Super Group Aktie

Thank you for standing by. My name is Jay, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Super Group Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Nkem Ojougboh, Head of Investor Relations for Super Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Super Group's results for the second quarter 2026.

During this call, Super Group may make comments of a forward-looking nature that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed further in its SEC filings, which could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or from our forecast. We assume no responsibility to update forward-looking statements other than as required by law.

On today's call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures are in addition to and not a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the press release issued yesterday and available on the Investor Relations page of our website. We recommend that investors refer to the supplementary presentation posted on our website.

Today, I'm joined by Neal Menashe, Chief Executive Officer; and Alinda Van Wyk, Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for questions.

And now I'd like to turn the call over to Neal.

Thank you, Nkem, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to report that the second quarter 2026 marked another exceptional period for Super Group, surpassing the record set in the first quarter.

Revenue, adjusted EBITDA, deposits and wagering activity all reached new highs, supported by strong underlying momentum across the business and increased engagement during the FIFA World Cup.

As announced yesterday, we are super excited about our landmark partnership with Manchester United, making Betway the club's principal partner and exclusive global betting partner for the upcoming English Premier League season starting later this month. This partnership will further enhance Betway's profile across United's massive worldwide fan base. Man U status is arguably Africa's most popular football club, strongly aligns with our long-term brand and growth objectives.

The World Cup drove exceptional customer acquisition and solid cross-sell across the business. New customer acquisition increased more than threefold compared with the prior World Cup period. During the tournament, customers placed over 166 million football bets. Approximately 60% of those bets or 100 million were on World Cup matches.

Our sports margin hit a record 17% for the quarter, reflecting improved pricing and risk management, the continued growth of parlays and most importantly, the quality and durability of our customer base.

Our focus remains on acquiring and retaining customers who generate sustainable long-term value. Our super persistent annuity revenue model is intended to sustain customer cohorts that generate predictable revenues and profits. This disciplined approach is intended to ensure robust long-term returns that are coupled with healthy and sustainable unit economics.

We see this working particularly well in Africa, which delivered another outstanding quarter. Revenue grew 36% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA increased 47% to $133 million, driven by broad-based growth across the region. Sports and casino wages were up 5% and 28%, respectively, year-over-year.

Looking ahead, we continue to see attractive opportunities to expand our footprint and remain on track for the expected launch of Namibia in Q4. We also remain focused on increasing the utility of our ZAR Supercoin. We are expanding wallet functionality, broadening exchange access and advancing the phased rollout strategy while building the foundation for broader adoption and remittance across key African markets.

International grew 7% year-over-year. Ex the U.S., it was 12%, while adjusted EBITDA held steady at $84 million, with strong underlying growth offset by the U.K. tax and short-term cost of strategic generosity key campaigns that we expect will deliver ongoing benefits in due course.

In Europe, revenue grew 22%, led by a 34% increase in the U.K., which delivered record revenue in May. Ireland was up 18% year-over-year. We expect to launch slots in Germany this month, bringing our full product suite to the market.

North America, excluding the U.S., grew 9%. Canada ex-Ontario delivered 11% revenue growth, supported by strong retention and continued product enhancement. In Alberta, revenue was up 8% year-over-year, ahead of the province's regulated market launch on July 13. We are approaching the rollout in a disciplined and phased manner to support sustainable long-term growth.

Rest of world revenue increased 6%, led by strong performance in New Zealand, which grew 14% year-over-year despite reduced marketing spend. We are preparing for local licensing and positioning the business for a seamless transition to a regulated market.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Alinda.

Thank you, Neal. Quarter 2 2026 delivered a record total revenue of $684 million, up 18% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA grew 30% to $204 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 30% compared with 27% in the prior year period. Average monthly active customers reached 6.2 million, up 13% year-over-year. Total wagering increased 8% for sports and 15% for casino.

Free cash flow conversion reached 68% in the first half of the year. We closed the quarter with $548 million in cash, up 39% year-over-year, even after returning $25 million to shareholders this past quarter and $218 million over the last 12 months.

Disciplined cost management, the enduring strength of our casino business, a boosted sports performance driven by the World Cup, enhanced pricing and our commitment to high return markets are all reflected in these results. Supported by our efficient approach to capital allocation, our balance sheet remains as robust as ever.

Finally, as a result of our strong first half performance and a solid start to the third quarter, we are pleased to raise our full year 2026 guidance. We now expect total revenue to be more than $2.6 billion and adjusted EBITDA to be greater than $710 million.

I will now hand back to Neal for closing remarks.

Thank you, Alinda. Over the first half of 2026, we have once again demonstrated the strength of our brands, business model and customer base. We are driving growth through disciplined execution and operational excellence.

Given our exceptional performance and the strength of our balance sheet, capital allocation is very much front of mind for both management and the Board. While we remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet, we recognize that we have excess cash. As shareholders ourselves, our interests are closely aligned with yours, and we're actively evaluating the most effective ways to deploy our capital to maximize long-term shareholder value.

With steady momentum, our highly engaged customer base, our new Man U partnership kicking off the football season and multiple growth drivers at play, we believe Super Group is well positioned for the remainder of 2026.

Operator, please can you open the call up for questions?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jed Kelly of Oppenheimer.

Another nice quarter. Just circling back, I guess, given all the engagement in the World Cup, can you just talk about your MAUs and your marketing being down, I think it was down 2% year-over-year, and just kind of your choice to maybe not market as much as we thought and then some of the sequential decline we saw in MAUs?

Sure, I can talk, no problem. Yes, the headline number for MAU is down, but it's not a concern for us. There are a number of reasons. The World Cup was great for acquisition, and we saw super engagement from those customers. But you must bear in mind, it was only 2 weeks of the quarter, and 3 weeks before that, there was no soccer at all. So what we're seeing is very normal seasonality for the quarter as a whole. And the quarter, we also had some tax effects to deal with the 2 smaller African markets. This had an impact on customer counts at the lower value add, but revenue still grew sequentially, and these markets' mix grew sequentially. So we're very happy with that.

Overall, we expect resumption of customers in Q3 and Q4, in line with prior quarters on the back of the new EPL season, of course, the Man U new partnership. But remember, this is also key for us. The key driver for us is super persistent annuity, profitable revenue per customer. And I think you see that coming through in our results.

And on the marketing, I'll hand over to Alinda.

Thanks, Jed. Yes, the marketing is down around 1%. Seasonality plays a role because quarter 2 is normally a much quieter period for us around marketing. We're also pleased with our World Cup acquisition campaigns, but we did not spend as much as that you would expect. The reason for that is, remember, the time zone for the World Cup is quite not ideal for our book and a large portion for our customers is outside the time zones. And we expect to revision back to our guide of around 21% to 22% for the remainder of the year.

Great. And then just for my follow-up, Alinda, can you just help us think about the back half cadence between third and fourth quarter this year? I know I think last year, fourth quarter might have been impacted by adverse sports results. So just any way you can just help us with the cadence would be great.

Yes. So we've got -- remember, 2024 was a very hard comp. And then we had the adverse effect of the sports in quarter 4 2025. We expect -- that's what makes guidance quite difficult for us around the sports, and we're quite consistent in our approach just to be a bit more conservative around that. It will be normal levels that you've seen in the first half of the year. Our marketing discipline, like I said, will be back at 21%, 22%. And we've got high confidence in our business and in our customers. So we still have embedded in the half year guide of organic growth, no aggressive persistency assumptions. And we still see the continued support and the momentum from the customers post the World Cup. But -- and then we've just also just embedded the U.K. tax effect and Alberta tax is from July onwards in our guide, for the half year, but very consistent to what we've previously put out.

Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Bender of Citizens.

I want to start in Nigeria, still early days there. I know you've been looking at the strategy in the country this year. But how has that strategy and product evolved over the course of the year? And how do you anticipate to be competitive with the 2 top operators there that have a strong retail presence in that market?

Neal here. Obviously -- so Nigeria is obviously a big opportunity. It's the largest population in Africa, growing TAMs, et cetera. What we're doing and we've been doing it and we're still doing it is improve technology, improving our product, our team and our bench strength. We signed Don Jazzy as an ambassador. So we launched driving acquisition and brand recognition there. We're diversifying our marketing channels. So remember, Nigeria is still very small relative to our other African countries. So we really are optimizing the debt. So it's coming together. The numbers are going in the right direction [indiscernible].

Okay. And then, at the end of the prepared remarks, you kind of circled back to the capital allocation piece. Is there any change to how you think about how you're allocating capital outside of your dividend? You kind of talked about the most effective ways. I'm just kind of curious, has that changed in your mind of how you want to allocate capital?

Thanks for the question. We are actively working with our Board around this, and we recognize that we have excess cash. With that said, there's no change in our approach at this point. We -- discipline comes first, but we remain flexible. We believe in organic growth. So we're going after opportunities with a high return of investment. And we -- like we said, we'll up the marketing spend again. And -- but we also have dividends and buybacks always on front of mind. And for M&A, staying disciplined around opportunities that make sense to us, bolt-on opportunities that will strengthen our core. So very consistent to prior approaches, but it's definitely -- we focus on it all the time.

And I think -- sorry, and [indiscernible] obviously, when it comes to an even M&A, we're selected. And also, we don't have lots of debt, we are placing minimal debt, and we don't want to lack the flexibility. So we're really in a good place. And the operating cash flow is coming into the business.

Your next question comes from the line of Bernie McTernan of Needham & Company.

Maybe just to start, I would love to dive into Alberta a little bit more, maybe in terms of what the underlying guidance is, assuming, in terms of either retaining the revenue that you have in the region now or even growing it.

Okay. So -- okay. So let's talk Alberta. So obviously, all brands have to follow the local regulation by the middle of October, right? So we focused on, obviously, the regulation readiness and getting the tech, everything working really well there. We're taking on a phased brand rollout approach, unlike Ontario, which was a big bang, you had to move everyone over on a set date. So for us, it's making sure the UX is right, focused on our HVC, the VIP cohorts to ensure the retention. But overall, we expect also a more rational competitive environment in Alberta versus what happened in Ontario. But we've got time for the next few months to do it. So everything is on track, and our teams are very happy with it.

That's great. And then maybe just a quick follow-up for Alinda. We said G&A, the adjusted G&A step up this quarter sequentially from about $90 million to $100 million. Was there any kind of onetime in nature there or any increased costs that we should be thinking about going forward?

Great pickup, Bernie. It is 100% like you said, there is quite -- this 40% of that increase is about one-off costs. There was some audit alignment for 2025 audit and some additional tech and infrastructure costs. Also keep in mind that we've acquired 2 operational businesses. We brought in the Apricot business, operational business, so about 100 headcount as well as a small eMarket -- marketing company called [ eMarket ]. So that spiked the G&A, but the savings and the operating leverage will now standardize that call and stabilize that amount towards the end of this quarter, down again to a more normal benchmark of high $90 million -- low $90 million, sorry.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl of Craig-Hallum.

I want to focus on some of the trading and operational things internationally. I know you're bringing some of the product from Africa to the international markets as well as the Apricot integration, but curious for an update on some of the synergies and cost optimizations and product enhancements you've seen from those 2 initiatives.

Okay. So I think funny enough, there is some cross-pollination, what I've been talking about is top of mind. We've been doing it from an international to Africa and Africa back into international. I mean I'm pleased to announce that all our call centers now are under one roof, on one tech stack, including our risk, and we are seeing massive opportunities there. I think you can see in our margins, everywhere we look in our EBITDA margins, in our sports margins, it's all starting to kick in.

We've got the personalized pricing, our features. We're pushing different sports in Africa. It's finally all coming together. And this is the key of this what we call operating efficiency, product efficiencies, marketing efficiencies. Even the marketing efficiencies are starting to come in. So we really are -- remember, Alinda and I've talking about this a lot. It's all about increasing that margin. And I think this quarter, you see it went to almost 30%, right, which is even ahead of our own expectations, right? And most of -- we also got cross-sell opportunities. But I think we are really super happy with our teams, our product teams, our trading teams, and we're finally working as one Super Group and bringing the best to every country we operate.

Looking at Slide 8, African new market expansion potential. Good to see Namibia coming in Q4. You mentioned excess cash and trying to figure out what to do with it. I count 7 additional adjacent countries there that seem very logical places to place some of that cash as an investment. But how do you think about kind of expansion, the need for cash and if that's a potential use for it and then the time line to expand into those countries? And if some of your recent expansions maybe accelerates some of the timeline that you've talked about in the past?

Yes. So we are excited about Namibia. Remember, it borders Botswana and South Africa. So the brand recognition is really high. And there are obviously other markets around there as well, but we have to get the taxes right and how the money flows. There's Zimbabwe, Rwanda, there's lots of them. So we also aim to launch probably 1 to 3 countries a year. I think 3 would be the top end, but like 1 or 2, but it's got to make sense. And of course, we've got this loads of money that if there are opportunities that are priced right, and we can execute on, then we will obviously delve into that.

And just to add there, because our trusted global brands already resonate in these African countries, it is quite low cost to market for us. So it's not like a launch in international market. African market launch is quite efficient and at a low value.

Yes. And then I would add as you have the headline of the Man U partnership. But I think what everyone needs to understand is if you take the top 3 teams who came first, second and third in the English Premier League, the EPL last season, we are now the exclusive global betting partner for every single one of it. So Arsenal, Man City and Man U. So when you see those games, you're only going to be seeing Betway. Remember, football soccer in Africa is our #1 bet on sport, and that's definitely the biggest league.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Hickey of StoneX.

Neal, Alinda, Nkem, great quarter, guys. Congratulations. I guess just on the World Cup, obviously, you gave us some really incremental data on your success there. But Neal, just curious overall, maybe relative to your expectations, how you view the success of the World Cup now that you've had a chance to digest that. How we should think about how you build momentum on that in terms of customer retention, casino cross-sell, which I think has started really strong and maybe that -- how that sort of sets you up for Q3 trading that we're in now and maybe the second half overall?

So okay, when it comes to the World Cup, right, obviously the meaning was -- really a meaningful acquisition and engagement catalyst. So that's for us with the sportsbook inflows. We did like almost 50% cross-sell into casino from those new customers. But here's some stuff about the World Cup, and I did mention this before, right? The time zones were not ideal for a vast majority of our customers. And remember, in the World Cup, a big part of our business is parlays, right? But they want 10D, 12D, 14D. You don't get that in the World Cup. So for us, the World Cup was great, but it was not like this unbelievable event that we had. Our unbelievable events are what's about to start in August, September with the soccer season. But -- and we are very happy with how it's gone and how the activation of those customers. And the cross-sell has been great as I said.

And again, I mean, I keep saying this, sorry, we keep bringing this up, and I think we have to, the persistency of our cohorts continues to be as strong as ever. And even in our investor deck, I think on Page 10, it is showing the cohort analysis we have put it in the deck this time along, you can see that layer caking is as it needs to be, makes fans very happy.

A follow-up on the Africa question from Ryan. Is Angola a new launch country? I know we've got Namibia for Q4. Are we also doing Angola now? And is that new to your guidance?

No, it's not -- we just showed some of the countries. All these countries are in play. We just have to make sure that, again, the taxes and the way we can operate in those markets make sense. So it's all fluid. We've got lots of them on the go, but the ones which will come to fruition is if we can get the banking and everything right. So they're all within our sight, and it's just got to make sense financially to be able to do this.

All right. Great. Last question. Congrats on the Manchester United deal. Obviously, you already have some significant sponsorship deals. How are you able to add Manchester to your stable of other IP here and keep costs manageable, like it sounds like they're going to be in the second half. And how quickly do you think this new partnership can start to be a contributor for you in terms of customer acquisition and revenue?

So I think, remember, and Alinda's point to this, we aim to be between 21% to 22% of revenue. So this is within that guide. So -- and remember, our total marketing brand is a portion of the total market. And I think with Man United, it is one of the most recognizable sports club in the world. And in Africa, I think it's got the biggest fan base. So for us, it's just adding another team on top of that. But we've still got the other team we've got. We still got the other leagues we do. So it's all part of our strategy.

But again, this is not a strategy. It's a portion of the strategy. And this is what given our leadership in Africa, partnering with them is just natural for us. And I think this is a long-term investment in our brand strength that then supports our sustainable customer growth across the key markets and just adds to then our digital marketing comes on top of that, et cetera. So listen, for us really exciting. And just a -- I'm a Man U fan, but I understand how unbelievable this football team is worldwide.

Your next question comes from the line of Chad Beynon of Macquarie.

Nice quarter. I wanted to ask about the U.K. business. I know previously, you talked about the mitigation efforts and what the expected impact would be post the iGaming tax increase back in April. It sounds like the revenues and the profits are definitely better than expected. Can you just kind of talk about the cadence of what's happening in the market and if you expect to see maybe mitigation vary versus what you originally announced?

Thanks Chad, for your question. We have significant product improvements this quarter as well in the U.K. You can see it from the revenue uplift. Our marketing is really returning to what we're spending at the moment, which is really a good strategy and happy with that performance. We continue to, like we said previously, if your taxes go up, you have to be efficient around your marketing spend, actually around all your economics. And we have to improve every single dollar we spend in the U.K.

So we're very happy with how the U.K. is going. We see obviously the impact on the EBITDA at this point in time in the international results. But it is so important to note that by optimizing marketing to becoming efficient in the way we operate in that market, would just deliver better margin in that jurisdiction.

And I'll just add, as we deploy more and more of our sports product enhancements, we've seen the revenue stick even more. And that's really, really been great. Plus our -- plus we've been clever in our casino operations there and the whole market has now reassessed the U.K. market and the cost of acquisitions, et cetera. So we're definitely seeing that play. And remember, we're not a major player in the U.K. So there's a lot of market share we are getting. And that's again why when we've got our overall brand that we spend taking Man United, Arsenal, et cetera, we amortize that over all the countries, not just the U.K., but in the U.K., obviously, it's present a lot. So it gets a natural spillover there as well.

And then maybe related to the U.K., I know there was an announcement during the quarter from a competitor just in terms of an acquisition. So with your $500 million of cash and no debt, how are you prioritizing M&A? And are there markets that are more on your radar versus what you had previously talked about at the Investor Day recently?

Yes. Listen, M&A is always top of mind. I think we've been right so far. We need to be highly selective and the price must be right. We must be able to add value. We will not overpay and we do not need to rush. But again, we're always looking on bolt-on. We're always looking at M&A. And you're right, we've got this money. We've got our shares. We've got lots of things to be able to use, but the deal has to make sense. And I think we'll see a better pricing over the coming months and years based on where some of our competitors are who've been very acquisitive in the past, but now have this huge debt pile that they have to service.

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Weber of Canaccord Genuity.

Congrats on the strong quarter. Maybe just to dive a little deeper on the World Cup. I think I saw a 21% World Cup gross margin versus 11% in 2022. Could you just unpack a little bit more how much of that is structural from increasing parlay adoption versus maybe more outcome driven? And then I have a quick follow-up.

