Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Mina, your Coastal Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Intralot Conference Call and Live Webcast to present and discuss the third quarter 2025 financial results. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may seek out an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robeson Reeves, CEO of Intralot. Mr. Reeves, you may now proceed.
Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining us today for the Q3 results of Intralot. The transaction completed in October 2025 to bring together Bally's International Interactive and Intralot. As you will have seen, Intralot has delivered strong third quarter results despite FX headwinds. Bally's International Interactive has delivered around EUR 548 million in revenue, with a hefty 43% adjusted EBITDA margin for Q3, which is on track with our stated guidance. Full year 2025 performer of the two entities annualized is more than EUR 1 billion in revenues and EUR 435 million in adjusted EBITDA, with a combined margin of 40.65%, which is in line with previously stated full year guidance. As you are aware, yesterday the UK government revised gaming taxes by increasing remote gaming duty from 21% to 40% beginning in April 2026. This was higher than anticipated, but we are going to follow the aggressive mitigation scenarios.
We still intend to deliver growth in wagers accepted, which, combined with generosity reductions, marketing reductions, and accelerated synergies, will limit the tax impact. However, this will delay our growth plan by one year and impact our total EBITDA by 4% versus 2025 guidance. I will ask you all to refer to page four of the presentation as I want to walk you through the bridge. If you look at 2025 EBITDA, I will highlight our mitigations for 2026. I start with EUR 435 million, as we have provided that already in our guidance. EUR 315 million of EBITDA is from the Bally's International Interactive segment. The UK online EBITDA contributes EUR 275 million, with revenue of EUR 660 million. The remote gaming duty increase from 21% to 40% has a direct impact of EUR 95 million when applied to 2025.
That gives us a starting point of EUR 180 million of EBITDA from the UK before mitigation. I want to break down the mitigations. As I said, we will look at generosity reductions, marketing reductions such as advertising and cost cutting, which amounts to EUR 35 million. In addition, there'll be EUR 15 million from the transaction synergies, which will deliver a total of EUR 50 million. Our forecast organic growth is expected to be EUR 34 million from all markets, including Intralot. In summary, mitigations are EUR 35 million, which is 28% of full- year tax impact, plus the EUR 15 million of transaction synergies and growth of EUR 34 million. We end up with EUR 435 million minus EUR 95 million for tax, which equals EUR 340 million. We add EUR 34 million for growth and EUR 35 million in mitigations, plus EUR 15 million for the transaction synergies, leaving EUR 424 million, which is a 4% impact versus 2025.
Another way to look at it is EUR 810 million of turnover from Bally's International Interactive, with an EBITDA margin of circa 30%, is EUR 245 million, plus EUR 35 million of mitigation, EUR 15 million of synergies, and EUR 125 million from Intralot gives EUR 420 million. We believe these estimates are conservative. A significant market consolidation is possible. The full year tax impact will be higher by EUR 30 million, as this EUR 90 million is a nine-month impact. We will also realize EUR 25 million more in 2027 in committed Intralot synergies, and we believe that generosity and marketing will have further flex. Our growth in sports, expansion into new markets, and the full realization of synergies will alleviate tax rate pressures in the UK from a full year of tax increase in 2027. In 2027, increased tax for online sports betting will be introduced and drive further consolidation.
Such tax increases have happened periodically in our markets and historically have highlighted vulnerability for others, leading to market consolidation and market share growth for companies like Bally's, who have higher margins than other peers. We achieved in Q3 a 43% EBITDA margin, whilst most others are below 25%. Hence, there'll be other operators that cannot adapt to this change due to lower margins and lack of scale. This will result in fewer players, and I welcome a less competitive environment. The point of the combined Bally's International Interactive and Intralot was to create a platform for both organic opportunities and accretive acquisitions. We believe this improves our prospects. I do understand that the UK government has a need for revenue.
My message is I will continue to embrace public-private partnership and regulations, but that the UKGC will have to be extra vigilant to police offshore gambling, given that the incentive to do so has increased. The UKGC has been progressive with consideration to grow into areas such as crypto and prediction markets to lead and expand the market rather than zero-sum reallocation. I love our business, and we have been through such experiences over the years and will continue to adapt. I know that we will be very strong in the medium term. I intend to make a recommendation to the EGM, obviously subject to board approval, to allow the company to make share buybacks. Now I'll hand over to Andreas to walk you through Q3.
