that we already started incurring since the end of last year, which will grow the CapEx and OpEx to some extent. But it will be limited. It's not -- we believe that the investment will be in 2026. I don't see that as a recurring theme beyond -- I mean, in 2027 and beyond in Brazil specifically.

I thought when we made Ivor our host analyst, he would start asking easier questions.

It's Roberta Ciaccia from Investec. I have 2 quick questions. First one on the U.S., clearly, a step change in profitability according to your indications today. Can you give us a bit more detail on what you expect it to be this year and in the coming years? And also, is this a cash positive? Is this going to be cash positive already in 2026?

Second thing on the B2C business. So HAPPYBET, where do you stand in the process of unwinding it? And what are potential plans for Sun Bingo, you said you're considering different options? That's all from me now.

Yes. On U.S. profitability, yes, good spot. There's definitely a change in our expectations around that business. We really -- we've been investing in that business as we've talked about with you for several years. And I think -- the returns have been coming, but that really sort of started to accelerate as we finish 2025 and has continued into 2026.

I believe our previous guidance on U.S. profitability was to reach it by the end of 2026. I now can say that we'll be profitable for 2026 as a whole. So it's not just -- we're not just talking finishing the year run rate profitability. We will be U.S. profitable for 2026 as a whole. So -- and that would include on a cash basis as well.

So we're very pleased with how that's going, and it's -- we're a little bit ahead of our plans, I would say. On B2C, HAPPYBET, we're -- I'd say, in 2026, we will completely have closed that business. We're well on the way towards that -- the costs are almost all gone.

There's a small amount of monthly remaining costs. But at its peak, the business was double-digit millions loss making on an annual basis. You saw it was negative EUR 6 million in 2025 on a monthly basis. Now it's almost negligible. So there's a little bit left to do to fully close it, but it's -- that's basically done.

Sun Bingo is a bit different. Obviously, it's -- like a lot of smaller operators in the U.K., it's going to be challenged by the remote gaming duty increases that are coming into effect shortly. That does significantly alter the profitability of that business in terms of our expectations going forward.

So we are working with them to do an operational review of that business and look for opportunities and some plans of how we will address that going forward. I will say the Sun Bingo business is more -- it's classified as B2B, but it had more B2B characteristics, similar to some of our structured agreements, right?

So I think it possible does have a future with Playtech. So it's very different, HAPPYBET is what I'm saying. But that being said, it does -- something needs to be addressed about it because it's no longer profitable or it's no longer expected to be profitable given the changes that are coming imminently in the remote gaming duty.

Richard Stuber from Deutsche Bank. Can I ask 3 questions, one on Brazil, one on Caliente, one on Live. In terms of Live, I think you talked about revenues were up sort of 10% year-on-year. Could you talk about the profitability of Live as well? Is that up? And if so, what sort of EBITDA is Live now making?

Second question is on Caliente. Could you just remind us the split of sort of sports versus casino there? Because clearly, you talk about the World Cup being a massive benefit, but it would be interesting to know how material that will be.

And the third point is on Brazil. I think at the end of the -- at your interims, you talked about sort of close to a deal with CAIXA. Could you talk a little bit more about where we are with that agreement, please?

Yes, Live, we haven't disclosed the margins or EBITDA in these results. There's a lot of moving parts. And I'd say it's a business, as we talked about, still with significant investment going into it. So we have given margins and EBITDA in the past. I wouldn't say margins have significantly expanded, but that's been somewhat by choice as we've continued to expand and invest in both CapEx and OpEx.

As I said, we're starting to see returns in places like the U.S. Live is one of the contributors to the previous question around U.S. profitability, but not the only one, but we are significantly continuing to expand Live in U.S., but also significantly including expanding in other areas like Brazil that Moran has discussed.

So the live margins haven't really expanded. But like I said, that's effectively a choice we're making to sacrifice short-term margins for future growth. So I think if you took the revenue growth figures we've disclosed today on Live and assume not much margin expansion, you can probably get an idea of how EBITDA has trended for that business.

Yes. On Caliente, I would say the following. Caliente, I can't really provide the numbers. It's not a question for us. It's a question for them. However, I would say the following. Grupo Caliente is a casino group, right?