Well, I think definitely structural. And also, remember, the Africa business is much bigger now than it was 4 years ago. But I think it's everything. It's our pricing, it's how we've done it, it's how we price the market, what the product has to offer. So I think from that point of view, it was definitely for us a great World Cup. But remember, we should expect our sports margins to be between 13% to 14% combined. That's for international and Africa. And that's, I think, a good cadence for you guys. But the sports and the margin, we are really getting better at. And I think the team has done a great job there.

Got it. And then I appreciate your comments earlier on the casino cross-sell. Just curious how the 53% number of the World Cup cohort that has already placed the casino wager, how does that compare to the 2022 cohort? And what are your expectations in terms of engagement from that group, say, a year out from now?

Okay. So I think the cross-sell for 2022 was 23%. That's really, really, really we were all over this. This is one of our key areas. And remember, why it was important for us to do this cross-sell, the time zones were not right. So we were even more adamant to keep the customers in our ecosystem. So we're really happy with that. And I think the World Cup generally did really well, but I think we're even more excited now for the start of the new football season, the EPL, the La Liga, et cetera, and that will start towards the end of August.

Your last question comes from the line of Clark Lampen at BTIG.

Maybe one just to come back to sort of the margin point. Neal, you made some comments earlier that made it sound like this was sort of an important transition quarter from an operational standpoint. And I'm curious when we get into 2027 and you're annualizing some of these improvements and changes, how should we think about sort of medium-term margin trajectory? Are we posting towards a number that's sort of consistent with what we saw in Q2? Are there other sort of important puts and takes that we need to consider from a timing standpoint or maybe the new deal is a factor in 2027 that's sort of transitional. But would just be curious sort of directionally where we're going and what you think is possible.

Okay. So are we talking about sports margin, EBITDA margin, both -- you want both. Okay, I'll touch on both.

Well, sure, we can do both, I guess I'm a little more curious on the EBITDA margin side.

Okay. I'll leave it to Alinda. Go for it, Alinda.

Thanks for your question. We're obviously very excited about this quarter being at 30% EBITDA margin. It's the first time we called out a solid 30%, which is definitely in the right direction, as our operating leverage is our primary driver for this EBITDA expansion -- EBITDA margin expansion. Remember, it's quite simple. Our revenue grows faster than our cost base at this stage, which makes us very efficient. And we are realizing efficiencies across the board. It's not just in one specific place. It's around trading, marketing, processing and technology.

And if you want to look at a model -- and how to model it maybe for the rest of the year, we still see in half year 2, obviously the World Cup effect and the cross-sell that will come in. We've included Alberta migration, which will be by the end -- will be completed by the end of September. And then we called out Namibia as our one launch country in 2026. But all in all, we continue to build branded partnerships so that we can work on the acquisition numbers.

Yes. And then 2027, I imagine is -- 2027 is, yes, we'll get closer to the 30%. Obviously, this quarter slightly less marketing quarter 2 as you would expect. But overall, is getting closer to what Alinda promised, the 30% EBITDA. So we did promise, we did deliver there. So now we got to...

We promised '27.

Yes, now we got to promise that, keep closer to that for 2027. But I think the ecosystem and the correct customers in our ecosystem is what this business is all about. It's about having the right customers, paying the right amounts for them, et cetera, and I think we're starting to see that now. And of course, and I'll end off with this, the cross-pollination of our international to Africa is really starting to show great signs, which we knew it would.

If I may actually just sort of squeeze in one additional one. I know at points in time in the past, you guys have sort of given either entry or exit rates from a customer account standpoint. If you have a July number handy, could you give us a feel for where the active base is sort of trending right now? And maybe alongside that, what have you seen, if anything -- if it's notable to call out from a results standpoint to start Q3? We've heard from some operators that the World Cup was a tailwind to performance. Did you experience something similar to start Q3?

I guess, so I think obviously there still was the World Cup in the beginning of the first 2 weeks of July. So yes, we saw good momentum in -- we're seeing good momentum in July. I also think where we are now -- we don't have the World Cup, and I'll give you an example like last night, is there were so many bets on these other leagues, the Champions League, Europa League, et cetera, these games that did really great volume because again, for a large portion of our customer base, it's all about these parlays, and that's what we need. And the World Cup never gave that, and it didn't give us the right time zone. So it was really an add-on in the middle of the year, but we're definitely seeing our customer base starting to get excited, and I really think towards the middle to the end of August, this is our big play from now till the end of the year.

And just to conclude there, because we had such a great start to the quarter, that's why we just came out and raised our guidance again.

Yes, and I think both for Alinda and I, and the whole team, the ecosystem is in a great place. From cost base, cost efficiencies, product, it's all coming together.

With no further questions, that concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Neal Menashe for closing remarks.

Thanks everyone for joining today's call. We are really, really proud of the team's execution, and we remain focused on delivering against our strategy and creating long-term shareholder value. We look forward to speaking to you all again soon. Thank you.

Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Super Group First Quarter 2026 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to turn the call over to Nkem Ojougboh, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Super Group's results for the first quarter 2026. During this call, Super Group may make comments of a forward-looking nature that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed further in its SEC filings that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or from our forecast. We assume no responsibility to update forward-looking statements other than as required by law.

On today's call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP figures in the press release issued yesterday and available on the Investor Relations page on our website. We recommend that investors refer to the supplementary presentation posted to our website.

Today, I'm joined by Neal Menashe, Chief Executive Officer; and Alinda Van Wyk, Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for questions.

And now I'd like to turn the call over to Neal.

Thank you, Ink, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter of 2026 marked a record-breaking start for Super Group. We delivered all-time high quarterly revenue and unprecedented monthly active customers. Deposits and wagering also reached peak levels, extending our Q4 momentum. These results reflect the strength of our strategy, our brand and our people. As our business evolves, so does our reporting. We are introducing a new reporting structure consisting of 2 segments: Africa and international. Africa includes all revenue generated across the African continent, while international includes all revenue generated outside of Africa. This new approach highlights the distinct operating models across our core regions, providing shareholders with deeper insight into each unit's drivers and growth potential. The executives responsible for these segments remain unchanged.

Africa delivered an excellent Q1. Revenue for the quarter grew 33% year-over-year with adjusted EBITDA up 21% to $98 million. Sports and Casino wagers were up 33% and 36%, respectively, year-over-year. Botswana continues to perform well. I recently spent time on the ground with our team in Nigeria and the actions we are taking there will strengthen our growth profile as we ramp up execution. The phased rollout of our ZAR Supercoin consumer wallet began in mid-April with a soft beta launch for our Betway South Africa customers. Our goal is simple: expand utility and gradually increase customer engagement across our ecosystem.

We will reach a key milestone late in the quarter with additional listings on OVEX and VELA, 2 of the largest exchanges in South Africa. These listings significantly enhance liquidity and accessibility and provide a solid foundation for broader adoption as we optimize engagement and unit economics.

For the International segment, revenue was up 9%, with adjusted EBITDA growing 26% to $73 million. European revenue growth of 18% year-over-year was strongly driven by a 29% increase in the U.K., where we are capturing market share, thanks to record customer acquisition off the back of continued product improvement and a successful Cheltenham Festival. We remain encouraged by Ireland's growth of 13% with local regulation expected in the second half of this year.

In North America, Canada ex-Ontario delivered 16% revenue growth, supported by retention and product enhancements. Despite an increasingly competitive environment, Ontario achieved a post-regulation record for new customers. Alberta, up 22% year-over-year, remains on track for local regulation in July with a [indiscernible] method brand rollout. Overall, North America, excluding the U.S., grew 15%. Rest of World saw revenue growth of 8% with New Zealand growing 6% year-over-year, which is particularly encouraging after last quarter's 5% decline. We remain disciplined while we await the anticipated local regulations framework.

Overall, our sports business continues to enjoy strong margins. We are fortifying our sports trading and risk management capabilities ahead of the World Cup. This quarter, we implemented targeted changes to materially improve margin resilience within our promotional mechanics, pricing and payout structures. These measures proved their value in February, which was a particularly challenging month for sports due to customer-friendly outcomes.

Meanwhile, our casino business remains the super reliable, steady and constant engine of Super Group. We don't take this for granted. We continue to innovate, extend and improve in numerous and meaningful ways. We have made it easier for our customers to discover content. We are personalizing their experiences, and we are stepping up gamification and engagement. The result is targeted product and incentive management that delivers strong retention and responsible, consistent and profitable customer behavior. Net effect, a business where 80% of our revenue is driven by predictable, high-quality and super persistent annuity revenue streams that offer shareholders unwavering reliability and confidence.

With that, I'll turn it over to Alinda.

Thank you, Neal. Quarter 1 2026 marked an outstanding start to the year for Super Group, and I couldn't be more pleased to share these results. We have delivered a record total revenue of $612 million, up 18% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA grew 36% to $152 million. Our margin expanded to 25% compared with 22% in the prior year period. Driven by strong acquisition and retention strategies, average monthly active customers reached a record 6.4 million, up 18% year-over-year, with March setting a new monthly high of 6.5 million customers. Total wagering increased 23% for sports and 20% for casino compared to last year.

Disciplined cost management, controlled marketing spend and strong operating leverage are clearly reflected in our results. With continued focus on AI-driven efficiencies and high-return markets, we are well positioned to pursue sustainable long-term growth. Our balance sheet remains really strong, supported by high-quality earnings and measured capital allocation. We ended the quarter with $422 million in cash. This represents a 20% increase year-over-year despite returning $152 million to shareholders, including the special dividend paid in February. Our free cash flow conversion of 75% remains strong, reinforcing the confidence that we showed when we recently increased our minimum quarterly dividend target to $0.05 per share.

Building on the strong momentum of quarter 1, we are entering the rest of the year with confidence. Quarter 2 is tracking positively with growth opportunities ahead, bolstered by an action-packed World Cup calendar. Our focus on marketing and operational efficiencies remains unchanged. As a result, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance with total revenue expected to reach at least $2.55 billion and adjusted EBITDA to be more than $680 million.

I will now hand back to Neal for closing remarks.

Thank you, Alinda. This quarter underscores the effectiveness of Super Group's strategy and discipline. We are building momentum across regions, bolstering margin resilience and enhancing our product and customer experience. With a strong start to the year, strength in our casino business and attractive global sporting calendar ahead and a strengthened leadership team focused on execution and efficiencies, Super Group is well positioned for the remainder of 2026 and beyond.

Operator, please open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Michael Hickey from StoneX.

Neal, Alinda, Ink, congratulations, guys, on a great 1Q. Two questions from us. Neal, just -- Alinda, on your 1Q performance here, obviously, a strong beat versus expectations. And the MAU growth was exceptional, plus 18%. I think you hit a record of $6.5 million in March. So I guess how are you thinking about the decision here, Alinda, Neal, to reaffirm your guidance versus raising for the full year at this stage?

Okay. Mike, thanks. So our guidance, as you know, was for revenue greater than $2.55 billion and very importantly, EBITDA greater than $680 million. So we are confident about those numbers when we told them to you in February. Now after Q1, we remain confident. But this isn't the first time that we've outperformed, Mike, in Q1. We've never increased guidance at this stage of the year. It's just not something we do so early on in the year. We obviously are focused, as you know, on executing and delivering growth, and we're not finessing projections and guidance. It's really this simple.

And just to add to that, I think it's important also to note, we're just not in that beat and raise treadmill game, as you all know. We are tracking ahead of our expectations, and we're very encouraged by what we're seeing in the momentum, but we're only 25% into the year.

Next question from us, just on the World Cup. You gave some great data here in your deck. It looks like 80% -- 88-plus percent of your revenue generated from World Cup participating markets and 73% of your GGR from football. So obviously, it looks like World Cup here is shaping up to be a significant catalyst for you guys Q2, Q3. So how should we think about the potential uplift to both player activity and revenue during the tournament period? And then the follow-up, how should we think about the timing and scale of the cross-sell of these incremental players to casino, which, of course, would make this World Cup catalyst durable?

All right. So I mean, listen, I love this data point that basically, and I thought a lot about this, that 40% of the countries we operate in are participating in the World Cup, and that represents almost 88% of our 2025 revenue. So what we will get is we're super confident about the engagement of our customers in these markets. We've obviously got strong product stability and enhancements we've done ahead of the tournament, and we're focusing on the scale and the customer experience.

A bit different this World Cup to the 2022 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup was played as it was in the winter months. It was played in November and December and at 64 matches. Because there are more teams in this year, it's now, as you know, June and July, it's 104 matches. So literally 63% more matches with more engagement. So for us, it's all about it's giving us the content for our customers.

And the first half of the competition, because there are 48 teams, there might be -- in our business, it's all about the favorites drawing or losing. So hopefully, let's see how the first half goes. So obviously, as they get into the knockout stages, which will be at the beginning of July, we will see what happens there. But again, it's about engagement in the sports and then the cross-sell into our casinos. And the cross-sell normally is like 60% to 70% into casino.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl from Craig-Hallum.

I want to stick just one follow-up on the guidance. Are you willing to comment on trends you've seen in April and May? I get the reason to reiterate this early in the year. But curious if you've seen any deceleration in the business or any trends or anything to really give you concern?

All right. So this quarter started off great. Obviously, in February, remember, quarter 1 had a big loss in February on one day when all the favorites basically won and our customers won. So -- but we haven't seen any deceleration. Remember, our guidance is greater than $680 million. So we are confident about that. And remember, our business is 80% casino, stable, consistent, and we are annuity income on top of that every single day.

Second question, just the U.K. tax effect went in effect recently here. What are you seeing in the market from your competitors? What have you done from a marketing, promotion, et cetera, standpoint and really nice quarter results and momentum, it seems like in that business despite that. But just curious for kind of an industry and company update there.

Yes. Thanks for the question. We called out around 6% pre-mitigation of 2025 EBITDA as a hit is around a $30 million hit. However, we are starting to pull multiple levers in order to mitigate that, as we said. We've obviously don't -- even with the April numbers already in effect, we haven't seen that massive impact because of operating leverage in the way we manage our marketing. So we feel in a confident position to see this through quarter 2.

And also, we did call out that I would say it only kicked in on 1 April, so we're only like a couple of weeks and 5 weeks in that the marketing rates will start coming down when everyone starts doing their numbers. They have to get used to this new world of taxes. And we -- and obviously, we have to be efficient. And that's part of our 2 segments being International and Africa and bringing International together has effectively given us this operating leverage.

Your next question comes from the line of Bernie McTernan from Needham & Company.

First, I just wanted to ask about the new breakdown in terms of EBITDA. Greatly appreciate being able to see Africa versus international. Alinda, can you just talk about the margin opportunity in Africa? Any -- maybe any thoughts on incremental margins just as the region continues to grow, how we should expect margins to scale with it? And then I have a follow-up.

Thanks for the question, Bernie. So it's -- I'm glad to be able to share that transparency now to the market to see what it brings us to Super Group, the difference between Africa and international. So it's not so heavily weighted. The expectation probably was that it's very heavily weighted towards Africa. Saying that, that gives us the ability to have really strong possibility to still have that margin expansion. And we always do it in 2 kind of strategies.

The one is our return on investment, how we make sure we -- the marketing that we spend in that jurisdiction is very localized. It's bespoke for that customers, and we see strong returns on that. And then secondly, our product mix is getting that product really fit for purpose for that local market, getting the pricing right. That really, really helps us with the expansion of not just in South Africa, but the rest of Africa, the margin, bottom line.

Yes. And then I can add, we've got huge cross-pollination between the international side of the business and the African side. And I think we really, in the last 6 months, have scaled that up from the call centers, same software to the risk and fraud to all of that. So we really are seeing super efficient costs coming through there. And also in Africa, we've been pushing on different sports, e-soccer, cricket, tennis, et cetera. So it's all coming together. And we also mentioned our trading. We are really getting stuck into the trading of all the various sports.

Understood. And then in the slide deck, it references Nigeria ramp-up underway to strengthen growth profile. What would success look like this year in Nigeria for you guys?

I think that Nigeria is an interesting one. We've been on the ground there. It's super interesting. I think what we have seen in the African continent and maybe led by Nigeria is that the country as a whole is doing much better, the free flow of the currency is improving. So we have to, listen, double, triple our business size there, at least, right? So Nigeria, as you know, it's the largest population in Africa. It's a growing TAM, and we're getting our product right and again, we can build or buy across the ways and we can do both. So it's really top of our mind.

Your next question comes from the line of Jed Kelly from Oppenheimer.

Another great quarter. Just on the margin cadence between the 2 segments, how should we be thinking about that, particularly in the international margins? I know you have -- you've got the U.K. taxes and then you're launching Canada in July. So can you just give us a sense how we should be thinking about that? And then with Africa, should we expect revenue to grow faster than EBITDA over the medium term?

Jed, great question. First of all, on the international side, the -- how we look at international is the continued customer momentum. So we -- our assumptions in the guide is definitely on organic growth assumption. There's no aggressive persistency assumptions made in there. But we're also making sure that we remain -- have that marketing discipline of around 22%. And then if we caveat then to Africa, that 22% of marketing as a guide towards the spend of revenue is much lower in Africa because of the jurisdiction and the localization of marketing. So that gives that ability for the EBITDA margin to grow as strong as the revenue market targets that we set for Africa. But the interesting thing here is that it's a very equal business. You have -- even though you have probably most of the scale of the growth of the customer base out of Africa, the revenue and the market -- the revenue and the EBITDA margin growth is very similar.

And I could just add, and this is probably a point on Alberta. It's very different Alberta regulation to Ontario. Ontario was what we call the big bang approach. You had to move all your existing customers over on to the new software on day 1 before you could even market the new software. In Alberta, you can market to the new software first and have a period of 3 months or so to be able to move your existing customers over. So that for us is a massive, massive difference. We tried for that in Ontario, but it didn't happen at the time, but now it can happen in Alberta.

And just as a quick follow-up. How should we view World Cup net win margins relative to your historical net win margins?

You've got to hope that the smaller teams like Haiti, et cetera, just draw with the bigger teams in the early rounds. Like, the early rounds might be a little bit hairy, but it doesn't matter because remember, it's all about if they win on those games, what happens on the next games and most importantly, what happens in our casino. So let's see. I think it's going to be interesting. We've never had these many teams. But I think on the plus side, you've got engagement with so many games. I said there's like 63% more games -- matches. It's actually unbelievable. So I think the audience and what we're going to have in our ecosystem should be really, really, really good.

On the cross-sell of 60% that you called out earlier, I think that's a big benefit as well.

Absolutely.

Your next question comes from the line of Clark Lampen from BTIG.

Maybe I can start with a little bit of a follow-up on Jed's last question. I think in the past, your sportsbook margins have basically peaked at sort of an 18% to 19%-ish level, maybe a little bit higher. But I guess what I'm wondering is after you sort of fortified the sports trading and I think pricing, I'm paraphrasing, I guess, from the language in the presentation. But what I'm curious is, are book-friendly months potentially going to produce higher structural sports margins now on a go-forward basis?

A quick follow-up question would be on the leadership team comments that you guys put in the release. Sorry if you've already elaborated on this in the release or in the presentation. But if not, could you give us an update on sort of where you've made hires and where you believe you're sort of strengthening the overall business now?