Thank you, Robeson. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On October 8, Intralot completed the acquisition of the Interactive International segment of Bally's for a total transaction value of EUR 2.7 billion, EUR 1.53 billion in cash and EUR 1.136 billion in newly issued shares of Intralot. Through this transaction, Bally's Corporation became the largest shareholder of Intralot with a 58% participation. The closing followed the successful completion of Intralot's comprehensive acquisition financing and satisfaction of required shareholder, regulatory, and other customary closing conditions. Moving on to slide number five of the presentation, on the left-hand side, we see the proforma capitalization table post-closing, including Intralot's financing package comprising of EUR 900 million aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes due 2031, EUR 600 million fixed-rate notes, and EUR 300 million floating-rate notes.
Secondly, GBP 400 million, EUR 460 million equivalent, a six-year senior secured term loan with institutional lenders, and EUR 200 million four-year amortizing term loan provided by a consortium of Greek banks. To finance the transaction, Intralot also raised EUR 429 million through the issuance of EUR 390 million new ordinary shares at a price per share of EUR 1.1. Total funds raised were used to pay the consideration to repay all the outstanding debt of Intralot, except for the retail bond of EUR 130 million, which survived the transaction, plus the transaction fees. Following all these financing activities, the proforma net debt funded net debt stands at around EUR 1.5 billion, and the total enterprise value at around EUR 3.2 billion.
The new combined entity on the right side of the slide, on a proforma basis for the nine-month period, would have a total revenue of EUR 790 million and an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 320 million, a robust EBITDA margin of around 41%, and a healthy EBITDA minus CapEx metric of around EUR 280 million. Now moving to the nine-month of 2025 financial results of Intralot and turning to page number six, we see the revenue analysis highlights here is the contribution of the Americas of around 60% and the B2B, B2G having the majority of the Intralot business with more than 95%.
Turning to the next page, number seven, where we focus more on the revenue line, the key takeaway is that the group showed a stable underlying performance in constant currency terms, with FX headwinds, however, in all markets, which is functional currency is different than the euro, leading to an overall reported deficit of 2.9% or EUR 7.3 million, with the majority of the impact coming from the markets of the United States and Turkey. If we move on to page number eight, we have the overall P&L performance for the first nine months of 2025 compared to the previous year and for the third quarter. Revenue is lower by 2.9% for the year-to-date period and 11.8% for the third quarter, with negative effects being the major contributor for this variance, accompanied by a slower growth in Turkey and Argentina in the third quarter.
Same picture for the gross profit line. However, through efficient cost management, the group has managed to present an almost stable EBITDA performance for the nine-month period by maintaining the EBITDA margin at around 37%. Net interest was substantially lower this year due to the scheduled repayments of the bank loans in Greece, the United States, and Turkey of around EUR 25 million, and lower interest rates due to both Euribor and SOFR lower levels compared to the 2024 respective period. Net income variance is attributed entirely to an accounting treatment in relation to the hyperinflation adjustments in Turkey, which had a positive effect in 2024 and a negative in 2025. Turning to page number nine, the upper two graphs have been analyzed in the previous slide.
On the bottom left graph, we see the operating cash flow, which was higher by EUR 4 million as a result of favorable working capital movement and the lower tax payments. CapEx in the nine months of 2025 was lower by EUR 4.3 million compared to the respective period of last year, mostly due to the non-recurring license renewal payment in Turkey back in 2024, partially offset by higher US investment needs in the current period. On the bottom right, we see that the net debt and leverage ratio adjusted for the restricted cash, referring to debt servicing and repayments, was EUR 299 million and 2.3 times, respectively, for the third quarter of 2025, better by EUR 57 million and 0.4 times compared to 2024 year-end.
Turning to page number 10 and focusing on the adjusted net debt movement bridge from December 2024 through September 2025, we see that the contributors to the EUR 57 million reduction have been the solid financial performance in the nine-month period, as evidenced by the generation of EUR 48.1 million in free cash flow, accompanied by a positive movement in debt, primarily due to favorable foreign exchange effect in our US-denominated debt, while the net interest payments stood at EUR 21.9 million. Lastly, on page number 11, we see the contributions per region and to our revenues and EBITDA. Revenue was almost stable in all jurisdictions apart from Turkey, presented in the rest of the world, performing, however, better in terms of EBITDA in this region as well due to efficient cost management counterbalancing the top line deficit.