However, on the other hand, the digital business, the Caliente Interactive established itself as a sports-driven business that has one of the largest, if not the largest, sponsorship portfolio through which it markets or that it use for marketing purposes. So I would say that it's one of the best positioned businesses between casino and sports, right?

So on one hand, the interactive business is led by sports. On the other hand, there is a clear association with casino given the roots of Caliente, and it's the perfect combination of both retail and online sports and casino.

The story about Caliente and its position is -- and its preparation for the World Cup, it is the position that they have in the market, the sponsorship portfolio that they have, the fact that they support the national team, the visibility of all of that.

And when you combine all of that, and combined the fact -- with the fact that it's a very balanced business between sports and casino, I think that the opportunity is very, very significant. I think that they are one of the best, if not best, positioned operators in the region and specifically Mexico for the coming World Cup.

On CAIXA, as we indicated before, like I said earlier, I don't want to get ahead of myself. We won the tender, it's public, we can say that. I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I will say the following. We are trying hard, we are pushing hard, and we still believe in the prospects of Brazil and partnerships in Brazil. We truly believe, however, that if we do manage to enter into an agreement with CAIXA, it will become one of the most significant opportunities for Playtech for the coming years alongside the U.S., Mexico and few other territories.

Given the size, the significance and the position of CAIXA, just so you understand, this is one of the largest banks, if not the largest bank, right? It's in a country that has 150 million adults in the country, they have 140 million registered customers.

The access to the market, the access to the popularity of the brand is unparalleled. You can't find -- I tried to -- when I thought about CAIXA, I was trying to think about another country where you have a brand that you can basically -- obviously, Caliente is the closest.

But I think that the best example would be Apple going live with a betting product in the U.S., will people want to try it? I believe the answer is yes. That, I think, is the best example of the position of CAIXA in Brazil. And I know that most people here in this room and most people in -- including myself, by the way, I educated myself about that and spent some time with CAIXA and spent some time in Brazil to better understand it.

I think that it's an opportunity that a lot of people do not understand, and I understand why they cannot understand because they are not there, they're not Brazilian. They did not go within Brazil and understand the importance of CAIXA to the community and the economy of Brazil.

Like I said, is very significant opportunity, not yet there. We are trying our best. And if it will come to that, obviously, we will announce it in due course.

I have 3 questions, if I may. The first one is on AI. You guys provided very good color with regards to the potential opportunities from AI. Have you guys quantified the potential margin improvement or hard dollar costs, hard euro cost that the savings could be?

And with regards to Software-as-a-Service, I believe that there has been some concerns with regards to AI being a threat to Software-as-a-Service. I was wondering if you could provide your thoughts on how your product would not be so impacted by potential AI replacing Software-as-a-Service?

On the M&A side, could you please comment on your appetite for M&A and what type of opportunities would be looking or will be interesting to you guys in terms of bolt-ons or anything major?

And last one with regards to the debt. I know that you guys have 2 years towards the maturity of the bonds. But if you could quickly provide some comments on the refinancing strategy for that bond. And if you would consider switching from fixed to some prepayable debt?

Okay. I can probably do the M&A and the debt, if you want to do the AI and SaaS.

On M&A, I think I communicated during the presentation around capital allocation, it remains part of our strategy. That being said, we haven't done meaningful true M&A since really Snaitech in 2018. We did -- we have done investments, which may or may not be considered in M&A, depending on how you look at it.

We still have an M&A strategy. We regularly are looking at potential opportunities. I think the good thing for Playtech is there's no obvious gaps in our portfolio, whether that's product or geographically. So there's nothing we feel like we need to fill. So we can be picky and choosy, and if the something that aligns with our strategy and also has the right financial profile, we will certainly explore it.

But it's -- so it remains a part of our strategy, but there's no -- it's not necessarily urgency or desperation to pursue M&A, but we will do so if the right opportunity presents itself. And like I said during the presentation, we'll fit it in with -- has to fit in with our overall capital allocation strategy.

In terms of the debt, like you said, we have one bond remaining that matures in June 2028. So we're 2 to 2.5 years away from that. So we do have some time. It's something we look at regularly, both in the context of Playtech's performance and what a refinancing would look like, but also in terms of what the market for refinancings are like. Obviously, we're in a good position with a very, very strong balance sheet. So nothing imminent on that.