All right. Okay. So firstly, on the sports margin, we obviously put out there that, that's the average of the 2 sportsbooks, international and Africa. But yes, as we fortify our pricing and the promotions we give in the sportsbook, we would think in months where favorites are not winning or drawing that we are seeing increased margin. That's absolutely -- that's for us, but our trailing 24-month average is almost at like 13% -- 13.1%. And that means Africa is higher and then international is a bit lower, but we've seen increases in international.

When it comes to our leadership team, listen, for me and Alinda and actually all of us, even our Board, it's all about having the right people in the right seats and then you will create a super team. So we've appointed Kirsty Ross as our Chief Operating Officer. I mean, she was our Chief of Staff, but as Operations Officer, I think we are seeing huge, huge efficiencies.

And then we've hired Justin Stock, who's been our external counsel and helped us deliver the business to where it is today. We've finally taken him in-house, and he is our Group Head of Commercial and M&A.

So -- and of course, as you know, we've got Alon Ben-David as our CTO. So we really have a great team at the C-suite level of Super Group. But then when you go into the rest of our companies, we are absolutely got great people there. And with the international and Africa being these 2 segments, we're bolstering all of this.

But in order to grow and keep growing, it's about our people, it's about our platforms. It's about the tech that we're going to use, and we need the best of the best to help us make these decisions. And that's what we have done up till now and will take to the next level.

Neal, if I can just follow up quickly. It's the goal of, I guess, some of that hiring activity to continue driving your corporate costs and the sort of corporate EBITDA that you've now itemized for us down? Or maybe it's something different? I guess I'm just curious what you're driving at.

Both. I think it's definitely always to centralize the cost, not to go to so many third parties. Remember, our legal fees can be a lot, especially if you do M&A and other things. But with AI, et cetera, it's to definitely bring it down and be able to do much more volume based on our current cost base. So it's everything. But again, we've got to make the right decisions, and we have to make them with the best information we have. And for that, I need the best people around.

Your next question comes from the line of Chad Beynon from Macquarie.

Neal and Alinda, nice quarter. I wanted to start with the ZAR Supercoin adoption rate, kind of where this is, how it compares to your expectations? I know that you said in the slide deck, you have plans to roll it out further in the back half, but I just wanted to test your temperature on how this is going thus far.

Okay. So remember, we did call out, we said it's going to take adoption. It's going to take time. And so obviously, we've done a beta now in South Africa. So it's gone quite well in terms of our beta, but it's only a beta. We are obviously getting the utility of the coin in there. But what we have to do is it's going to be a slow process to get them adopted. But for us, it's not only about the Supercoin, it's also about the processing fees.

Remember, to remind everyone in Africa, our single biggest after-tax expense are these processing fees, especially on the sportsbook where depositing in, cashing out, redepositing in, this in and out of the same money costs a lot of money. So that ecosystem, we are getting right. And we're just going to be patient with the ZAR Supercoin and see how it goes.

In other markets, we obviously will bring it there once we've seen how it works in South Africa and there's different legislations. Obviously, we also have the legislations in other 7 markets in Africa, and we hope to bring it there as soon as we get this part right in South Africa. That's very encouraging. It's something new. It's new for the consumer. So let's see how we go. But something that was new a year ago is normal now. So that's kind of what we base it on.

That's great. And then with respect to the M&A environment, obviously, strong Q1. You're tracking at least ahead of expectations for the year, $400-plus million of cash on the balance sheet. How are you thinking about M&A opportunities given your position of strength?

Thanks for the question. We still -- as we've always been highly selective on what we pursue, we don't need M&A to hit our plan. Our plan is based on consistent organic growth. That will be just an added bonus if the right opportunity comes along and at the right price. And it's supposed to be a bolt-on to improve our business overall if we pull the trigger on something. We're also looking at vertical opportunities such as improving technology product or maybe marketing efficiencies. But in the long run, there's always something on the table that we're assessing. And we've got the right balance sheet for it. So we'll just remain disciplined until the right opportunity at the right price comes.

And I said -- and I always say to Alinda, we always say to each other, we are not overpaying for stuff. If it makes sense, we'll do it. And I think as we've got a facility. I think you've seen lots of our competitors have acquired over the last 5 or 10 years. And when you laden with debt after that, these businesses have to perform. So we still got 75% free cash flow because that's what we do. So if we find the right one, we'll do it. But we are not overpaying and that's not how we've operated up until now.

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Weber from Canaccord Genuity.

Congrats on the strong quarter. I just wanted to ask if there was any update you could share on the Apricot transaction and just maybe more broadly how that transaction is framing your key product initiatives for the balance of the year? And then relatedly, could you, just given AI is the topic du jour of every earnings call, could you maybe just touch on what you're doing there in that space?

Okay. So the Apricot, we finally closed the transaction at the end of February. We've got all the IP. So the sportsbook finally is owned by us. So we're very happy about it. We've done the progress of moving all the development resources that support the sportsbook. They're now becoming part of our team. Expect over 100 people or even more to move over to Super Group, be part of our structures, how we work, what we do. So we're really starting to see overall realized cost savings will obviously come over time.

But for us, it's about the product. That's near our product teams here. The teams are together. And I think we've seen that with the global Betway Sportsbook. We've improved speed, flexibility, efficiencies. So there's lots to come there. We really are pushing, pushing hard. And since we've exited the U.S., I've got these teams not having to worry about the 8 states in the U.S., we can worry about all the markets that we're currently in.

And then just on your follow-on question on AI, I think it's front of mind for everyone. It's definitely at the moment for us to tools that initiatives that we use for risk and fraud management. There is definitely some elements being used in development and allowing us to be more efficient and more faster in deploying certain parts of our development in our businesses. It's definitely starting to have a big impact even on my world in finance and how we reconcile and look at accounts and disclosures.

So it's definitely all in all, enhancing efficiencies, but we have to be disciplined. We are working closely with Alon, our CTO is taking the lead on making sure there's a custodian that creates the boundaries around this so that we are disciplined around it. But major impacts. I think the only thing we know is that it's changing fast.

Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Bender from Citizens.

This is Isabelle Slavin on for Jordan Bender. We just want to ask about Europe. What drove the outperformance there? And do you expect this to continue throughout the year?

Yes. So I think Europe, again, as we exited the country that we didn't see a path to profitability, U.S. being one, Belgium, Italy, et cetera, we focus on the U.K., Spain, Ireland. And so if you take the U.K. as an example, as we're dropping more product enhancement, the brand is well known. We are seeing the stickiness of our customers. Our marketing has been really driving record acquisitions because finally, the Betway product is now competing head on with our major competitors there. Same with Spain. We've got focus to casino. We've got new stuff happening there, Ireland as well.

So it's all about the front office being the product and our brilliant back office coming together. And then in Africa, we have got a brilliant product, and we've got a back office, and we're improving the back office to make it as good as the international side. And if we get all of those 2 worlds working, that's when you see nirvana. And that's where you see our retention rates, et cetera, going -- increasing.

And there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Neal Menashe for closing remarks.

So thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. We are really proud of our teams across the globe and their super performance this quarter. We are very encouraged by the momentum we have built early in the year, and we will speak to you again soon. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Super Group Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. My name is Lucy, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to hand over to your host, Inka Majuba, Head of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

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Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Super Group's results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025. During this call, Super Group may make comments on the forward-looking nature that are subject to risks uncertainties and other factors discussed further in its SC filings that would cause its actual results could differ materially from historical results or in the company's forecast.

Super Group assumes no responsibility to update forward-looking statements out than as required by law. On today's call, Super Group may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. SuperCups provided a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP figures in the press release issued yesterday and available on the Investor Relations page of Super Group's website.

Super Group recommends that investors refer to its supplementary presentation posted to i's website. Today, I'm joined by Neil Minasi, Chief Executive Officer; and Alinda Van Wyk, Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for questions. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Neal.

Thank you, Ike. Good morning, everyone. 2025 was a standout year for Super Group. We refined our portfolio by exiting USI gaming, allowing us to focus on markets where we expect clear durable advantages and where we believe we can win decisively, concentrating resources in our core regions in this manner has paved the way for the record growth and operating leverage that we continue to see today. Despite some unfavorable sports outcomes late in the year, Q4 was another record-breaking period.

Monthly active customers exceeded GBP 6 million, a new record and deposits also reached new highs. In preparation for a strong 2026, we successfully launched the a Super coin in South Africa, the first step in our broader digital payments infrastructure. We are also pleased that we have received the final regulatory approval of the Apricot transaction, which strengthens our sportsbook technology platform and begins the process of realized cost savings.

Turning to our operational performance. We closed the year with significant momentum across priority markets. Europe saw strong revenue growth this quarter, up 23% year-over-year led by a 37% increase in the U.K. In Spain, revenue grew 5% on the back of strong retention and product improvements. In Germany, we remain encouraged by the upcoming H1 slots launch and the operational efficiencies we continue to implement across the market. Africa grew 27% for the full year against 2024 with Botswana outperforming since launch, and South Africa delivering strong wagering growth and record casino volumes.

Compared to fourth quarter 2024, Africa was up 7%. This was a very solid result given last year's robust sports margin and this year's customer-friendly outcomes. The underlying strength of our Africa business is highlighted by 31%, both in sports wages and 32% growth in casino was year-over-year. Overall, Africa remains a powerful growth engine, supported by continued customer momentum and high brand loyalty across the region, and we continue to assess our strategy in Nigeria.

In North America, Canada ex-Ontario increased 15%, supported by strong customer retention and acquisition, coupled with improved product rollout. In Ontario, product improvements also drove record engagement and deposits. Alberta continues to show solid growth, and we are preparing for regulation in Q2. We Overall, North America, excluding the U.S., grew 10%. APAC revenue rose 6% year-over-year despite New Zealand's 5% dip reflecting our disciplined weight on the sidelines ahead of the long anticipated local regulations framework.

We continue to undertake product innovations in support of future growth. During the quarter, we improved sports promotional bocanics for Betway X Africa leading to a 400 basis point sequential increase in the Sportsbook Palawager mix. In Africa, in the beginning of this year, we completed the technology migration in all our markets. We are now implementing AI-driven hyper-personalized best pricing to translate real-time liability analysis, market data and customer behavior insights into dynamic odds.

We are confident that this will improve our trading efficiency and help to mitigate volatility. These upgrades are all part of our broader focus on improving customer engagement, optimizing the efficiency of our promotional mechanics and building scalable features that support long-term margin quality.

In South Africa, Zar Super Coin has two significant catalysts expected in the coming months. First, the launch of Ropecon Wallet, which will give customers a seamless way to acquire, hold and redeem directly within our ecosystem. We expect this to increase engagement. Second, we are preparing additional exchange listings to broaden access, deeper liquidity and expand distribution. We believe that together, these developments will position us well for this year. With that, I'll turn it over to Alinda.

Thank you, Neal. 2025 was truly exceptional. Our total revenue for the year reached $2.2 billion, reflecting a 22% increase compared to the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA was an increase of 57% year-over-year, amounting to $560 million. This represents an impressive margin of around 25% compared with 19% in the prior year. Despite the challenging year-over-year benchmark, Total revenue grew 8% to $578 million during the fourth quarter, with adjusted EBITDA up 11% to $139 million.

Record deposits were driven by casino momentum and an active sports calendar. Total wider activity remained robust with an increase of 20% for sports and 17% for casino compared to last year. In addition, average monthly active customers reached an all can hire of $6.1 million for the quarter. a $0.16 jump from the same period in 2024. Our results demonstrate a commitment to cost discipline, and we maintained operational and marketing efficiencies. This is supported by further AI-enabled improvements, enhancements in customer support, product customization and sport tradings are ongoing.

The consistent strength of our business lies in our effective conversion of EBITDA to free cash flow, as shown by this year's impressive 72% conversion rate. We closed the year with $513 million in cash, up 32% year-over-year, an increase that underscores the resilience and durability of our business model. Our capital allocation strategy includes a commitment to rewarding our shareholders. Over the course of 2025, we returned $156 million to shareholders, including $20 million in quarter 4 with an additional special dividend in excess of $125 million paid this month. Our robust cash generation allows us to maintain this discipline while funding organic growth.

Turning to guidance. 2026 is off to a strong start, aided by an impressive active customer numbers, even higher than last quarter. After an unusually high performance in January, sports hold has returned to levels this time as our trailing 12-month average of last year. For 2026, we are guiding to total revenue of at least $2.55 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of more than $68 million. This reflects purely organic growth, continued customer engagement and a FIFA World Cup uplift.

Notably, this guidance assumes ongoing marketing discipline at roughly 22% of revenue, U.K. tax increases taking effect from April, Alberta regulated locally from midyear and continued operating leverage supported by a strong balance sheet. We are really pleased to share that the Board approved an increase of our minimum quarterly dividend target from $0.04 to $0.05 per share. The first payment will be made towards the end of March with the board reviewing this on a quarterly basis thereafter. And to conclude, we expect to release full financial statements in April consistent with prior periods. I will now hand back to Neal for closing remarks.

Thanks, Alinda. Looking ahead, we are really excited to continue scaling our strongest markets exploring expansion into new African territories, and we believe that our teams are well prepared for upcoming regulation. The expanded World Cup schedule offers a driver for global engagement setting the stage for a strong 2026. To our employees, thank you for an exceptional year. And to our shareholders, thank you for your ongoing support. I'll now hand over to the operator to open the call up for questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Ryan Sigdahl of Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Neal, Alinda, congrats on the strong business trends I want to start with the customer-friendly outcomes in December. Curious how much that impacted results, if you can quantify that? And then secondly, how that's translated into potentially greater recycling of profits in play as you look at January and February and if there's any notable trend differences to call out between sports and casino as we start the new year?

So the quarter started up really great, but obviously, in December, the sports outcomes were more customer than obviously in Africa, a couple of nations, Champions League and the English Premier League. You recall, quarter four 2024, we had a hard comp of like 16%, and we finished the quarter with sports at 11.4%. December was meaningful given that we edema was probably about a $20 million EBITDA impact. from these customers. But obviously, it did flow through on our side in January, as Alinda said, we really had a fantastic January. But again, it's all about the favorite and drawing or losing, but this is what we sell. We sell that's the favorite obviously, sometimes can win all the done. And we see lots of lots of activity, obviously, in our casino. If you compare Q4 2025 to the prior period, it's up significantly.

Just given the strength of the business, and some recent news. I guess, can you explain what the company is doing from a charitable standpoint with Bet lake Care's reinvestment in the community? I saw Mr. Beast yesterday. Certainly, it seems like a lot of good things you guys are working on. It's been spun a little bit negatively by certain people. So curious just to level set what you guys are doing with your communities and reinvestment, and then secondly, Alinda, if you can just explain at a high level, all those expenses and the spending flows through the income statement.

Before I hand over to Linda on to the accounting me some context. On Betway Care at high-level Betway Care is our peritol trust in South Africa, dedicated to community initiatives, clean drinking water, sports development, arts cultural access and with obviously the goal of driving long-term impact. So we do vast amounts of charity cost perspective. ALinda can now talk to covering how that flows through our income statement.

Thanks, Ryan. On the accounting side, IFRS requires us to consolidate 100% of the earnings of the South African entity as well as then 100% of the expenses of the minority, which is Betway Care. And the operating expenses of Beta is expensed as general administrative expenses and what we stand as shown as restricted cash on the balance sheet.

The next question comes from Jordan Bender of Citizens.

Two for me. One on South Africa, we saw potential flare-up in tax change towards the end of last year. Are you able to help us just better understand kind of what you're hearing and seeing on the ground and maybe the outlook for that -- and then the second question, so we have '26 guidance. You guys gave us your '28 targets at your Investor Day a couple of months ago or back in September. From what the guidance range maybe tells us is you can potentially get to the low end of your '28 targets by this year. So are you able to just help us understand what you're seeing might be running better than expected when you gave that outlook back in September?

So I'll start with South Africa. There are obviously no new update. All the operators in South Africa specified their responses at the end of February to the government paper and then go through different committees. So we will see how that goes. From our perspective, when it comes to all these countries, it's all about operating efficiently, right? And that's what you'll see in our guidance and our margins. So it's all about that every the operating leverage that we keep talking about in this business all sits at that extra revenue coming in at almost 50% to 60% to our bottom line.

So from the guidance for next year at ZAR $680 million, we hope like '27, '28, we will increase that that as the operating leverage kicks in and our marketing efficiencies across the world start playing out.

Yes. Maybe just to add to that, we made specific reference to long-term goals more than guide. And what we had to embed this quarter for the guidance of 2026. And just when we put it altogether, it's just to keep in mind the effect of the U.K. tax that is in effect in April of 2026 as well as we change over to regulation in Alberta, which we embedded in the guidance of 2026 halfway through the year. The interesting thing as well as we build our guidance on our continued customer momentum. I think we spoke a lot about our cohorts and that is even though we have a lot of confidence in what it exists within our business, we remain quite conservative in how we roll it out in the next couple of years.

The next question comes from Bernie McTernan of Needham & Co.

Maybe just start -- or I have 2. I just wanted to add on Nigeria. So the slide deck mentioned assessing a new plant in Nigeria. So just wanted to get a sense is of what's contemplated in the guide. And what's the time line of the rollout of that new plan? And then also discussion on the final regulatory approval for Apricot. So I just wanted to make sure, was this -- was Apricot always treat arm's length since the original deal announcement, I think, a couple of years ago at this point. And -- but more importantly, what will you be able to do now with the final regulatory approval that you weren't able to do before?

So just obviously, in Africa, we continue to operationalize in all the countries within Africa. And we're still refining our strategy in Nigeria. We expect low single-digit World Cup tailwind there, right? So Nigeria is more to decide what we're doing, which part of the market we are assessing and we've got 1 or 2 other African countries we are looking at that. But we see lots of low-hanging fruit in all other African markets operationalized in the same way we've operationalized the other markets across the world.

When it comes to Africa, we purchased, as you know, we purchased the sportsbook technology, bringing it in-house just just to explain that sportsbook technology is for beta outside of Africa. We now have full control over it. So it means that all its staff, et cetera, come into our organization. And then we can even do more product enhancements with the software because now we are in that part of it.

Yes. And maybe just to add to that, even though the transaction was reported on and Neal has explained in the 20-F that we previously published last year, we only completed the transaction now when we had regulatory approval to operate this product in different jurisdictions.

The next question comes from Jason Tilchen of Canaccord.

Just wanted to start with a question. You obviously provided some extra balance sheet flexibility. Wondering if you could just remind us a little bit of what some of the key considerations as you contemplate potential M&A opportunities are what would be sort of the type of acquisition you'd be focused on here in the near term? I mean is there any sort of country or region in particular you feel could be strengthened via M&A.

So as you know, when it comes to M&A, we always are highly selective. We really need M&A to hit our plans. Obviously, the bolt-on improves tech, our product or market position with attractive returns, we will engage. But I think the real key for us is we're not overpaying. We've seen lots of our competitors overpay, and that's not what we do. It has to make strategic sense for us. the businesses we acquire have to either be standalone or if they're coming into our world, we can take them to another level. So that's always been how we've looked at it.

