Chief Executive Officer, Kambi Group
Kambi diversifierar kundbasen och räknar med tillväxt
Sportboksleverantören Kambi Groups vd Werner Becher menar att “”framtiden ser ganska ljus ut” och han räknar med att bolaget kommer att leverera tillväxt under 2026. Han ser även positivt på att bolaget har diversifierat sin kundbas, så att man inte blir så beroende av ett par stora kunder.
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About Werner Becher
Werner Becher, CEO of Kambi, stated that the company had a "fantastic" second quarter, citing a 13% increase in revenue and a doubling of EBITDA year-on-year. He attributed the strong performance to the World Cup, during which Kambi processed over €1 billion in turnover and more than 100 million bets on its turnkey sportsbook product. Becher noted that the company operated the World Cup on an 18% margin, which he described as "incredibly high" and an "outstanding performance." As a result, Kambi raised its full-year EBITDA guidance from €20-25 million to €23-27 million. Becher also addressed the impact of prediction markets on the sports betting industry. He said that Kambi, which is "100% fully focused on regulated markets," has seen "zero impact" from prediction markets in the US so far, though he acknowledged that these competitors are making customer acquisition more expensive in some states. Additionally, Becher discussed Kambi's new "odds feed plus" service, which targets the 70% of the regulated sports betting market currently served by in-house sportsbooks, noting that while this revenue stream is smaller per operator, it opens up a larger addressable market.
Transcript (22 segments)
A
Analyst0:00
You lowered this year's full-year EBITDA guidance by 24% to your previous guidance due to FX headwinds, a revised timing of new contract launches and a slower market development in Brazil. On the positive note, you signed 12 agreements with different global operators with one of the major operator Superb. When can we expect to see the contribution from this in your numbers?
W
Werner Becher0:22
Yeah, so definitely we lowered our guidance. It was not so much driven, I would say, by the things you mentioned by Brazil. Of course we had some tax headwinds like everyone in our industry, especially operating in Europe. It was mainly driven because with a very big new customer on terror lottery, we decided not to launch already in December, but now the launch was delayed a little bit until early January, and this shifted some revenues to 2026. This was the main reason for shifting the guidance. Everyone knows that Kindred and Leo Vegas are moving to the in-house sports books away from us. This will come also next year with a headwind of around 15 million euro on revenues for us. But I'm very confident that next year will be the first year after several years where we will be able to report top-line growth again.
A
Analyst1:09
And then you acquired source code for a player account management platform from Omega Systems which will enable you to enter Nevada. Could you elaborate a bit on the timeline as to when this will be in place?
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Werner Becher1:20
Yeah. So, we have been a sportsbook company now for 14 years, which means sports is our DNA. We were looking to acquire PAM already for many years. Now, we're able to supply full turnkey solution. Nevada is only the first short-term opportunity here for us. Nevada is so difficult to get licensed. It's the gold standard, which means we had troubles to find a PAM partner to leverage all the opportunities we have in Nevada. Nevada is a 500 million GTR sports betting market and we got a lot of inbound calls. So we have great opportunities there but we needed a PAM to actually get these revenues in. Coming back to your question, I think mid next year before starting off the NFL season, we will have the PAM licensed in Nevada which takes some months and then we will start working with the first operators there.
A
Analyst2:10
And you also signed seven agreements with Turnkey, also an extension to your retail turnkey sports book partnership with Pin Entertainment. What does this mean and how important are these agreements?
W
Werner Becher2:21
Yeah, we have a clear goal in our strategy to more diversify our customer structure because as discussed a minute ago, Kindred and Leo Vegas leaving was quite hurtful for us in the last few years. So, our clear goal is not to be that dependent anymore on a single operator. So, we have now 60 plus operators in our turnkey network and we add more or less every month. Now, this is a clear goal going forward as well. PEN is a super important customer for us. We run all the 60 casinos for them in the US. So to extend this deal for two years more of course is a super important deal for us.
A
Analyst2:56
And what does your pipeline look like?
W
Werner Becher2:58
Yeah, so we signed 12 deals now in the last few months since 1st of July. So there's definitely a great momentum on the commercial side. Our pipeline is not empty now after these 12 deals. So more deals are coming in the next few months. We are very excited about the opportunities in South America, North America, but also Europe.
A
Analyst3:17
And will you be able to return to growth during next year? And if so, can you give some color on what to expect?
W
Werner Becher3:23
The short answer is yes. And again, as the pipeline is looking good in South America, not only in Brazil, everyone is talking about Brazil, right? But South America is also Mexico opportunities, Colombia, Paraguay, there are so many countries now. So, South America regulating finally betting. It's the next gold rush. I would say after the South America we have made some signings now also in Europe in the US of course Nevada next big focus for us in the next few months but also our great relationships with tribe we have in the US there's much more coming for us next year.
A
Analyst3:55
And how do you ensure you operate only on white markets and how do the increased regulations affect your efforts in market gambling activities?
W
Werner Becher4:02
Yeah, that's a very good question. Thank you for this question. I think especially on the supplier side not so much anymore, the operative side there still a lot of suppliers who think they can dance on the black side and on the white side of the market. We don't believe in this model. I don't think it's working anymore. 99% of Kambi revenues are coming from locally regulated. So now white markets already today. We are no B2C company. We are B2B company but we only work in regulated companies in countries.
A
Analyst4:32
Do people understand this?
W
Werner Becher4:32
I'm not so sure because still many operators also suppliers are in this I would say transition phase. We have this transition phase already behind us. We have the transition phase when it comes to technology behind us. We had some tough years. But now with having a great technology in place with all the regulation coming also with California, Texas, Asia being number one in regulated markets I think for us the future looks quite bright.
A
Analyst4:59
And what do you do to prevent losing major existing clients?
W
Werner Becher5:04
Yeah, so we lost some of them in the past and I think every company needs to acknowledge some churn. We've now a much more diversified customer base and we continue to build this which means the impact of some of our customers leaving in the future will be much smaller to us compared to the past. But of course in our strategy we have a clear goal to sign with our biggest customers renewals also in the upcoming months.
A
Analyst5:29
And since we are at the tech house conference, can you say something on the technology developments? AI trading for example.
W
Werner Becher5:36
Yeah. So for us clearly AI is no buzz word. We started with our first AI trading system already 2022 with the football world cup. We have rolled out already soccer, tennis, we are rolling out more and more sports. More than one-third of our revenue is already fully generated by AI. This is a big efficiency improvement for us when it comes to managing our costs. But it provides also much better product. So we invest heavily in AI internally.
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Analyst6:02
And so how are you managing the cost side?
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Werner Becher6:04
Yeah. So we had flat revenues for some years now because of the customer churn you mentioned but costs continue to grow. This was definitely not good for our profits and for EBITDA margin. Costs are stable. We are even going down with costs now in 2025. I think this was appreciated by our investors. This is also our goal going forward and to be back on top-line growth then after we manage the churn will have a direct impact of course on our profit margin.
A
Analyst6:31
So what is your key focus going forward?
W
Werner Becher6:33
So first of all AI internally to roll out AI and all our pricing trading risk management make us much more efficient when it comes to headcounts. But also the product will be so much better. We see it already with soccer, tennis, the first sports we've rolled out and then all the new regulation coming in India, Japan, in California, in Texas. This will drive also different additional revenues which means best development needs to be focused also on these areas.