Obviously, when you get closer to 2 years and sub 2 years, you're probably what's more typical refinancing window. So I think we will start to look at it more closely later this year. But it's -- while we keep our ear to the ground and are on top of these things, it's not something I would describe as an urgent priority.

In terms of the type of debt we may refinance it with, our starting point is probably a similar bond, to be quite honest, but we'll always look at Playtech and what different types of securities might make sense. So we'd certainly be open to considering something different, but I'd say a traditional bond is probably our starting point.

I'll try to give you a brief answer on AI. Otherwise, we need to prepare lunch here outside, right? Because I have been educating myself about it for many, many months now, more than many, many months. I can tell you the following. One of the things I mentioned in the presentation, Playtech is a data-centric business.

Playtech has taken the decision to include machine learning algorithms, partly the basis for AI, in April 2017, right, 9 years ago. And a lot of what we do today is data-driven across different parts of the platform and the products that we provide. So there is a good basis there.

One thing you learn about AI, a lot of people say AI, but what AI really means, right? I've been -- I'll give you an example. I've been on a call with a company we are now going to collaborate with. They have 100 data scientists, all geniuses, right? And they focused on GenAI, generative AI around video, around video and graphics, right?

And when I ask, do you have -- what LLM models do you have, large language models do you have and deploy? And they said, it has nothing to do with LLMs. So AI consists of many categories. You can use AI for graphics, for content, you can -- for video.

And you can do that for data, data collection, data analysis to generate better engagement with the customer. We are already deploying and already using a lot of those AI capabilities, whether it is GenAI or LLMs in order to improve the product.

The one thing which I also mentioned in the presentation, which is the key and people need to understand that, right? You can go and buy certain tools or get a license from certain companies that provide you with an API for AI tools.

And everyone, everyone, right, will use over time, AI capabilities in order to streamline the games development, for example, to make it quicker and cheaper. Playtech is already doing that, and we will progress and invest more into it in order to make it quicker and in order to make it cheaper.

But this is not where the story -- this is not the story. The story is about how you can use AI beyond that. Our industry is going through a change. AI is the catalyst for that, right? But it's how do you appeal to a younger generation, how do you appeal to content creators. This is the future of e-commerce, this is the future of communications. This is the future. And accordingly, this is the future of our industry.

The one area that people need to understand Playtech has a key differentiator that no other company I'm familiar with has is 25-plus years of data we accumulated, supporting by empowering and supporting the largest and leading operators across the space.

And when you think how you basically create AI tools or AI or using AI tools, solutions, right, for the benefit of the customers, like personalization, like customer engagement, like content creation, Playtech is almost uniquely positioned in this category by the fact that it can use the data it accumulated for so many years.

There is a reason why you won't find too many platform providers, right? Because in order to build a platform, you need to have access to operators that will share with you the processes and the methodologies and the efficiencies within gaming operations. We have that from the platform.

We have the data that comes together with that from 25 years of supporting the largest and leading, which positions us better to provide whether it is SaaS, games, products or platform capabilities, that no other companies will be able to provide using AI and data-driven solutions. And this is why I don't believe that there is a real risk for Playtech, right?

But again, I don't want to get ahead of myself because we have to understand, and again, I know that it's kind of a confusing answer, but because I can talk, but you need to go through the basic GenAI versus LLMs versus different other tools, and how you employ that and how do you deploy that and how you use that.

But I think that Playtech is a data-centric business with data, and therefore, positioned better to provide better solutions that will allow us to basically compete better against the competition. I believe that other companies will find it hard to create Software-as-a-Service solutions that we'll be able to compete with the data and the solutions we will create on the basis of this data.

But in general, AI is something that everyone will use. And I think that -- and again, one last comment I wanted to make is sometimes, certain things that look very, very trivial, right, Live Casino dealer, an AI host dealer, right, an AI dealer, an AI casino dealer, right? Yes, it's easy to create the dealer, right?

It's easy to use AI tools, you create a digital dealer. But when you start communicating, it will not pass regulatory requirements, right? It will fail to communicate well enough with the customer, right, because -- and it can be a real risk to the business, right? So we still have a long way before there will be real AI-supported, AI-generated solutions that will be -- that operators will be able to use in a secure, regulated way in different territories.

But we're investing heavily into that, and I think that Playtech will be one of the first to come out with some AI-driven solutions, products and even the platform, a better platform that will be driven by AI, which will position us ahead of the competition.