And yes, Jason, am I reference to a nice amount of cash on the balance sheet. So how we deploy that is disciplined first and flexibility next. Organic growth has always been important to us with a clear eye on return on investment. And then you've noticed we've paid regular and special dividends. So as Neal said, we'll only select bolt-on opportunities that strengthen our core.

And then just one quick follow-up. I'm wondering if you could share a little bit more on the strategy in Alberta and how you're taking learnings from the Ontario transition and applying them to sort of improve the performance here this time around.

Okay. So as we know, Alberta is now expected to regulate in Q2 2026. I mean I'll say this, we are ready -- we learned our lessons from Ontario of how to migrate the customers from our dot-com product to now Alberta, we've also obviously enhanced our Rest of Canada product and our Ontario products, all those features will now come in diverse product. I think we saw lots of heavy marketing activity early on in Ontario. I'm not sure that all the competitors can keep spending as they have been spending.

So we think that will be a more rational competitive environment. And as you know, we've already got the revenue. So when we spend x percentage of our market on revenue, we already have that revenue. So we're waiting to see it as soon all the regs come and we're ready to go, we go for Alberta.

The next question comes from Clark Lantin of BTIG.

I wanted to follow up on Bernie's question before around Nigeria, but maybe in sort of a broader context. If I think back to what you laid out for us in September, I think they were up to 4 markets that were targeted potentially for expansion. Are any of those encompassed in the plan for 2026 or embedded in guidance or whether yes or no, maybe you could give us an update on which of them seem most addressable or I guess, sort of most actionable near term.

Yes. Thank you for your question. The only market expansion into Africa, that is included in the guidance is Namibia at this point in time. We did call out 1 or 2 other markets as well in Investors Day like you've mentioned. But we also remain disciplined to have a strategic rollout plan and make sure that how we operate in Africa is 100% effective. And we also obtained that operating leverage there.

And I'll just add to that is remember besides of the 1 country, we're obviously rolling out of Jackpot City brand has a pure play casino into more African markets. and we've got a few of them coming online. So -- and then at the same time, operationalize the listing products and teams that we've got in those regions.

Understood. And a very quick follow-up, if I may. Neal, I think you called out a low single-digit benefit in Nigeria from the World Cup. Would it be possible to quantify how big the tournament could be for your sports business in 2026 from a handle standpoint? Yes, go ahead. Sorry.

Yes. Okay. So no, what we said is generally in our budget, we've got low single-digit World Cup tailwinds across -- I mean just putting the 40% of the countries we operate in are participating in the World Cup. So the World subs obviously an expanded format. So what it can mean in the beginning part of the World Cup, you'll have really good teams again, not such good things. I mean that we might have more favorite wing in this World Cup, but it's a longer tournament with a lot more games. So we believe the engagements, et cetera, over time, is going to be fairly good. And obviously, the World Cup is at that time and it is, we normally wouldn't have any sport events. So it's really going to fill the calendar for us from a net perspective.

The next question comes from Mike Hecky of StoneX.

Neal, Alinda great job guys on stellar '25. Just a few questions. as first on Apricot. I think, Alinda, you were sort of penciling out $35 million in EBITDA savings from the deal and integration. Is that still the number you're thinking about in '26? And how much have you baked into your guidance now that you've completed or have the official approval to complete this deal?

Thanks, Mike. During Investor Day, we called out $35 million, this is not day-1 saving, this is an annualized sizing projection. And these savings will come from reduced royalty fees infrastructure enhancements and most importantly, bringing staff closer to Super Group, so we're starting to bring the team together. And the savings definitely already started, but this is an annualized number that we bought out. And we will pay on progress as we continue and execute according to our plans.

I wanted just to confirm that you've put the presumed savings now into your guide, correct?

That's correct. The savings that we will realize in 2026 is in the guide, correct.

Okay. Awesome. I guess next on the -- I guess, just to stay on the guide, Alinda, did you also can presume savings on the Super coin initiative as well? Or is that something that you'd look to just earn as you sort of continue to roll out the product? I guess the next big step would be the wallet.

Yes. So obviously, the launch in South Africa. And obviously, it's a step towards broader payment and engagement. It's near -- it will take us time. Obviously, you can't just switch the lights on and it just happens. The customers have to adapt it. So one is we have the customer base to is we have the product that African customers love. So we're going to start as soon as the wallet comes in, in the first half of this year, be able to incentives to that, but it's already helping us save on other banking fees from the different suppliers we use. So we are really seeing a benefit. So some of that is obviously put into our guidance.

Okay. Last question. On the World Cup, I mean it's pretty obvious to see how strong of a catalyst that's going to be for you guys, onboarding players here in the cross-sell, the iGaming is significant. I think you said 60-plus percent, but just I guess reflecting on the Africa Cub. And the pressure on hold that you experienced at the beginning of that event, given that the World Cup this year has expanded significantly, how do you sort of assess, sort of early tournament risk on hold and what you would do to mitigate that, if that's a factor that we should be thinking about.

Yes. So life, I think it is better that they're more teams, right? In all the past World Cup, we've always found in the early in some of the favorite don't win, either when we draw, sometimes don't even qualify for the next round. What we have done and will do is that we don't -- we are all over our sense and our boost that we give the customers in the tournament, especially in the early round. So this is all the mass exercise of working out where the volatility lies. And as you can imagine vesifrom Africa Cup of Nations, we've learned some clever lessors there.

Also, what does happen is you saw what happened in December, and then it all flow through in January where the sports results went the other way. So then you get Novan, you get brilliant sports margin and you get your constant casino. So together, that helps us. And also, we've got all the new AI pricing new initiatives we are then embedding from our traders, et cetera. So we are all over this.

And listen, the World Cup, I think, is going to be a real catalyst for -- it's all about the customer engagement. Remember, it's not about the customer just in the first week or 2 of the world copied engagement is too engagement going forward. And that's our whole business is about.

And then the coal altonalysis, that spend that gets on showing on our Investor Day is how the cake is lowering. This just helps lowering the cake.

And just to conclude, if you remember, our sports is 20% of our business 80% is casino. We like to believe that casino being casino faces, gives us the ability to navigate the ups and downs of sports.

Next question comes from Jed Kelly of Oppenheimer.

Just looking into your guidance, can you just talk about some reps we should turn your aspect, there's any kind around comp? Anything we should be on think of.

So you're just breaking up. We've got some of it, not all of it. Do you want to just, sorry, just repeat that, sorry, we just we heard every second word.

Yes. Could you just talk about some of the risk in terms of potentially some of the risk guidance on why it could come under your stations?

Hello. I think the risk around any guidance is usually the variance that varies a cut by wise. So Abe-san, hopefully, like Rich just mentioned, the the sports results will normalize, and we feel comfortable that, that will even be the effect of our 2026 guide. And we've already started to see that because January was exceptional more than we've ever seen, but it's already normalized to our trailing 12-month average of the results in February. And we just have to make sure that we -- like Neal made references to launch more of the jacket city in different countries. So we have that uplift in growth.

And then I think to answer some of the questions, I thought we got was in the guide we've done a normalized sports margin is how is embedded into the guide, yes.

And maybe there's always at risk of sudden regulatory shifts like taxes and -- but that we have been navigating for the last 20 years. So we take a conservative approach around including that in the guide.

And then if you can hear me all right, I'll sneak 1 more in. Any regions outside of Africa, we should be watching that could potentially open up?

Listen, at Brazil was last or the year before. this talk of UAE, et cetera, coming. So again, it's all about the numbers. It's all about what are the taxes, what you can do in those markets, what product is it support to the casino. So from that perspective, that's probably only the other one, right? Most of the European countries, as you know, are all regulated today. And there are some 1 or 2 African countries that are starting to regulate over time. So we're all over it.

Any more questions from anyone?

We have no further questions.

Alright. Okay. So again, thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. We are really, really super proud of our performance in 2025 and the start of the new year, and we'll speak to you again soon. Thank you.

That concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Hello, everyone and thank you for joining the Super Group's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. My name is Lucy and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to hand over to your host, Nkem Ojougboh, Head of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today to discuss Super Group's results for the third quarter 2025.

During this call, Super Group may make comments of a forward-looking nature that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed further in its SEC filings that could cause the actual results to differ materially from historical results or from the company's forecast. Super Group assumes no responsibility to update forward-looking statements other than as required by law. On today's call, Super Group may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. Super Group has provided a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP figures in the press release issued yesterday and available on the Investor Relations page of Super Group's website. Super Group recommends that investors refer to the supplementary presentation posted to the company's website.

Today, I'm joined by Neal Menashe, Chief Executive Officer; and Alinda Van Wyk, Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the call up for questions. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Neal.

Thank you, Ink. Good morning, everyone and welcome to Super Group's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. We delivered another strong and resilient performance this quarter, powered by consistent execution, record customer engagement and continued focus on margin expansion. We achieved this despite customer-friendly sports results in September and with customer acquisition up very nicely year-on-year, we are positioned for a good fourth quarter.

We enjoyed seeing many of you in our London office for our Investor Day in September. Now we would like to share some key takeaways since then. First, we hit a record of 6 million monthly active customers in September, which we have already surpassed in October. This reflects the depth of our global footprint, our localized execution and the value loyal customers continue to place on our products and platforms. Second, we are proud to officially announce the upcoming Q4 launch of Super Coin, our South African rand-pegged digital asset stablecoin initiative. This marks a significant and strategic step forward in how we think about payments, rewards and engagement. Finally, despite unfavorable sports outcomes in September, rolling marginally into October, we are raising our full year group revenue and EBITDA 2025 guidance.

Before I turn to Alinda for the financial details, I wanted to offer a quick overview of our operational performance this quarter and elaborate more on Super Coin. Europe's revenue surged 46% year-over-year with the U.K. and Spain leading the charge, up 71% and 11%, respectively. This outstanding performance reflects a combination of regulatory stability, product innovation and enhanced marketing execution. In contrast, Germany continued to be impacted by tighter regulatory restrictions as well as an intentionally reduced marketing spend to preserve unit economics in a challenging environment. Africa delivered 36% year-over-year growth, driven by strong performance across all markets. Botswana remains a standout with continued momentum since launch. Malawi and Tanzania also posted solid gains, while South Africa grew 23% year-over-year.

In Nigeria, we have successfully completed the migration to our new technology platform, which positions us for improved scalability and customer experience. In Zambia, we are proactively navigating casino tax headwinds and are making good progress. North America grew 14% year-over-year. Canada ex Ontario increased 15%, supported by higher deposit volumes and strong customer retention. Ontario increased 3%. We are planning to launch our new casino client there in the first half of 2026. APAC revenue was also up 3% year-over-year, marking a solid improvement from last quarter's 6% decline. In New Zealand, revenue declined 2%, primarily driven by continued marketing restrictions. We are obviously actively addressing this issue.

We are on track to launch the ZAR Super Coin in late November in partnership with Luno, the largest customer, consumer crypto exchange in South Africa. This new South African rand-pegged stablecoin is designed to deepen customer loyalty, reward engagement and enable cross-platform benefits across the Super Group ecosystem. We intend Super Coin to be more than just a rewards tool. It marks a crucial first step in integrating digital assets into our product stack. Our digital asset wallet is expected to launch in Q1 2026, starting in South Africa, where adoption of alternative payment methods continues to accelerate. This wallet will provide customers with a seamless and secure way to store, send and transact using Super Coin and we expect it will lead to cost efficiencies over time. In the longer term, we plan to expand availability in line with local regulatory frameworks.

With that, I'll now turn over to Alinda.

Thank you, Neal. Let's now walk through the financials. We had an exceptional July and August. And despite those sports outcomes that Neal mentioned, our core business outperformed, enabling us to confidently raise our full year guidance above previous Investor Day targets. The group generated a total revenue of $557 million, up 26% year-over-year. Group adjusted EBITDA reached $152 million, representing 65% year-over-year growth with a robust margin of approximately 27%. This quarter's margin improvement reinforces the strength of our model. We are investing in markets that deliver the best returns while maintaining cost discipline and increasing operational efficiency, including expanded use of AI across customer support and trading.

We again improved our marketing ratio and still drove record customer engagement and wagering growth. These fundamentals, disciplined reinvestment, efficiency gains and a sharper ROI positions us to finish this year strongly and carrying momentum into 2026. The quarter was also driven by strong sports outcomes in July and August and increased uptake of parlays. Growth was further supported by favorable wagering activity with sports betting wagers hitting $901 million for the quarter, up 12% and casino wages up 20% year-over-year. Our sportsbook margins also improved from 11% in quarter 3 2024 to 12.8% in quarter 3 2025. Our balance sheet remains strong. We ended the quarter with $462 million cash on the balance sheet.

Over the last 12 months, we have returned $136 million to shareholders, including $20 million paid out in the past quarter, once again, demonstrating our robust free cash flow generation and careful consideration capital allocation strategies. Today, we are raising our full year 2025 group revenue to be between $2.17 billion and $2.27 billion and group adjusted EBITDA guidance to between $555 million and $565 million. This uplift reflects our robust growth in monthly active customers, diversification in our revenue mix and steady start to quarter 4.

I will now hand back to Neal for closing remarks.

Thank you, Alinda. Q3 showcased the power of our diversified global footprint, efficient cost structure and strong operating leverage. Even in a tough sports hold environment, we delivered record customer activity, 65% year-over-year growth in EBITDA and consistent reinvestment in our product and tech platforms. As we move into the final quarter of 2025, we remain focused on executing our growth strategy, unlocking further margin expansion and delivering long-term value to our shareholders.

I'll now turn the call over to the operator to open the call up for questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Jason Tilchen of Canaccord Genuity.

One thing I'm curious about, if you could share a little more detail regarding the magnitude of the difference in payments costs in Africa relative to some of the other markets you operate in and a little bit more about maybe the level of investment required in this initiative relative to the potential savings over time from reduced payments costs.

Yes. Not yet. So in Africa, because of the wallets and stuff, it's significantly more than other markets in the world. So with this initiative, it can over time, obviously reduce that. And yet, the cost involved in implementing the Super Coin haven't been excessive at all. It's actually quite -- it's easily manageable. And over time, obviously, with the engagement in the customer base going forward, we are really excited about this opportunity.

And just to follow-up on that. You mentioned in your prepared remarks a few times about rewards. I'm just curious what the opportunity is to potentially use this as a mechanism to drive retention for the user base in those markets.

Yes, the -- listen, it's all about our customer acquisition, keeping the -- retention of our customers and keeping them in our ecosystem. So with the Super Coin, we -- there's lots of different benefits we can give them as they start interacting with that because it's a method that we will control and we're in total control of that destiny. So for us, it's a very exciting opportunity, because of that. This bonus money where you can give them, there's lots of different things you can give them.

The next question comes from Jordan Bender of Citizens.

I want to start on guidance. Adjusting for the tough sports comp in the prior year, 4Q revenue still implies slowing growth trends from what we've seen year-to-date. Are you seeing anything into November that would imply anything slowing across some of your major KPIs outside of just some of the poor sports results that have bled into October?

Thank you, Jordan, for your question. We -- in the guidance for the remainder of the year, we just assumed a normalized sports hold in line with around 14%. As you can see in the investor presentation, we've prepared a slide on that. We can't -- as you know, it's very tricky for us to have any kind of understanding of the impact of when it does have a outlier like in September. But what happened in September is well because July and August were so significantly higher, you do have a equalized quarter. So that's why we just kept it normalized. And we're also very excited about the continued momentum in the customer activity, fueled by also marketing efficiencies in line with our prior quarters. So that all will help deliver that last part of the year. And furthermore, we just have to rely on consistent execution and a seasonal supportive calendar.

And also I'll just add in Jordan, that obviously, quarter 4 2024 was a hard comp because the sports margin was at 15.9%.

Perfect. And then just maybe a follow-up on the U.S. business. Anything left from a revenue or a cost standpoint we should be expecting in the fourth quarter?

Yes. So the gaming operations is all wrapped up in the U.S. And that -- the only thing that is now -- that we're just doing is the operational wind down and wrap up. In the guidance for quarter 4, we've included that. That is a absolute immaterial number. So -- and we won't foresee any revenues coming through in quarter 4.

The next question comes from Jed Kelly of Oppenheimer.

I think you highlighted we're kind of watching some tax developments here in a couple of countries in Africa and then potentially in the U.K. Can you just remind us how much of a tax cushion you baked in, in sort of some of the medium-term guidance you laid out at your recent Investor Day?

Yes. So remember, taxes, obviously, with us, the way to mitigate taxes is, #1, cost efficiencies. There's cost efficiencies in everything we do, then it's the product efficiencies and it's the marketing efficiencies. So all of that is coming together. And for us, we have lots of headroom there to take some of these tax increases. The big one, obviously, for everyone's mind is the U.K. and how much they plan to go up. But for us, we've got a resilient business model and we're growing. So yes, it might take some of the extra profit out of it. But with all the other savings coming in, we hope to mitigate against them.

But just to go back to the reference to Africa, the only really impact at the moment on tax in Africa is around Zambia and that's been embedded in the Q4 guidance forecast.

Got it. That's helpful. And then just circling back to Ontario. I think it's -- you said -- you highlighted it's growing 3%. I think overall, Canada is growing high teens. How should we think about Alberta's growth rate when that market legalizes? Should we think that grows mid-single digits? Or should -- do you think you can maintain sort of that strong growth you're seeing in the rest of Canada?

So I think we've learnt our lessons, obviously, as we always say, in Ontario. Again, we've got the new clients being launched there shortly in next quarter in Canada -- in Ontario and we're obviously enhancing the products. So all of that will help us deliver more in Alberta. But this is one that we -- I would say Alberta would be higher teens, et cetera. We would expect to be closer to what else we see in Canada.

The next question comes from Bernie McTernan of Needham.

This is Stefanos Crist, calling in for Bernie. Pretty healthy margin level despite some negative sports results. Can you just talk about the puts and takes on margin in the quarter and if that's sustainable going forward?

Yes. Stefanos, directionally, 100%, our model benefits from mix towards higher-quality casino revenue. We also have the strong geographic diversification. And what we've been seeing, even though the sports results have been under pressure, we've seen increased parlay contribution, which had a favorable impact. Otherwise, what Neal and I constantly talk about our structural efficiencies as we roll out AI-enabled operations and disciplined processing negotiations, et cetera, we definitely believe that this margin is sustainable.

Got it. And then you called out strength in the U.K. and Spain. Just anything specific to call out there?

So I think if you take U.K. and Spain, it's the product, again, remember, we closed a lot of markets. And I keep telling people that when we close those markets, we'll then to be able to focus the resource in on the markets where we're winning. And that you can see that in obviously the U.K. and stuff. So all the stuff we're doing on parlays, the product, the processing, everything that happens in the product is you're seeing a direct correlation of how those numbers are going. So it's not fluke. This is a dedicated resource allocation and we keep pushing more, more and more. And our brand strength, obviously, is compounding. Spain, we've got like the Super Club loyalty was introduced, ongoing product upgrades. And so all of that's coming together. And that's all about this operating leverage that sits in our platforms.

The next question comes from Clark Lampen of BTIG.

Neal, maybe I can follow up a little bit on that comment around U.K. growth and the product, I guess, sort of driver underpinning it. Was that Apricot driven? And if so, is that something that we should think about maybe being sort of earlier stages with the U.K. sportsbook? And then sort of second question, as we think about the sportsbook business overall, maybe as sort of a follow-up on Jordan's question around the forward outlook. If we sort of run forward the numbers with seasonal improvements in your customers in line with what we've seen in the past, it would seem like there was a pretty significant downtick on a per customer basis. Is that in any way sort of related to engagement patterns? Have you seen any downtick? Or maybe should we read this as just sort of a prudent way of approaching, I guess, the sort of 4Q setup and modeling?

Okay. So just back on the U.K., obviously, I always think we under-index. The brand was really good in the U.K. But as we've got more focus on the product, you've seen an uptick there. Plus remember, we've also launched the casino over at Jackpot City, et cetera and we put a lot of effort into that. So all of that's coming together. Plus you've got the parlay mix that, that product, which is obviously that we purchased from Apricot, that we're almost finally getting over the line and owning it in the next few months is all coming together because we actually own 100% of the road map there and what's happening. So that's all coming together for what I call Betway Global internationally. Obviously, the Betway Africa has always been running a superb product, right? So that all helps.

No, I think when it comes to the outlook and stuff, it's not -- we -- listen, we're always prudent as you know. We -- this is how we operate. Again, we're still 80% in this quarter, I think it was 83% or something in casino. It just depends how the football lay of the land actually unfold in because football is our #1 sport. I think in September, what we saw with the Champions League was that all the favorites were winning in the Champions League round robin. But now we're starting to move and we'll move into the next couple of months into the next phase and that's when there's the favorites don't always win. So for us, it's just being prudent. We've got -- listen [indiscernible] all about and [indiscernible] always keep discussing, it's all about customers in the house and how they engage and we're delivering more and more of those month-on-month. And that's why I said October numbers of customers in the house worth even more than September.

Okay. If I could throw one more in, your Africa growth was up 36% this quarter. Anything that you would call out sort of along the lines of the same sort of underpinning drivers with product in that territory? And maybe more importantly, how should we think about the sustainability of growth at an elevated pace?

It's definitely more durable broad-based growth. We do obviously seeing Botswana as a standout in the mix when it comes to first launch. I mean Botswana was about 4% in quarter 1, 4.5% in quarter 2 and now 6.5% in quarter 3. So that just shows that how that one country contributed to the growth of Africa. But generalized, the growth is around the consistent African -- consistently across all the African countries. And we've also just completed the Nigeria tech migration, which we hope to also see a nice uplift in stability in the next couple of months. And then just to conclude, remember, we've launched Jackpot City as a secondary casino brand in Africa. It's now live in South Africa, Ghana, Malawi and Tanzania. And we foresee that Ghana will be -- the launch will happen in Ghana now.

So we've done that. So I think the moment we set out that we've got to get our casinos in all the markets we're operating in. And that's the same for U.K., same for Africa. We're now hopefully coming soon to Spain. And then the last one, obviously, is Germany that we still got some tech stuff to do there because it's quite restrictive of what we have to do.

The next question comes from Ryan Sigdahl of Craig-Hallum.

Really nice results. Want to move around -- stay on the hold kind of the sports impact in September. If I look at August, it looked like it was kind of an outsized good guy for the sportsbook from a hold standpoint win, offset by September. Are you able to kind of net those 2 together throughout the whole quarter on kind of what the net impact was from sports gross margin impact relative to what you were expecting?

So I think it's on Slide 12 in the investor deck. We've included quite a nice slide now just to explain the ebbs and the flows of sports margin, which is obviously you can't really predict any of that. So what we've just started to see, like Neal explained as well is the timing of the matches and how the outcomes will now be a bit more favorable because -- for the -- for that -- for Betway, not for the customer maybe because of -- in the beginning, you have much more favorable that will. But on this slide, you will see we had a high of 18.8% and a low of 7.3%. So that we've actually marked now. So that average of 14% is what we kind of project forward. But net-net, over a period of time, the margin is increasing due to all -- everything that Neal has mentioned of more rollout of the parlay product in other parts of our -- which was quite dominant in Africa but now in other parts of the world as well as just customer engagement.

Fair enough. Super Coin part -- is South Africa kind of the initial launch? Is there plans to launch a similar coin in, let's say, Nigeria and other markets? Or is this kind of a one, let's trial it and see how it goes before making any other kind of further strategy and decisions?

Yes. So South Africa was the first place to start just because of the [indiscernible] license and high digital wallet adoption there. And so also we've got a big customer base there. So we tried it out there. And as it works there, then we'll see the other markets and are actively looking at other markets. But we rather want to start in one country and then move as opposed to try and do it in so many countries all at once. I mean there's quite a lot of technical lift that has to happen here and with Luno being the largest consumer exchange, having the biggest customer base in South Africa, we decided to start there first. So there's a road to go there. This is obviously the first part, listing on the exchange and then you would get into the wallet adoption into Betway, which I said would probably happen in quarter 1, towards the end of quarter 1.

Maybe just a follow-up on that and maybe a naive question on crypto but can you launch the same Super Coin in other markets? Or would it have to be a kind of full separate infrastructure and coin?

Yes. It's basically every coin will be -- this is a ZAR coin and Super Coin, then you have the different currency coins in each market. But it's all the same technology, same, everything, we just got to get on to those relevant exchanges in the countries we decide to go and that the laws of that country allow us to do it.

The next question comes from Mike Hickey of Benchmark Company.

Neal, Alinda, Ink, Super Group team, congrats guys on a great quarter and a great year, definitely getting a real picture here of 2025, Neal. Just curious when you look at sort of the drivers here of your growth and there's a lot of them, just curious sort of the main drivers, the most durable drivers that you think will also be a positive impact to your '26 outlook. So I guess, Neal, just curious if you can kind of give us what '26 looks like, growing off such a great '25 and how much are sort of existing drivers of growth versus new drivers like Super Coin? I mean Super Coin sounds great. It's just hard to sort of understand the impact and how material you think it could be. It seems like it could be great on revenue and costs. But I guess just getting a better idea of '26, Neal, would be great [indiscernible].

Okay. Michael, I won't comment on 2026 yet but I'll tell you where -- what we've delivered on. So we've delivered on marketing efficiencies everywhere, right, in the business. We spent [indiscernible] $500 million on marketing for 2025. So it's getting that efficient. We said in the beginning, we've got to get that more efficient. We're doing it finding the new channel. So that's one, obviously, closing the markets that we were never saw a path to profitability. I always said the opportunity cost of being in those markets is huge and you're seeing it by we can redeploy into the product, into the markets we are winning in. And that's one like Ontario now, the new clients coming, new stuff coming there. So -- and that's all happening.

Plus, we've got product -- it's all about your product, right? It's like what is your product, how is your product relative to the competitors in each market. So in Africa, I think we got a standout product. I think we're catching up in some of the other markets, especially the U.K. And as we're closing that parity, we are seeing the uplift in our customer behavior, customer loyalty, et cetera. We then talk about process efficiencies. One is payment efficiencies. We're all over that, new rates, et cetera. In the African business, processing is expensive. It can be anything from 3% to 6%, right, of deposits. But remember, what happens in those markets is they deposit, they cash out. They redeposit, they cash out, they redeposit. So you've got a lot of churn of the same money. So you're paying deposit fees in and out all the time. So hopefully, with our Super Coin, et cetera, we can build that balance that stays in our ecosystem. We're not paying for the same money, but 3 or 4 or 5x.

In the U.S., as an example, in the U.K., the processing fees are tiny. They're pennies, right, in transaction fees but not in some of the other markets. So that's where that comes together. And then what we always said and we said for the last 3 years and since we finally got stuck into it, especially as Alinda has been really pushing it is these cost efficiencies. It's how do we do the business, how do we double the business without doubling the costs. And that's really what this is all about. And we're finally seeing that coming through and there's more and more efficiencies, new call center software, new risk management, that's happening everywhere and that's what, what we have been pushing. And then that you ultimately need that because in some markets, you can win, in some markets, you're not winning like Germany. But Germany is really a function of the [ regs ] but also in Germany, we had to wait to split out our wallet. So yes, has it been on the main burner for us, probably not. But now we can finally get to it that we split out the casino wallet from the sports wallet, so we can finally offer casino in Germany.

So all these things take time but we're finally getting them. And I think it's about actioning the points that we believe in and that's what you can see dropping down. So if you have to look to 2026, we are setting some of the goals we set on our Investor Day, how do we increase the revenue and then the operating leverage kicks in. So you'll probably hear from us about 2026 in February time, right when we do our end of year wrap-up, et cetera. And most importantly, our deposits and net revenue are really tracking well and it's all about the customers in the system. And again, if you look -- remember, at Investor Day, we had one slide, which obviously explains a bit on this cohort analysis but around it, it's all about the customer. And we can't forget this business is all about this customer. And everything we do has to involve around the customer. And as you get 6 million in, you've got a lot of work that the system has to do to make sure that all 6 million are treated correctly, right? And that's what we're striving to do.

Thanks, Neal. The other piece on Africa, obviously, it just seems like a incredible opportunity for you guys near and long term. We noticed that Kenya has made a change to their tax scheme. And we know that you exited Kenya because of some, I guess, you could say one of your guys say ridiculous tax environment. Obviously, it wasn't great. You laughed and now they've got a change. Just curious your thoughts on that change and if you -- if it's significant enough that maybe you can reexamine that market as an opportunity. And if you think the new tax scheme may have positive implications for other countries where you operate?

Yes. I think that's -- I mean, that's actually a very good point. If you bring up Kenya, they had this excise tax on sports and casino where you could actually do it on sports, you couldn't actually apply it to casino. And it takes them like what 2 years or almost to do it. So yes, absolutely, that's a case that we could absolutely go back in and turn on the software. And it just means they finally found a mechanism that they are more comfortable in, which is taxing on deposits in and out, which is a much more fairer and easier way basically for them to monitor the tax collection. So Zambia also went against this excise tax.

But I think the first time what we saw in Zambia is, as an industry, all of us came together to go and lobby the government to finally say you don't have casino there, you'll lose all this revenue and they're slowly lifting. And in Kenya, as we do it, Kenya goes with the exact model that we suggested for Zambia. So I think it's the ebb and flow. And as these new businesses come in, we are working with the government. So absolutely. And for us, I think the [indiscernible] point is that you have always got opportunities to go back in. And so and that's what we will do. And our products there, we just got to get the resource to be able to just turn it back on.

And Neal last question. The -- when Laurence gave his presentation on Africa at your Investor Day, he noted 4 countries that were -- maybe Kenya was one of them, I can't remember but 4 countries where you're not in today but are sort of on the radar. And this sort of maybe ties back to '26, which I know you can't exactly talk about but I appreciate the color. But it's a pretty significant TAM that he outlines in his presentation. Is that something that we should pencil in as a possibility? Or is it still fairly remote? It just seems like given the success here that it could be something.

No. We haven't gone into them yet but we are far down the line, getting the model right, getting how the money has been charged, et cetera. So we're all over them and there are a lot of them. They've got the capacity to deliver them. The question is at what stage in next year, we will be launching them. But that's definitely 100% part of our plan. It's all about [indiscernible] yes, absolutely.

When you say far down the line, Neal, that means that your -- there's no roadblocks to opening those countries.

No, no, no, it's just about the regulation and getting the legal structures in place, et cetera, because each one has got a slight nuance than the other one but there's lots happening. The team is on it and we -- and for us, that's all part of our journey. That's exactly what we want to be delivering on, absolutely. And that's why we freed up all that. And that's simply why we speed up the Africa business just to do Africa. And we speed up the rest of the world for them to do the rest of the world. This is exactly the point, right?

The next question comes from Chad Beynon of Macquarie.

Nice results. So wanted to start with the New Zealand regulatory news that we've seen in terms of the online gambling tax change and I guess, it's a fairly different licensing regime. I know that's been a smaller market and one that hasn't led to as much growth as others. But Neal, can you maybe just kind of touch on how you're feeling about the market and kind of how you think operators will react to this?

So again, it's still -- all these regulations are still in and out of the different committees in New Zealand. We are all over it. We've -- it's just a matter of when they actually finally decide that they are going to fully regulate it, especially this is all to do with casino, right? So we're all over it and what we are doing is -- and have been doing it for a while, is they've got certain advertising restrictions that we are adhering to. And that's very important where some other competitors aren't but we are because for us, it's all about the long-term longevity of that market for us. So we're doing that. We're able to do certain marketing, not others. So we've actually taken a constant stance there, which is why you see the growth not being what it is, also subject to there has been some devaluation of the New Zealand dollar.

And just to add to Neal's point, remember, New Zealand has been taxed for a very long time. So we pay a GST tax in New Zealand for a very -- for a couple of years already. And mid last year, they introduced a smaller gaming tax. And the noise around tax is just how the regulation now coming to maturity to when they launch to peg that rate of tax. And I think there has been now rumors to increase it a bit more. But like Neal said, this is very early days. But the point I'm just making is that we have been paying tax there for a while, even though there wasn't a regulation regime at that point in time.

Great. And then lastly, just in terms of the strong capital position that you're in, any update in terms of how you're thinking about tuck-in or bolt-on M&A in this market?

So we look at this. Listen, we're highly selective. We don't want to overpay but also I don't think we can totally underpay either. So we have to find that balance. But at the moment, we make small, tiny little ones along the way, marketing ones, et cetera. But it's all about, is it at the right price and does it work? And we can't just base these acquisitions on synergies, right? They've got to stand on their own 2 feet. So when we find the right ones, it's not that we're not looking, we've got a long list, it's got to make sense for us, right? And that's what we're doing. And really, what we're also doing is, operational side, is we're working out where we need to bolt on along the way. So it's in the marketing domains, if it's in other stuff, et cetera, which is what we're doing. It's like -- the Super Coin one is another example. We bought a [indiscernible] license. We had to buy it from [indiscernible]. So we bolt on these smaller ones along the way. [indiscernible] comes, we're all open.

We currently have no further questions. So I'd like to hand back to Neal for any closing remarks.

So thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We are really proud of our performance this quarter and excited about how well positioned we are for the future. We will speak to you all again soon. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Yes. I think we need to look at the environment. So I've been involved with the business. So my background quickly because it's in the context of that is -- I was an accountant. I got [indiscernible] as soon as I could. And it became restructuring businesses for 15 years. Part of that restructuring took me to a business called Umbro, which was a traditional sportswear business, which I took over and bought into it. And we took it from $16 million to $1 billion in 10 years and that was on the back of football. So I've been in the football world without being in football. And [indiscernible], I would never work for a football club because they were the most horrible businesses in the world.

What happened in the sort of early '90s was football club starts to go public. And [indiscernible] all the business came in United were a big partner of ours. And I went on to just see them saying, look, I'm leaving the business. It's in great shape [indiscernible]. And they said, look, we want you to come and restructure us because we are now a public company. And that means that we can't do the things that we used to do, and we're [indiscernible] the company. It's not our money anymore.

And the reason that they went public was for -- it was really ownership liquidity. Football clubs [indiscernible] liquidity because in the 5 years that it was public, it only used about $16 million. The rest we generated. We were making $30 million, $40 million, $60 million a year. So we didn't actually need the public environment from that point of view. It was from a liquidity point of view.

But because it wasn't our money anymore and because we've got a regulatory framework, which was not football and the government structure that needed to be implemented, that's where I came in because it is really a restructuring [indiscernible].

So I think the big question that everyone is asking and I think we see this all the time in our business and obviously in the football business, how do you negotiate the twin costs of keeping shareholders and fans happy? I think fans want one thing, shareholders want something else. Talk a little bit about that.

So it's not easy, and it doesn't get any easier. But again, it was about looking at the business. So just to give you -- 1996 I joined, we didn't have a full-time doctor. We had a very inadequate training facility. We had one pitch inside, one pitch outside. We had no marketing and comms department. So as a business, it didn't exist. As a football club, it was starting to be successful.

So the first thing we did is actually start to structure it like a business. And that went through everything like setting up those departments, setting up medical departments to support the players, building the first-ever real training ground, extending and [indiscernible] into one of the best stadiums at that time. And with that comes success.

I mean, literally stopping Alex from doing everything. People like Alex today are coach [indiscernible okay? So when I walked into Manchester United, we would determine which hotels to stay, what train to book, you do the negotiation with the club. You do the negotiation on the salary, and we stopped all that. It is tough, but we stopped doing that. Because, again, we had to differentiate what his role was. We couldn't do what he could do, which was culture, okay?

And he just realized that's a full-time job because part of the success of United was being successful. Yes. So we took all the work away from him and we put a structure around it. And that took the initial success to be, if you look at '96 to 2004, it's the most successful period, which was partly winning the [indiscernible] in '99. And we did that -- we did that without public money. And in fact, we took it private during that period.

Okay. And then obviously, you joined Chelsea after that. During the [indiscernible] revolution, okay, let's call it a revolution because he came in and he through as much as he could at it. What were the building blocks to that success? Because there was a lot of success initially. And how did you keep the business side of the club in line with expectations from the owner? Because I'm quite sure [indiscernible] which was quite an ambitious [indiscernible] how do you balance that with him on the expectations?

Sure. So I was [indiscernible]. People don't leave Manchester United. It's not easy. It's harder to leave than is to get it in. He came to his first game [indiscernible] and it was Real Madrid against United, Wednesday night, one of the best evenings you'll ever have. And we lost and Real Madrid [indiscernible].

Who lost? United lost?

Yes. And he came, that was his first ever again. And I didn't know who he was. I mean, nobody had heard [indiscernible]. I think it was about the fifth richest man in the world at that point. And he came -- after the game and said that was most incredible experience I've ever had. And thank you very much for letting me be here. I had dinner with him a couple of times over the next 3 or 4 months to talk about football, like who owns football or nobody owns football, I mean FIFA owned footfall. And that got to a point where he called me one day. It was about 5 days before Chelsea went bankrupt, literally.

And he rang me to say just [indiscernible] so can we have dinner. And we had dinner and he said, I want you to come on Chelsea. And it took me a long time because what I didn't want to do and I laid out to him what running Chelsea was all about, is about running it properly. I didn't want to go back to the cowboy days pre-United.

And it took a long time for him to understand that like what was this objective. What do you want to get out of this? Why are you doing it? If it's a hobby, I'm not interested because you can't do it as a hobby. Just throwing money at it doesn't work. I mean there's a wonderful history of people who spend more money and get more results.

So we laid out a plan, and the objective was to be the best club in Europe. And we laid out this plan. And with that plan came investment. And again, no doctor, no training, it was incredibly that this was still competing in the Premier League 9 years after I joined, and it was in a worse position than United was. I mean that just shows you -- you got to look under the hood.

Okay. So we laid out the plan. And he said something that resignates to me today. So it was a big investment. I said it was important that the culture of this club was that we made money. Whatever money we made wouldn't [indiscernible]. So it's not that wasn't important. It was the ethos that we had to run this like a business. That was the key thing that I needed him to agree to. And he basically said, I don't want to work 5 years to be the best club to win something. I said, no, we've got to win things along the way. So let's have some benchmarks. And he said, you can have the money, you can do what you want to do and I will support it fully with one [indiscernible] what's that? He said, I need you to be successful. Because if I spend this money and I'm successful, I look really smart. If I spend this money and I'm not successful, I look really dumb. So don't let me look dumb. So don't make me look dumb, and you don't make [indiscernible] look dumb. But it's like a business, yes.