Hence why I think that there is a risk, don't get me wrong, but it's limited. And even though -- but still, it's something we monitor on a continuous basis. On the AI and the efficiencies and how much money we can save, I would say that for us now, it's not necessarily -- because of the strong demand, because of the accelerated growth, it's less about cutting costs. It's about leading to efficiencies.

So for example, our games development unit, our goal using AI is to cut the -- or to double, I would say, to double the amount of games we developed, bespoke branded and other games for the benefit of our customers because we see a strong demand, right, on the basis of the same resources that we have today.

So we will not need, even though there is a strong demand and an increasing demand in different territories for additional content, our goal is by using AI is to use the same amount of people that we have today in order to generate double the amount of games that we can offer the customers.

And I think that this is a better approach for us than simply cutting the cost and suggesting that we can now by using Claude or Cursor, right, we can reduce the cost of coding by 30%, and we will make people redundant.

Our industry is a fast-growing business. We are going through 2026, which is an important year. It's a World Cup year. A lot of our customers are driven by sports. We don't want to make mistakes. And for us, it will be using -- it will be to use AI in order to accelerate the growth rather than to cut the cost.

Don't get me wrong, it also reduces certain routine tasks, right, internally, like, for example, quality assurance, testing, where we can cut the costs alongside that. But we haven't yet quantified that, and it's a work in progress. All this AI is a work in progress, not only for us, for many, many other companies as well.

Thanks, Moran. I think we've got time for one more from the audience. Jamie?

It's Jamie Bass from Citi. I won't ask on AI because I think that's been pretty well covered. I have 3 questions, please. The first one on the World Cup. Could we talk a bit about phasing? Given that it's June and July, would you expect H1 to be more of an investment and then see the benefit flowing through in H2?

Then second one, Chris, I know you said you wouldn't comment any more. So I hope this doesn't count, but could you give us an idea for legal costs for the year?

And then finally, on Brazil, we've talked about the opportunity there. We've been seeing a lot of headlines about potential regulatory tightening and changes from where we already are, potential tax increases. So how do you think about the potential for that market if the situation were to change?

Which market was the last one?

Brazil.

Brazil. On the World Cup, certainly, I think the biggest impact on Playtech, there are others, but the biggest will be through our investment in Caliente. Their plans -- they actually had a Board meeting this week, which Moran and I attend. They're planning significant investment in H1 in the lead up to the World Cup. I mean, they're still growing in H1 year-on-year. So the business -- but they are planning heavy investment, and that should -- then you see the benefits in that.

So on that basis, I think the investment from an OpEx perspective will be more H1 weighted, and H2 should be -- you should see in theory at least accelerated revenue growth and perhaps OpEx tapering off somewhat. So their business would be more H2 weighted, and the benefits should go beyond H2 as well, should go into 2027 and beyond.

Legal costs, nothing to call out, to be honest. Obviously, we've published our results, which I think were quite strong. So any costs were within that. And I don't think anyone has noticed because they're not that significant. And similarly, we're -- we've given a upgrade on 2026 today. So nothing to really say about legal costs, to be honest.

And on Brazil, we -- the market is expected to grow significantly over the course of the coming years. There were a lot of suggestions, a lot of proposals. We believe that regardless of any regulatory change, the market will remain an attractive market and will present for Playtech specifically a significant opportunity going forward.

So there may be some changes. There were references to tax, there were references to certain products. But we believe that the market is -- presents a sustainable growth, a significant sustainable growth opportunity for Playtech.

One of the first test will be, obviously, whether CAIXA will indeed launch betting and gaming in the country. Once that happens, I think that they will become the standard. And I think that it will be a clear indication where the market is headed.

I'm not -- it is not -- obviously, it made the case that there will be certain regulatory changes. But in light of the size, in light of the significance of certain operators in the market, we believe that even if it will be introduced on a medium-term basis, it may be that the impact will be short term. But on a medium, long-term basis, this is still one of the most promising opportunities for operators operating in Brazil, for companies like Playtech and others.

Okay. I think on that note, we're out of time. So thank you, everyone, for joining and participating today. That brings our full year 2025 results to a close, and we will see you all at the next one.

Operator, you can close the line. Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, everyone.