And we -- so what people don't know is the first week we were together, we decided that [indiscernible] that was our coach was not up to it. So we're going to change him at the end of the season. And we spent day in a helicopter looking at locations for our training ground, which was the bedrock of developing talent, giving the best talent in the world, a place to work that was better than anywhere else. So it's building the foundations for you Chelsea to become actually about 7 or 8 years later best club in Europe.

So during your time in Premier League Football, you work with obviously such great [indiscernible]. So Alex Ferguson, Jose Marina, what's the one key leadership trade that they all exhibit or it might not be one, but what is the main leadership trait that these guys exhibit?

Yes. So there is more than one. And I think that you're talking about probably 2 of the best. I mean there's some new guys coming down the block. They've all got a ruthlessness to them, right? So I got a call from Alex one day saying, this boy [indiscernible]. Now back at that point was pretty significant to the team and pretty significant to the brand and pretty significant to what we were doing. So I said, why is that? He said it is because one is why it's disruptive to the team. So there's nobody bigger than the team. Secondly, [indiscernible] his best. And I said, look, we'll do that. I can do that.

What I need you to do is help me create a market for them. So keep playing it. So the point of that is ruthless, right? And they're all ruthless because they win, they're all winners, they all winners and the ruthless in that pursuit of winning. They're all great leaders, actually. And they have the ability to take the team down with them and then bring the team up with them for the right moment. So you got [indiscernible] in London, and you got a 4-hour coach drive back. It was miserable, right?

These teams know what high performance is. It's instinctive. It is -- the culture is huge. And Marino, so we decided that [indiscernible] was not going to be our coach. The reason for that was he is not a winner. And the reason I could make that call is because Ferguson is a winner, okay? So we needed a winner. We had a great team, but the team would not want anything. And there's a great thing about winning losing, until you've won, you don't want [indiscernible] win on and once you won, you never want to lose, right? It's true.

So we had -- at Chelsea, we had Terry and Lampard and [indiscernible], and we've got [indiscernible] we had a great team. They've not won anything. Marino came in and instilled that almost into it. Yes. Yes. So [indiscernible] joins us, it had 2 years never losing a game at home. He went further 2 years at Chelsea never losing a game at home. So people will come to us, thinking we can't win this game.

And then you went to United and [indiscernible].

Yes. That's another story.

Okay. Great. So obviously, a Board adviser. What's the one thing that you've learned in the football world that you felt that you've been able to bring to Williams and Formula One?

Look, I think Williams is under a restructuring. So again, that's what my skill set is. I just happen to apply it to sport. And if you've got a job and you can apply it to a sport, why wouldn't you because it's a great environment to be in. So Williams is on a journey back. It's a wonderful brand. It's a wonderful independent team in the sport that's growing rapidly, faster than any other sport. And I knew the investor group and they want to take it back to the top. So my role there is to advise the Board not on making a car, I can't [indiscernible], but I'm gray head enough to know about business structures and people and people make businesses successful, not this or that, it is people. So culture is so important. So I advise on that.

I'm on the MC with James [indiscernible], who's incredible. [indiscernible] for 17 years, he knows what good looks like. We didn't. So he's injected that, and we put a fabulous team around it. And then I also -- because of my experience in sport, obviously, the [indiscernible] marketing, merchandising and sponsorship.

So what do Williams do that the football teams could learn from? What is Formula One [indiscernible]?

So the 2 fundamental -- the big difference is F1 goes to places. Almost every other sport people come to you. And why does that resonate? It resonates in the point -- if we're in time for 3 days, it is the hottest ticket [indiscernible], right? Looking at everybody, government, huge businesses, sportspeople, entertainment. They want to be part of what F1 circus brings.

Yes, as you said, like a circus keeps moving around.

It's a very expensive circus, but it is a circus [indiscernible]. Okay. So the fact that it goes is a fundamental difference. Once you're there, I will guarantee that Williams will give you an experience that [indiscernible].

I've heard that.

How many sports things you got [indiscernible] you will not get. And the reason being is you're behind the scenes, you're in with the team. It's like going to a football game and sitting in the changing room. You're that close to it. The drivers are there, the engineers are there. You're in the garage, you're listening to what's going on, you're part of it. So the experience we can give is phenomenal.

And I think we offer to our partners -- one of the key things we do is build in authenticity. This is not about us. Our partners are critical to the success of what we do. We need our partners' money. But we need more than our money. We need their help to get us where we need to be, back to the top. And to do that, we've got to do -- we've got to give you an ROI. It's not advertising. You can go on advertise cheaper than being in an F1 car, okay? But it's what else we can give you. And authenticating that relationship is critical to the success that we both have.

And I think I've heard that. I've heard that people have gone -- I'm going to experience it in November, but I have heard that people have gone to the experience, have just come away completely blown away by what they've seen. And I think that football doesn't have that properly. I think football teams -- and the there are some exceptions -- think that they take you to a match and they put you in a nice suite and that's kind of the experience where Grand Prix takes it to the next level.

Yes. You'll be in the garage, you'll be in our motor home that's why the drivers eat. That's where the drivers get debrief. That's where they get changed to go from non-racing to racing, and that's where our engineers work out why we've won crushed or lost. It's dynamic, but you're actually inside it, that's a big difference.

What role do you think documentaries like drive to survive certainly have brought new fans to Formula One and kind of what other -- what lessons can be learned from this type of content? I know for sure that it's brought me to Formula One. I knew nothing about it and now I'm addicted to the series. And could football do the same? Should it be doing the same? What can we learn from that?

Look, I think the reality -- the success of Netflix is that the drivers took the helm of [indiscernible]. They became recognizable. They became characters. And what it's done is transform F1's fan base. F1 was a very technical wide aging, male audience. [indiscernible] that because I'm one of those, I think. But what Netflix did is actually broaden that. It brought younger people into F1. It certainly brought women and girls into F1. And that coincided with the ability of putting 2 more races in the U.S. So the growth of the sport, the growth of the U.S. has been phenomenal on the back of that.

I've got one more one last question for you. Obviously, for us, Betway it's been an amazing deal. We've even got a car in the office here. I think you've seen it. I think if you guys haven't seen the car, I think you need to go and have a look, we'll blow you away. What has this deal been like for Williams? What is it like -- been like working for Betway for Williams -- working with Betway for Williams? We'd obviously like to hear your thoughts on that.

Neal and his team are really tough. But that's what we look. Look, we've got 14 partners. We are -- our strategy is to have no more than 24 partners and those partners, the key to success is repeating the length of those partnerships. So that's point one. Point two, we want to be with winners. We want to be with people who can help us win and get back to the top. And Super Group come absolutely in the center of that. It's not the biggest deal we negotiated certainly one of the toughest deals we negotiate [indiscernible].

[indiscernible].

Okay. But again, Super Group got energy. Super Group is different than our -- it's a different type of partner than we've got with some of our other partners who are B2B, this is the B2C business. That gives us other opportunities. You pushed envelope. We like that. You [indiscernible]. We like that. You -- and I'm pretty sure that we're bringing value back to you in terms of what we bring -- but it's a collaborative piece. It's not signed the deal and then come back in 3 years' time. We see you as a partner, not as a sponsor.

I think the other thing I will say is we thought long and hard about betting. Should we do it? And I'll tell you now, we wouldn't do it with anybody else but you. And that is because you're a public company, is all the things that I went and joined United for. You got good governance, good people, you're regulated. We're not interested in getting just money. Okay. So we want people that do the right things. Do the right things in scale. You're global, you're going more global, we can help that. But fundamentally, you do it in the right way.

Well, thank you. Thank you for your time and maybe we'll spend a little bit of time trying to figure out [indiscernible]. Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, Laurence and Peter. Gentlemen, whenever you both decide to retire, I think you should start a podcast, call it, old-timers, sports [indiscernible], gaming, something. So folks, we are almost done, now kicking us up is my second favorite person, our CFO; Alinda van Wyk. Alinda?

Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be here with you today. Before I start, just give me a quick moment just to say thank you very much to [indiscernible]. Thanks for everything you [indiscernible] to Super Group. Thank you. [indiscernible] only been with us for, I think, close to 9 months. So you have truly, truly put us on another level. Thanks, [indiscernible].

Okay. At Super Group, we believe in creating long-term value. We drive exceptional returns through operational leverage, focused marketing disciplined capital allocation and strategic market dominance. We utilize our platforms across all regions to help us build for scale, keep costs down and while we make sure we return marketing value. This framework delivers strong free cash flow, a healthier balance sheet that allows us to return capital to our shareholders while fueling long-term sustainable growth. We're also always assessing new markets. And when we see a potential, we can execute quickly and with confidence.

Our global footprint is a key strength. We operate a localized model, which enable us to adapt locally and to drive a deep understanding of our customers, all while making use of our worldwide infrastructure. Africa is our fastest-growing region, delivering a 59% compound annual growth rate. Europe had also delivered a 54% growth over the same period with strong contributions from U.K., Spain and Ireland. This regional mix helps us to ensure resilience, operational leverage and long-term sustainability. Today, 95% of our revenue comes from 10 countries, where we have built scale through strategic marketing. We've also focused on unifying our technology infrastructure to both for scale. And that is not just where we operate. It's how we operate that really matters.

Let's take a quick look at our plans to look at our cost structures and how that positions us to scale profitably. Our cost structure is built to support our revenue growth. Around 40% of our cost base is cost of revenue, fully variable and tied up to the top line of our performance. Marketing represents another 40%, a blend of fixed and variable spend. And as we scale in key markets, we are seeing improved returns and faster payback periods. The remaining 20% is G&A. We will continue to drive operating leverage that allows us to grow revenue faster than we grow our [indiscernible].

Taking this all together, our cost structure gives us the ability to have strong marginal visibility and meaningful upside as we grow. As we operate around the globe, our direct expenses remains flat and within our guided range. [indiscernible] does occur due to seasonality and the effect of margin on the hold. But this consistent pattern reflects our cost discipline and ability to negotiate super group rates on a global scale.

As revenue grows, we don't see cost creep, a clear signal that our business is running efficiently. We have had remarkable growth. Since the first half of 2021, we have increased revenue from $812 million to $1.1 billion for the same period in 2025. That's a 35% increase. And yet, during the same period, our cost of revenue has remained broadly stable. It went up with less than 200 basis points despite facing higher gaming taxes, which is largely outside of our control.

One of the most compelling aspects of our business is how well it performs when market shifts from regulating to fully regulate it. 4 years ago, regulated markets made up 24% of our revenue. Today, that figure stands at 65%. That transition demonstrate that even as tax burdens increase, we've been able to maintain and, in some cases, even increase our profitability. This is a result of detailed operational planning, local market execution and adaptable platforms built for compliance.

While other sees regulations as obstacles, we see them as opportunities. Regulated markets allows us to achieve long-term high-quality earnings. We have gotten smarter when it comes to managing our cost base. When we compare our costs for the -- from 2021 to the same period in 2025, we see processing costs have declined by over 500 basis points, royalty content and product cost has come down by 14%, while taxes unfortunately increased by 20%.

But this mix shift underscores our deliberate efforts to negotiate more favorable processing agreements, reduce third-party royalty costs and internalize our key technology components. Despite increased taxations from greater regulatory exposures, these levers has helped us to preserve and even grow our margin profile.

As our core markets mature, we have seen a natural evolution in our marketing spend. Several markets are transitioning from acquisition focus strategies to more retention lead focused marketing. These shifts unlock meaningful growth. In markets where we've already built strong brand equity and scale, we can now optimize our spending, moving from broad-based acquisition awareness campaigns to more targeted, data-driven retention and cross-sell efforts. This has not only reduces our overall ratio of marketing spend, but also improves our LTVs and return on investment for every dollar spent.

We see room to further reduce our percentage of marketing as a percentage of revenue over time, particularly in the markets where we already have reached critical mass. Our D&I expenses as a share of revenue continued to decline. This is a clear result of disciplined cost management and efficiencies we have unlocked through local centralization. By centralizing key functions and automating core processes, we can support the growth without increasing overhead. And this creates operating leverage and support strong term margin expansion.

We also achieved efficiencies with AI integrations, more in the operational sides of our business, such as customer support and fraud management. When we listed in 2022, we had 4,000 employees. Today, we're operating with a head count of around 3,000. But this head count is not just about reduction, it's about optimization. We've streamlined our organization, sharpened the accountability, improved our processes and align our talent around execution. The result, a much more agile workforce with better unit productivity.

One of the most meaningful ways of a non savings was when we unlocked -- we unlocked through the acquisition of this sportsbook from Apricot. By internalizing our technology stack, we will be eliminating royalty fees as well as reduce cloud hosting and operational development costs. This will lead to an annualized projected savings of around $35 million. And these are recurring cost savings and efficiencies that will drop straight to the bottom line.

In quarter 2, we've also announced the exit of the iGaming market in the U.S., and we can now expect to complete this wind down in the next couple of months. We will allocate around $185 million we originally projected for 2026 to higher return markets where we're already winning. Together, these moves represent our commitment to structural efficiencies and disciplined capital deployment. We have built a lean, efficient operating model, and every cost line reflects our deliberate return on investment mindset. We can thank our dynamic Chief People Officer, [indiscernible], for leading our organizational restructure and operations, which help our profit margin.

We have also recently employed our new group CTO, Alan Ben David, we will be focusing on aligning all the technology infrastructures and optimizing product around the globe. Return on investment focused marketing allows us to balance spending from acquisition to retention as markets mature. We think before we spend, we make sure there is a faster payback and better quality customer values.

We continue to deploy capital through a disciplined framework focused on maximizing long-term shareholder value. This includes investing in high-return growth markets and innovation while selectively pursuing bolt-on M&A that would further bolster our core. Over the last 12 months, we returned $166 million back to the shareholders through dividends. And at the same time, we've maintained strong cash discipline and preserve our balance sheet flexibility.

Our unrestricted cash position stood at $393 million at the end of quarter 2, up from $355 million at the same time last year. And this is even we've returned this $166 million back to our shareholders. With 0 debt and a healthy recurring free cash flow, we have the flexibility to invest in high-return opportunities navigate macro uncertainty and return capital to shareholders. Our ability to convert our EBITDA into free cash flow is a core strength of Super Group.

We run an asset-light business with limited CapEx requirements. This efficiency is further enhanced with disciplined working capital management and tight cost controls. The result is high-quality recurring free cash flow, which can be used for reinvestment or capital returns, and that also helps to build our balance sheet.

Okay. So now for the more interesting part of of my presentation, turning to outlook. So 2025 has been an amazing year for Super Group. In the first quarter of this year, we raised group adjusted EBITDA to between $470 million and $480 million, while leaving revenue unchanged. The third quarter is typically a seasonally weaker period, but we have continued to to have strong momentum in core markets, disciplined execution and robust earnings. And that performance gives us the confidence to not only just raise our adjusted EBITDA guidance but also our revenue guidance for the full year.

We are increasing group full year revenue guidance to be between $2.125 billion and $2.2 billion. And our group adjusted EBITDA guidance ranging between $550 million and $560 million. We are excited about the rest of 2025. And we remain focused on delivering high-quality earnings and long-term shareholder value.

Before I turn to Neal, I would like to give you a quick general framework on how to think about our medium-term goals. Here are some key inputs. Organic compound gross revenue growth of around 10% annually from 2025 to 2028. The adjusted EBITDA margin will grow closer to the 30% mark, reflecting scalable operations and efficiencies with EBITDA flow-through between 40% and 50%. Free cash flow conversions remained stable between the 60% and 70% range underpinned by our asset-light model and disciplined capital allocation. Capital return expected to be greater than $0.16 for every share subject to capital needs and market conditions.

And these inputs support a high-quality capital efficient earning profile and underscores the super growth we are delivering across all our businesses. I will now hand back to Neal, who will provide more color on what to expect next from Super Group. Thank you.

Thanks, Alinda for those insights. We've almost done and then we'll go to -- we have a break and then go to Q&A. I think it really has been an incredible year. earlier, Spencer mentioned, I would love to do this job and you'll do it for free. Spencer, we'll negotiate after this.

But I also say, I also love my job. I've also loved the company, and we do this for such a long time. We have built this a remarkable business together, and this is just beginning. When we first started, I remember our first goal was, let's get $1 million of EBITDA.

Then it was $10 million. then it was $50 million, then it was $100 million, then it was $150 million. And then what happened, COVID hit. And we built scenarios, the good, the bad, the ugly. What we didn't plan for was the super good scenario. And yet here we are. We smashed through $300 million in EBITDA last year. And now in 2025, we are going to deliver over $500 million of EBITDA.

Next up, last year goals, $750 million and then $1 billion. That's all organic. No M&A, no gimmicks to simple, disciplined execution, brand strength and operational leverage. The model works and our upside is really real.

We showed you -- from Spencer, our layer cake imagery, how the cohort stabilize and compound. You have seen the power of the brand, our ability to market for both acquisition to retention and expand it to markets like Botswana. And that's before we lay in core market TAM expansion, new market launches, AI integration and crypto, we are just getting started.

Success equals growth and we're seeing growth across customer metrics. Customer lifetime value is up, thanks to deeper personalization. Feature adoption is up driven by smarter positioning and product innovation. Retention rates are climbing supported by gamification strategy and cross-vertical engagement is rising, thanks to more unified experience across sports and casino. We are not just adding customers. We are keeping them and making each relationship more valuable over time.

While our gains are determined by chance, our strategy is designed to win. Our experienced management team knows how to succeed. Our modern tech stack is faster, leaner and smarter. Global sponsorships and partnerships deliver scale and stickiness. Our customer-first mindset with localization, personalization and trust at its core.

This is the basis of our business. Our strong brand portfolio and the operational muscle to support it, we have deliberately diversified, 80-20 product mix favoring casino and global yet localized footprint that spans Africa, Europe, Americas and beyond, as top-tier pricing and trading and you've got a machine that's built for long-term profitable growth.

We have the foundation. We have the momentum, and we have the wings. This there is a really long runway ahead. I want to thank everyone for being here on the super journey with us. Thanks for joining us for our first ever Investor Day.

I'll hand it back to [ Ink ] and we'll have a little break and then we'll do Q&A. So thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Neal. In just a few moments, we're going to take questions from the audience in the meantime, please enjoy a quick 15-minute break. Thank you.

[Break]

We're about to get started in about 2 minutes, so we ask that you please return to the bleacher area for our Q&A session. Thanks so much.

Okay. Thank you again for being here for our presentation. As I mentioned, it is now time for Q&A. For that, I would like to welcome back Neal, Alinda, Spencer, Laurence, Kevin and Craig. I'd like to remind you, we're resuming our webcast live right now, and we are being recorded.

If you do have a question, please just raise your hand and we'll bring a microphone over to you. And please keep in mind, we ask question and follow-up as we like to get to as many folks as possible. Thank you.

Okay. First on the list.

Jordan Bender from Citizens. Question we get around is stability in the framework in Africa or the regulatory framework in Africa. Maybe can you spend some time just going over what you're seeing on the ground just to help us understand what you guys see there?

Okay. Yes. So the regulatory framework in Africa is actually a lot more developed than you think it is as countries have adopted gambling and seeing what other countries are doing. One of the things that we really make sure about when we go into a country is that the regulatory framework is well defined.

They have a proper gambling board. They have a proper -- the revenue service works with the gambling board and I can tell you that almost every -- in fact, every market that we're in has very, very good regulatory frameworks in terms of licensing and taxes. And it's quite well, it's actually well defined. We don't like to go in markets that don't have this.

And I must say, it's -- although regulatory is always our biggest concern, it's actually quite well defined. And some of the markets are ahead of other markets. But certainly, what's even happening in Africa now is that they're asking us to plug into their back office systems so they can actually check our revenues and make sure that the taxes are paid correctly.

As a public company, we obviously have always followed that. But it's certainly not a major issue. They all have -- they have gambling laws. They have reasonable tax rates for the most part. So it's actually quite well defined, but difference in every single country.

Great. And just my follow-up. The special dividend was pretty high on the list for capital allocation. Can you kind of just give parameters around if and when we could see that?

So we give now a $0.04 a quarter, right? And last year, we issued a special dividend at the end of the year. And this year, we'll look again at that [ with ] our Board of Directors and see where best to deploy the capital. So that's how we'll do it.

Thank you. Clark Lampen, BTIG. I'll echo Jordan and saying thanks for all the time that was invested into today's presentation. your regulating market mix has come down dramatically over the past couple of years. You have two big markets ahead of you with Canada and New Zealand. Can you give us a sense for how you're approaching that transition this time around, I guess, having had some experience with Ontario previously.

Okay. So I mean I'll start and then obviously, Kevin and Craig can take it from there. But basically, with Ontario was the first time one of the provinces in Canada regulated. So what we did there, I think we were probably too strict on how we took the existing database over onto the new platform. where our competitors didn't do that.

And obviously, it was the same time that we were listing, so there were quite a lot of things. But so we've definitely learned from that. I mean the good thing in Canada is it's province by province. So that's good. So obviously, we wait for Alberta to come. New Zealand, Craig talked about it is that we've been paying taxes there. So that's more regulatory framework there, they're restricting us in the marketing.

So we've been actually being really complying with the laws there. So we're not stepping out of any of the gray areas. So that for us is then as it comes, we've got [ the ] tech power to be able to deliver the product. The question in all these markets is, can you -- what is your new product have to do in that market? And that's why by having a lesser country mix across the world, we can deploy the tech that we have into the key markets. And that's been, I think, a key driver of that you see across the world. I'm not sure you...

I just want to add. We want to be first movers. So we're just excited and want to be in there from the...

And for my follow-up, Alinda, when you talk through your presentation about cost leverage over time, is it possible to dimensionalize for us how much of the marketing budget right now is sort of brand or awareness related as opposed to higher return performance spend?

Yes. So the operating leverage sits in the G&A mostly. So there are no headcounts in our processes, which has come significantly down. I mean I think I've promised the market we will get to an operating -- EBITDA ratio of 23% about 3 years ago, and we've shot through the roof there. So that is imminent from what we've delivered in operating leverage.

In the marketing ratio, so we don't really disclose which part of our marketing is sponsorships versus traditional marketing. We've got three big parts of that is traditional marketing, all affiliates, which is revenue-based and then your sponsorships. A good mix, but what Neal and I always say is that there is -- we feel there's a lot of levers to pull there, still.

We have about probably 3% over that we could bring down straight to the bottom line into becoming more efficient in marketing spend. And with Spencer Super Systems and models, we're really starting to see where to invest and where the returns will come from. So there's a -- so good momentum that we're building on looking in detail in marketing.

And I'll just add, when it comes to the brand, it's not like we just got there and take hundreds of millions of dollars and spend it on the brand. That's not what it's about. It's a percentage of the revenue, but not all the other marketing channels have to work around it. So now it's more about -- this year it's been $450 million or $500 million of marketing. It means as we go revenue, does the marketing ratio still have to be at 23%. I think we put in our goals that we have put 22%, but it's more about the number and how efficient that is.

And that's where we are really working hard with all their marketing teams actually to connect the dot and deliver more from this marketing efficiency, but in order to do that, you need the product as well. So the two are hand-in-hand. Then you take operating efficiencies, put the three together and that's this flywheel that really we're very confident in delivering Super Group.

Jed Kelly, Oppenheimer. Thanks for putting on today. It's been great. I guess this question is for Laurence. Just a major question we get from investors probably don't understand the African market is just the competitive dynamics. So can you just further expand on your moat? And then where are your key competitors from in each of the markets or in the markets you're in?

Sorry, the last part to us who we are that?

Who are your competitors? Are they local? Or...

Yes. So I think that just to deal with the last part first. We have very few -- what's the word, big brand competitors or public brand competitors in the markets that we operate in. Most of our competitors in most of the markets are actually local brands that you've never heard of.

There's one or two public brands knocking around, some of them more successful than others. But certainly, no one from any of the brands that you know and the big brands. So it's mainly local companies, local entrepreneurs, which is pretty tough because they kind of understand the landscape.

And we have seen over time that big brands that come in, don't last. So we've kind of outlived them and outrun them in most of these markets. So that's certainly it. And then in terms of competitive moat and what we have, certainly, it's across a couple of things, banking, as I spoke about 150 banking integrations across Africa over 8 countries. We're talking about almost 20 per country.

You better know what you're doing to integrate all those methods, getting money in and out product has been an amazing -- is definitely a moat. What we find with a lot of these local companies is they'll go out and they will get a third-party software. We own the tech stack our own. So if we decide in Tanzania, the product needs to look different to how it looks in Malawi, we'll do that, and we can turn it on very quickly, and that's been a big competitive advantage for us.

And I guess my follow-up question is, if we look at the iGaming mix, 80% and we look at Spencer's cohort analysis kind of implies a very high degree of revenue visibility. So I guess my question is, as we contemplate the forward guidance, where are you most worried about if we're talking in 2 or 3 years and you've underperformed that guidance? What could go around?

I mean, I don't think worried is the right word. Actually, I don't think we're worried. I think if you look at those cohorts, I think we're very comfortable with the persistency and the value of those cohorts. I mean, literally, as I said several times, we're comfortable we can take that to the bank. The levers that get pulled or how many new customers we acquire and how strong seasonality is when it kicks in around about Q4, generally, but the question is whether that will repeat itself in future years.

So it's not so much a worry. There are a couple of unknowns. And in terms of the way we do that guidance, yes, it is a bit conservative because we're not going to make -- try -- not going to make scary assumptions around how many new customers we're going to acquire what that seasonality might be.

[indiscernible]. So harboring back to Spencer's slide, he talked about there's a flywheel here were online sports betting feeds, the iGaming piece. And then once you get those customers, they tend to be very persistent those were those cohorts. So a big catalyst for the industry next year is obviously the World Cup, who are not at the public companies you guys have the highest penetration or exposure to soccer.

So can you help me think about whether that's a big opportunity for the company and to the extent that you get a lot of users coming in on your online sports betting platform, that would be an opportunity for an acceleration in also your on iGaming?

Sure. So the World Cup next year is really interesting because they are changing the format, increasing from 32 teams to 48, adding an extra knockout round. number of games is going from 64 to 104, I think. And I think you add that all up together, and it's a really unbelievable engagement -- customer engagement opportunity.

Tournament is going to last a week longer than usual. So you put that all together, and I think as an activation mechanism, there's a reactivation mechanism, as an engagement mechanism, we think it's going to be quite strong.

The unknown from a revenue point of view is those extra 16 teams may not be very strong. So there may be some blowout results there that might hurt the sportsbooks perhaps. So there's a push and a pull there.

But on balance, what we've seen every time there's been a World Cup is that the usual summer lull is mitigated quite significantly or maybe not quite, but certainly significantly on balance, we think it's going to be a good thing.

Yes. And I'll just add, like we took June and July when you have that Club World Cup, that we weren't expecting, and that's where the July was really good because you had this off-season, but with the engagement.

And my follow-up is just looking at the Q2 revenue grew nearly in the high 20s, when you take the midpoint of your updated 2025 guide, it contemplates that your operating expenses in the back half will actually be lower than the first half despite an acceleration in the top line. So I want to understand how you're finding efficiencies that allow you to lower the operating expenses at the same time you're able to keep a very healthy top line.

Okay. So I think, listen, this has been a 2-, 3-year project, right? -- its operating efficiencies are actually everywhere, right? So remember, by reducing the headcount, you get -- ultimately, the costs that come with that have now gone through the system.

Plus on top of that, you look at processing efficiencies we've got. I mean processing in payments, then of the processing of all the systems that we've got of how the customer journeys work.

All of this, it's all about how you engage the customer, where we engage the customer. And for example, if we had to double our revenue, would we have to double the number of people in our call centers, retentions, et cetera? Absolutely not.

And it's using the new techniques there and the new software there. So it's all coming together technology. And then compounded with that is that as we've taken some of the countries, especially the U.S. and then some of the European markets, Bulgaria, Poland, et cetera, we weren't seeing a path to profitability there.

We take the people and the teams there and deploy them into the markets that the guys for their road maps, you then get the product better with the efficiency, so they all come together. But it's not like we're looking to just hire for the sake of hiring. Now I think we are super disciplined in having the right people in the right seats and what do we need. And I think that's been the big difference, right? And then with the AI, especially for the developers and stuff, they can then code much quicker, do that. So we're still in the infancy there, but I think you'll see a lot of upscaling coming there.

Last one is just on your structural hold. You didn't have a slide on it today, but in our previous investor presentation, you talked about significant improvements in your structural hold. And I think part of that is your fastest-growing market is Africa. So I'd love to understand just how the whole in Africa compares to some of your other markets? And if that's an abnormally profitable market.

So the hold in Africa is driven by the parlay mix, as I explained. So you've got customers in Africa placing multiple leg bets to win basically to win big by betting small. So it's not uncommon that we could have 8, 9, 10 legs in a bet as we call them in South Africa, we call them multiples rather than parlay. 8, 9 legs in a bet to -- it's quite difficult. Our customer put on $1 to win $1 million. The margin is pretty strong in a bit like that. So yes, the hold, as you call it, or margins in gross gaming margins in the African business are stronger as a result of that. It's really driven by the parlay.

But then I think one of the things and especially when Kevin came into Betway global to help us there was that -- I mean, it sounds nuts to this, but the Betway global sportsbook was built to make single bets quick. Why? Because we came from the casino business. And the casino business, you want to make single bets quickly.

Actually, in the sportsbook, you don't. You want to be able to have these parlay accumulated bets. So they've worked really hard now to build the builder bet -- I mean, you can expand to build the builder bets, et cetera, and that's fundamentally increasing the margin, right? Whereas it was actually quite difficult before in their sportsbook to deliver what Laurence's sportsbook was. It sounds -- but it was totally different, but now you see the market really liking multiple bets as more becomes more lottery style, right?

Yes. I mean the great thing about this group is you all learn from each other. And there's a healthy level of competition between all of us, but we always learn and share. And so what we've seen so successful in the Africa market on the parlays is something that we're now emulating. -- as I mentioned, with our Bet Builder product, and we're going to look to enhance that even further. And Laurence has got some other initiatives that you mentioned like the bet influencer and those kinds of things that enhance it even more, and we're going to look to emulate that as well to get it even better.

Jason Tilchen from Canaccord. One thing -- another one for Laurence . I'm curious about, you mentioned Nigeria is the only country on the continent that you don't have a podium position in today. Can you talk a little bit beyond rolling out the revamped app in the fourth quarter, what are some of the things that you plan on doing to drive improved performance in that country?

Yes. So I think just to go back, we've been in Nigeria for a while. We do have a profitable business there. However, we have been a little bit gunshy given some of the regulations, some of the way the taxes were formed.

There was a time in Nigeria where you had to pay tax to the to the federal administration and to the state administration, and you couldn't take players from one state into another and became very complicated, coupled with poor exchange rates in Nigeria.

So we kind of are seeing that the regulatory environment has now improved. federal versus state has now been cleaned up, and we're ready to now to give it a go. So Synapse, the biggest problem for us -- one of the biggest problems is the platform.

Our platform in Nigeria was just not fit for purpose, our old [ Valla ] platform. So we're going to be -- Nigeria is the last country that we're moving on to the Synapse platform. Synapse gives us a lot of optionality. It gives us the ability to create product specific for that market. We are going to be reevaluating -- or we're busy with it right now.

We're in the middle of the process, figuring out what parts of the market. Nigeria is a huge country and stratified across all different bands of wealth and figuring out where we want to be, how we're going to spend our money, how we're going to apply influencers. It's a very -- it's a market pervaded by very strong influencers. -- certainly in the music world, how we get those on board, how we get sports guys on board, how we distribute codes into Nigeria.

The distribution of betting codes is very, very important in that market. And it's just really our whole marketing mix. We've employed a new team in Nigeria. We've got a new country manager who's fit for purpose. She has employed a new marketing manager. So we're getting really ready to give it a go.

We think that we can make a big difference. A lot of our competitors are very retail orientated. If you know how Nigeria works, there's a lot of retail outlets, but they're not really company-owned outlets, an agency model. And certainly, the online business is not as well defined as it is in a lot of other countries. And we think that online, we have the smarts and the wherewithal to give it a full go now, which we're going to do.

Very helpful. And then just one follow-up. Your global casino mix skews very heavily towards slots. I'm curious if there's any sort of internal initiatives to drive greater engagement with table games.

[ Look ], at the end of the day, you're giving customers what they want. So it's not about trying to drive them to something else. And ultimately, they somewhat different products that just get offered in the same location is the truth of it. So I wouldn't think that attempting to drive engagement in one -- artificially drive the customer to another form of engagement is necessarily what we're trying to achieve. Slots players and table players, there's a little bit of crossover, but at a stereotypical level, they're sort of different animals in many respects.

Maybe also just add there's more growth towards the crash games now, which is...

Yes. Look, I think this is a big issue in the U.S. because of the tax reasons. And we don't have that problem anywhere else. The U.S. has had a couple of states that differentially taxed slots versus tables. And we don't have that problem anywhere else as far as I'm aware of.

Mike Hickey from Benchmark. This. I think the third biggest TAM in Africa was the 4 countries that you haven't entered yet. So 2 things. One, before that, curious on your success in Botswana. I think you said 95% market share. How do you do that? That's incredible. And then what learnings from the other countries in Botswana when you look at those 4 countries that measure up to $2.5 billion in TAM, what's the key to the green light there or the unlock?

Okay. So it's quite interesting. Botswana is the smallest TAM of probably in the whole of Africa. I'm not joking. I think it has a population of 4.5 million people. So it kind of also doesn't always follow that you need an enormous TAM to make a successful business.

I think -- I'll tell you one of the important things that we have going for us in Africa is that we've closed down some very good deals with the television operator, which service the whole of Africa. So there are a lot of markets that we're not in that are seeing Betway in their dining rooms and living rooms every single day, okay? So by the time we get there, people know who Betway is.

And that's a major issue. So Botswana was one of those. Basically, we launched Botswana with the Synapse platform, which was great. We were able to do that. And yes, it's just been an interesting -- there are two companies in Botswana, two licenses only. And we both started on the same day, and we've got 95% and they've got 5%. We must be doing something right.

So what can we learn from Botswana, prosperous economy, which it is and growing very well. And TAM -- enormous TAM doesn't always follow to success, okay? So Nigeria has one of the biggest TAMs, and we haven't been able to get it right there. But we will. That was the first part. The second part was?

Yes, 4 countries that measure up to $2.5 billion in TAM that you're looking as an opportunity in the future. What's the key to unlocking or greenlighting those countries?

Yes. So we're looking at those 4 countries. We're looking at some other countries as well, obviously. And -- in those countries, we've got, I think Ethiopia has a tremendous TAM. I think that's got the biggest of the 4 countries that we're looking at, has a very, very strong ICT. I think it has the best ICT industry in the whole of Africa.

So that presents a great opportunity, although it's tricky. The regulations are tricky, foreign ownership is tricky. There's a lot of tricky stuff going on there. But certainly, that would be a very interesting market for us. Who knows, Namibia might be interesting, very close to South Africa, very similar characteristics to South Africa, but not as big population. But outside of those 4 markets, we're looking at lots of other markets.

Those are the four main ones we're looking at right now. And we'll see where it takes us. But in order for us to enter any market, it's important for me to say this. everything has to line up. Regulations have to line up properly to the previous question. The regulations need to be in place properly.

There needs to be a coherent regulator. There needs to be a coherent revenue service. Customers need to at least understand what gambling is that also makes a huge difference. And we'll see. So some of them might not be fit for purpose when we finish looking at them. So it's just really about being fit for purpose and where we see the opportunity.

Last question from us. You mentioned crypto a couple of times. I don't think I saw a slide though, Ink. The -- on crypto, do you have a strategy in terms of how that can be a driver of revenue and also cost efficiencies and how that plays into your 3-year plan.

No, that's -- yes, we're all over that. We didn't go into that on this presentation. But yes, we -- there's good things happening there, Laurence and his team and the rest of us all over it.

Crypto -- Craig also talked about it, cryptocurrency, someone who has crypto is a different cohort of customer. So there's that. In the regulated space, some of the regulators are only recently now allowing us to have crypto, which sounds absurd. So in the U.K., you can take crypto, but you've got to convert it into sterling to play, right? It's illegal to actually play in crypto.

So we -- as they're allowing us to do it, we're doing it. We got all the payment mechanisms set up, et cetera. And I always say this, someone who's got a cryptocurrency, who's got a wallet with crypto is like a chip in the casino. It's valued differently as if they had money in the bank. So some of the pure crypto casinos that are out there aren't really complying with all the local regs that each of these countries have.

And in Africa is a whole another story where they are getting more -- I mean, I think in Africa, you can even take crypto and convert it into rands, but even moving the money now with crypto come seam. And then we've got some really good ideas. We have to wait for the next few months coming there. But yes, crypto is a massive opportunity.

In the South African market, we have a product called Betway Crypto Pay. -- which basically takes you to the big exchanges and you're then able to use your crypto to play. It's had moderate success to start with, but there is a much bigger crypto strategy for South Africa and Africa.

Craig, maybe you can explain something in the works?

Yes. I mean we're just pushing hard on marketing this to our existing customers. And then now, as Neal mentioned, there's a whole new cohort of customers that are looking for our offering, haven't been able to use it because they're a crypto native person. And now we're incentivizing them to come into our casino and have a great experience.

Ed Young from Morgan Stanley. Just one for me. It's on marketing. You've talked a little bit about how there could be marketing efficiencies bringing it down a few points, but also you've shown plenty of slides across the presentations about having paybacks in some areas below 6 months, which maybe suggests you should be spending a lot more than you are.

So can you talk about how you calibrate around payback periods and perhaps also talk about what are the limiting factors you see when you're applying marketing to be able to deploy much more capital when the slides obviously suggest you should be.

I think we always have to find the balance between showing all of you in the market's EBITDA, right? Like maybe when we were private, we would just be spending more. It doesn't mean because you're spending more and you're getting 6 months or 9 months payback that that's the right thing to do, right? It's obviously right if you are performing in those markets.

So it's that balance. So I think one of the things we took on about a year ago, 1.5 years ago, I think Alinda, our CFO, has been on us about this for years, is actually exactly your question. How do you see -- what do you see in which market?

And then what we do is we deploy the capital to all of them over here. They all want more. And obviously, new markets might require new investment like Botswana, et cetera, or Alberta, they'll come to us and say, listen, in Alberta, when it goes regulated, we need more marketing to be able to compete.

So that's how we then sit down and allocate it. But in it, there is inefficiencies in our marketing, and that's what we have like where the customers are coming from, what are the different -- are we too much in digital, too little on TV, too much in LED and it's balancing that.

But this has been 25 years of this. I remember saying to people that when we started this business, we took the first $10,000 and have to make it work, right, then the next. And if it didn't work, we wouldn't be sitting today. So it's all about that. And the question is how we deploy it. And I think one of the things we probably did wrong was two things is we had lots of countries.

And in the early days, it was one size fits all. As it becomes regulated, it becomes harder. So with that, you're then putting too much marketing into all these countries. And on top of that, your product team can't deliver the best product in each of those markets.

So now that we scaled that back on our 16 or 18 countries that we're all in on, we now can start delivering the product and extra marketing. And then all the operating leverage that kicks in. So if Kevin and Betway global have to increase the U.K., it's all dropping down to the bottom line. So then we can give them more marketing if we see the paybacks.

Chad Beynon from Macquarie. I know tuck-in acquisitions were mentioned a couple of times today, and it's commonly featured on earnings calls. So when we think about the wish list, going back to the question in terms of your payback period, should investors think about B2C podium positions, new offerings like bingo or poker? Or are tuck-in acquisitions all about the tech stack becoming more efficient and improving margins?

Okay. So I'll start here. You mentioned Poker. We've had a lesson in poker a long time ago, right, is that, listen, we tried poker all those years ago. We had an open network that didn't work, right?

So what it really was about for us, it's actually that we are casino and were sports, right? So it's all about those two verticals and how we become the best in those two verticals.

So moving forward, it's about looking at those verticals and how with our marketing, with our acquisition, we can deliver in that. And that's where the product becomes key. So like for example, I mean, if that's rated in my head, I would say the Africa product competitors is a 15 out of 10, because remember, all the learnings we've had together for 25 years with Laurence, he's been able to deploy in Africa ahead of everyone else, right?

Those were all retail outlets who then went online. We've never been retail. We did the exact opposite, right? Then what we've done is in the rest of the world, we had too many countries which weren't deploying enough into for the product road map. So then we've delivered more to these guys, right?

So it's all about that scale. We also have bingo in the old -- we still got a little bit of a bingo product. I mean it doesn't mean that if there is a little poker business that makes sense in one of the regions if we think that it's -- but that's not where the money is.

The money is being core to what we are. People always said when we started using you're marketing machines, why don't you go start marketing traveling websites. I mean, of course, we can go market traveling websites, but that's not where we are. We stick to what we do. And I think that is what's key to why we are here today, right? And it's actually sometimes much harder to say no, right? And that's what we've learned.

Follow-up related to, I guess, what I'll call rest of Canada. So outside of Ontario and Alberta, you have Quebec and BC, some higher populated or I guess, 2 of the higher populated provinces. After Alberta turns, do you think there's going to be falling Domino's in terms of some of these other provinces? Or have they all operated completely independently in terms of how they're regulating?

We have this debate. We've had how long now 25 years, right? Honestly, if you had told me 25 years ago that Canada would only have one state regulated by now, I said that -- and it would have gone state by state, I said you've lost your mind.

Like actually, we don't know, right? It depends on each of the regulations. But because we've got the good footprint there, we've learned how to do it and maybe with the geo targeting, et cetera, whatever ones come, we are up for it. And also the tech team is up for it, right? The scale that we can deploy it.

And it's the same as Africa. If you ever told us a long time ago that there would be big business in Africa, I said you've lost your mind. But the world changes and adapts. And I think our key is that we have to adapt with it, and that's what we keep doing, and we keep pivoting and doing else.

It depends a little bit on the success of and maybe. They'll follow and have a look at that. No signs right now.

Ryan Sigdahl, Craig-Hallum. You've talked about crypto reducing payment processing costs quite a bit here, unlocking TAM. But I want to ask about cash retention. And I know especially in Africa, but all parts of the world, retention and kind of the back and forth movement and the costs associated with that. Can you walk through kind of what you guys are working on to reduce that and keep money in the system?

Yes. I think you just have to watch the space. obviously, unrestricted instructions from Neal not to talk about it, but we are working on something really good.

You are right, the backwards and forward movement of cash hurts. And certainly, in the South African market, especially some of the costs, some of the fees of cash are very, very high because a lot of our customers are cash customers, but they introduce -- they can't introduce cash to us.

So they've got to go and buy an instrument, Betway vouchers or Betway and then it comes into our system. And those are sold by the retailers or the banks. And because there's cash involved, it always makes them more expensive. And certainly, what we're working on will reduce those cash fees and the money in and out.

And also, another thing important why we need to do this is that the African customer, I suppose it's no different to any other customer. A lot of markets, we see customers leaving money in their balances. In Africa, we see a lot of movement in and out of balances, no secret. So yes, there's a big incentive for us to do something about it.

And then for my follow-up question, you've shut down a dozen or so markets, India, the U.S., kind of the highest of those, but another 10 across Europe. Curious how across that kind of smart but prudent decisions to exit markets, where you're at in that, if there are more to do there? And then you're focusing on the kind of the structurally advantaged markets and now the overall numbers are inflecting in a meaningful way because that growth is showing through.

So I guess the question is, is there more to do on exiting markets as a whole? Or do you feel good about where the portfolio, where the core business is today?

I think there's no one wanted to exit India. But when they -- I mean, a year ago, they changed the tax rate to a mad number. But actually, it's listen, all the markets we looked at is if there's not a path to profitability, right?

And that's really been core. I think what you see today with Super Group is when we kept on telling the story that we had the global business and the U.S. business was making a loss. No one actually understood, actually separated the two and put them together.

And all of a sudden, realize our EBITDA is so much more because they haven't got these big losses in America, right? So I think for us, it's like -- it's not about that, it's about how we can see a path to profitability, and we talk about this a lot.

Listen, it's really simple this business. You pay x to get the customer in the front door, you deliver Y in retention. If the one less the other is not profitable, then you're never going to make money. Or if it's only profitable and you take all the taxes out, then you're not going to make money. and also say to people, they come in the front door, you've got the best engine that brings them in the front door, but your back door is left open, well, they're also going to go out the back door.

So it's all of that. And that's as simple as it is, is how the business is. And so we look at them all the time. And that's with these new markets, we look -- I think we'll probably be much more conservative now looking at these markets as opposed to we can do everything. It's easy.

Going to Belgium, we will work, going to P. It doesn't work because the local -- you can't get the product localized as quickly as you can. And then what we did in the past is we tried in those markets, France, a few others, we used to use other people's software. That was not good because then they're not aligned with you.

They've also got other countries that they need to deliver on. And then when they don't deliver your product, then your product isn't fit for purpose and it's a 5 out of 10, how can you compete in a country with a 5 out of 10 product, even though we got the Betway brand, which is amazing. So those were kind of some of the things.

5 more minutes...

Bernie McTernan from Needham. Maybe just to follow up on Ryan's question. Alinda, on one of your slides, you're talking about the U.S. shutdown and about $200 million of expenses to reallocate. Can you just talk about where we should expect that -- those dollars to go, how you think about the prioritization?

And if there's any area of the company that was being invested in less than it should have been either from a management or capital perspective because of the U.S. investments that were going on?

Yes, you all stand down queue for that [ money ]. I think the big shift for Super Group was when we started making those disciplined decisions to close markets. I mean, initially, you feel like it's a wrong strategy because where is the growth coming from.

But by using Neal just explained that, I think the big change for us for the Betway Global side of our business is to align our product much more to what we've seen work in Africa on parlay and Bet Builder. And now we have the resource to do that. So your most intensive resource in America was not just only the marketing money you have to spend that cash dollar, but your capital deployment of building product and all the time.

And everything is expensive, your cloud hosting fees, everything. So now that just makes much easier to put in margins in regions where you already see the margin scale and then start looking like Laurence just said, is assessing new markets on that back foot of exactly to find that sweet spot between technology, regulation and marketing investment or reinvestment of funds. So -- we also can obviously just keep it in the balance sheet to be flexible in case something happens. We talk about M&A bolstering our core as well. That can also happen. So it's a disciplined approach, but very calmly.

Got it. Maybe a less long-winded question, again, just product. Gamification was mentioned in a couple of slides. What's working from a product perspective? And could that bend the curve on either payback periods or marketing spend?

I'll touch on that from our side. What we're seeing is customers are really enjoying sort of the concept of being rewarded with things as simple as badges. This a simple mission, you must go on every day, do these five things, and we will reward you with a badge and they love it.

So that's working. We're evolving and learning every single week. This is what the customers are doing. We're changing. We're optimizing, and we're just seeing that's driving much more engagement, increased persistency. So we're excited, and that's going to be something we keep evolving over the coming years.

I think what we've see, listen, we obviously said at Super Group. So we see the world a little bit differently because we're not in these operations, right? But I think it's all great to have a great idea if you want gamification.

But you actually got to get the product out in a live environment at scale, and that's where it becomes complicated. So we've got 100 ideas that we can deploy, and it's can you actually get it out. And I think in the different markets, they probably say Africa is ahead of the game there because they've been so focused on Africa and the product can do it.

We now are actually learning from that and starting to deploy. And that's why by being more focused in the regions where, we can get these things out.

Okay. One last question.

[ Ivor Jones ]From Peel Hunt up here in the cheap seats. Could you talk about third-party content cost for casino. Is a game supply a commodity from a diversified supply base, and we should just expect the cost to go down relentlessly.

Listen, I think what's happened, absolutely it's become a commodity. But in these game studios, right, there are winners and those games you need to have and they're obviously with the more expensive games, right, or the branded games.

So our aim has always been to have those games and then to be able to offer the customers other games that they like. But sometimes, listen, if it's a crash game that they absolutely obsessed with, to move them over is a bit different. But -- so it's a bit of both, right?

So we always are now trying to reduce those costs a lot because -- but you also need the good games. You can have Coke Zero and Pepsi and then a no-name brand. They might never drink the no-name brand. And it's that concept, but it's how much of the shelf space due to we give.

So that we always -- and we're coming with our own games and own connected games. And the big thing with us has always been from the early days has been these big jackpots. The big jackpot games, et cetera. Also that's also changed a bit. Maybe the parlay betting has become more like a jackpot sounds mad, but that's what we think. But yes, that we are all over that. And then we're trying to get the volume discount as we should get a Super Group.

Can I just follow up on bandwidth. You've talked about Internet availability as a revenue driver. How much is there currently limited bandwidth in some markets? And how much is that a constraint on revenue that might be lifted if technology changed?

I mean, you're probably referring to some markets in Africa, not an issue at all. We don't really have an issue. What we do have an issue with occasionally is like a transaction might take a little bit longer to go through the financial system and time out.

So we have a fair amount of that, which we've learned over the years to deal with it and how to credit these accounts. But on the whole, Africa will surprise you in terms of the reliability of data 5G is pervasive almost everywhere. And if it's not 4G, 3G is gone in Africa, you really don't get it anywhere.

And the data costs, and I know you didn't ask this, but I'll just embellish a bit. data costs are actually quite cheap in Africa. So it's South Africa is expensive still. But the rest of Africa, the data costs are reasonably cheap. So it's available, reliable. The biggest issue can be like electrical supply is more of a problem. Zambia has had a lot of blackouts and then all of a sudden running generators and the mobile networks will go down.

South Africa had load shedding for a couple of years. It's now finished. We don't have it. So on the whole, a lot better than you think.

I think that in the U.K., if you go up north in the trade, the 5G doesn't work at all. I mean I think in Africa, you might have -- actually it's absurd, right? So it goes both ways. Look, I also say even if we go to the football stadiums, arsenal, et cetera, I mean it doesn't even work. I mean I think 5G has helped, but you think that Wembley would at least sort out the WA, they don't, right? And you try to use that. So I think there's all the countries are different stages, right.

Okay. Thank you very much for your thoughtful questions.

So I am honored to invite someone whose leadership and counsel has been vital group's journey, our Chairman, Eric Grubman. Thank you.

Thank you.

So Eric, you've had a long and successful career in sports, media and gaming. What first attracted you to Super Group? And what continues to excite you about the company?

Well, I want to say first, because I've had such long experience in sports and entertainment and gaming that people say that the toughest spot is right after lunch. It's not. The toughest spot is between an audience that sat for several hours and a cocktail. So with that...

Make it quick.

We'll make it quick. Look, Super Group is an interesting company, and you all have learned about the different qualities of the company and the history of the company.

For the first time, maybe because they've sat in front of you together and individually and you've mingled with them, you've got a sense for the culture of the people and the culture of the company. And I've been in a few companies and organizations, and I've been around a lot more than I've been in.

And if I distinguish, if I distill it down to those that are most successful and where the people are happy and want to get up in the morning and go to work, it comes down to culture and this company has it.

Great. And then to kind of double-click on that a little bit. Can you speak to Neal's leadership style and the team overall?

Well, those of you who follow a lot of companies or who invest in a lot of companies will see different management styles. You'll see the professional manager who probably could drop in somewhere and be happy. And you've seen that hard driving entrepreneur that wants his or her hands on the business and on the people and on the throats of the people who are not performing. Neal is in the second category. He loves.

I'm sure -- he loves the people, but he's ruthless. He wants results. and he's not afraid to get them no matter how you have to go after them. The same time, he's got a big heart and he's loyal. And so we've seen that in action where people have come and gone and remain his friends. At the end of the day, it's about his business and about his family.

So you've seen a lot of investor sentiment cycles in gaming and sports betting. What do you think the public markets are still missing about Super Group?

I think the public markets still haven't really delved into enough of what makes gaming company tick. You've heard about it. You've heard Neal say, we started with $10,000. And if we ran out, it was going to be over.

And we're here because it didn't run out. This company still has no debt. It still has no debt. It's $6 billion market cap, and it came from nothing, and it has no debt. The terminology what you kill, it's real. And what's different between this company and other gaming companies is they are not dependent on the capital markets.

We love the capital markets and the capital markets can be a great tool. But if there's an overdependency on the capital markets in this industry, you can either be in danger, number one, or there can be opportunities sitting right in front of you. And if the capital markets aren't going to be a rocket fuel, you can't take advantage of them. This company is not going to be in danger because of the capital markets, and it's not going to be without capital if a good opportunity comes along.

So to that point, how does the Board think about long-term capital allocation?

Easiest way for me to illustrate that is to just tell a little story, and it goes like this. Let me see the business plan. Would you invest your money in that business plan? No. Then are you going to invest the shareholders' money in that business plan? No.

Take that anecdote to other companies and see if they give you the same answer because you see lots of places, not just in this industry, but lots and lots of places where they're spending shareholders' money and they wouldn't spend their own on that same opportunity.

So if this company has a good opportunity to invest, good return. And after they make the investment, the results are showing that their analysis was correct or if they need to make a pivot, they can make a pivot and then it comes true, terrific. If not, pull back. If that opportunity doesn't manifest itself in the cash stacking up on the balance sheet, you all have good uses of cash, buy XYZ or pay off your mortgage.

So that's the answer to the capital allocation, good ROI and then analyze it, don't just leave it sit there forever. And if you have extra cash, give it back to the people who are the owners of the company.

I mean with that said, what would you say is your view on AI, crypto, digital transformation that we've talked about all day today.

All right. I'm 67 years old. I know I don't look like it. 67 is a new I love that world. I was an early adopter on a personal level buying Bitcoin. And when I got an inquiry from the IRS and was told by my tax adviser, they are looking for high-profile people who are trading in Bitcoin.

I decided to get out. That was a bad decision on my part. I look at -- I don't put AI here and crypto here. I put it all together. These tools are a new set of tools. And all right, I see some digitally native people here because there are some young people here, but some of us are not. And the digitally native part of the world, which is growing and will take it over from all of us, they are more comfortable in that world than they are in the analog world.

And Web 3.0 is very empowering to people who are comfortable in the digitally native world. And blockchain is the building block of Web 3.0. And so all of that stuff to me is fused together in what I think is a massive series of disintermediation opportunities where the upstarts will knock out the heavy weights. And so when I think about that as it relates to Super Group, I don't want Super Group to be the heavyweight that gets knocked down. I really don't.

And so I like it, and I'm interested in it. Super Group likes it and is interested in it. And trust me, the Web 3.0 world is looking at our world. And our world is looking at the Web 3.0 world. And the winners, the true winners will be the early movers that get together between those two worlds, probably not going to come from just one or the other as it relates to our industry.

In the payment side, I think Web 3.0 wins. I think it's -- I mean, they talk about it, but I think it wins, which is why if you're running a credit card company, you're deep, deep into AI and Web 3.0 and blockchain because if not your business is going to be gone, somebody else is going to own it.

So let's fast forward 3 to 5 years from now, what does success look like with Super Group? And what would make you most proud as Chairman?

So I'm going to answer the first part of the question only in broad generalities. I want Super Group to be thriving. I want the investor base to be happy, and I want the growth curve to be much better than average.

In terms of what would make me the happiest as Chairman, I have the same answer as when I was at Goldman Sachs and same answer was when I was at the National Football Eagles that somebody younger than each one of the incumbents has either taken over or has demonstrated their ability.

I think organizations thrive when there's upward momentum and when young people look at it and say, that's where I want to be because if I perform, I can outachieve. So if Super Group is that kind of company in 3, 4, 5 years, and I've had a small hand in making that possible, that will make me happiest, including somebody taking my job. That's happened before, and I hope it happens here.

Okay. And so the last question of today, what keeps you up at night?

Nothing. No, things keep me up at night. You're only as happy as your unhappiest family member. You've heard that saying. So anything with my family keep me up at night. Complexity doesn't keep me up at night.

If I'm involved with people and I feel like something is being done wrong, not a mistake, something is being done wrong, that's hard for me to give up and go to sleep. And it's how I think about being in regulated industries. This is not the first regulated industry I've been in. There's a right way to do things, and there's a wrong way to do things.

And then there are some areas that you don't understand. You can spend a small amount of time in the middle, but all the other time, you got to be on the side of right. And that's not just in regulated industries, but it especially applies here.

So thank you all. You've been very patient. You didn't have to come all this way. I hope you got an exciting picture of Super Group, and let's not stand in the way between people and their cocktail.

And with that, we bring Super Group's first ever Investor Day to an end. Thank you for spending time with us today. We hope it's now clear why Super Group is built to lead and win in the global gaming industry for years to come. Thank you very much.