EBITDA in all other jurisdictions at almost equal levels year-over-year, with North America performing better. At this stage, the presentation of the results for the nine months of 2025 is finished, and I hand over to Robeson for his closing statement.
Thank you all for joining us today. This tax change is higher than anticipated, but we'll aggressively deliver our mitigation scenarios, as I've already described to you, and I've said that these changes lead to opportunities. The way I look at it is the strong don't only survive this; they get much stronger. I would like to hand back to the operator so we can open the line for Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of [Gugalia, Fani] with Europe Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, hello. Thank you for the presentation. Just two questions on our end. First of all, you mentioned the launch of a share buyback program. I was wondering, is there any indication that the major shareholder would be looking to increase their stake in the company? The second question is you provide a doubt look for 2026 and 2027, how you would be looking for the medium term. Would you expect that at some point in 2028 we would see the numbers that we were initially expecting as an EBITDA outlook? Thank you.
I'll take that. Thank you very much for your question. With respect to share buyback, your question relates to, do you expect the majority shareholder to increase their stake in Intralot?
Yes, I mean, separate share buyback.
As I've said, I believe in this company, and Bally's Corporation will no doubt be looking to increase its stake in the company. If we see it as value, which we do, I've already described that today, we will be increasing our stake in the company. With respect to your next question, as I said, this essentially delays our plan by a year, so I still expect the same growth prospects for us. We just have to play catch-up against what has happened to us with the UK tax changes. I do think this means that in the long term, you end up with a much more consolidated market in the UK That is protected. You make these mitigations, you're protected, but our growth pathway is still there. Yes, it just changes the year by one. It just delayed us slightly. Thank you for your question.
Okay, brilliant. Thank you. Thank you so much. That's all on our end.
The next question is from the line of Raman Narula with Principal Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just a couple from my side. On the mitigations, just wondering, I mean, if you could touch a bit more, I mean, how much you're looking to flex sort of marketing and generosity spend? I mean, is it your expectation that your competitors, given they're at lower margin, will sort of be forced to flex a lot more than you, and do you expect to be able to acquire a lot more customers by way of that? How are you guys thinking about that?
The way I look at it, as we have already said, we have got synergies, which we had already been planning for and already starting to execute for 2026 anyway. That leaves us with the remaining EUR 35 million. I view it as the generosity piece being essentially half, and then marketing being half again. We have already, and it tells you that this is a significant shock to the industry, seen people pull back from marketing. We will judge it if we are going to chase more growth, which would always be my preference, if we are getting the right returns, but we can see already that there is substantial flex that we will not have to spend the same amount of marketing money to get the same growth. If we see greater opportunity there, we will make sure we accelerate the growth and increase our EBITDA margins once again.
Just understand that the majority of operators have an EBITDA margin in the UK sub- 25%, and many are sub- 20% and in the teens. This change wipes out all profitability and makes them loss-making.
Thanks. That makes sense. Just as a segue into that, I mean, you've said that consolidation will be a direct consequence of this. I mean, other than the share buyback, will you be looking to opportunistically do any bolt-on acquisitions to further consolidate your share, or is the sort of focus solely on the leveraging in the medium to near term and delivering synergies as planned?
I think we'll have to be opportunistic and see what opportunities arise in the market. This is obviously day one. We do want to delever in the medium term and continue that delevering pathway. If there are great opportunities, which in itself are delevering by if an operator essentially is loss-making and we can absorb that revenue, it depends what price we would have to pay. We are looking at everything. I do already sense that consolidation is here, and growth will be driven by a few operators rather than many on the go forward.
Perfect. Thanks. My next one just on sports betting. Just would be helpful to get a sense on how that's performing relative to the core sort of iCasino, and if you could give sort of a growth rate at which that's been growing and what your assumption is going forward, that'd be helpful.
Sports betting is a small percentage of our revenue in the UK, very small, so we actually have most of our revenue is in iGaming. We are seeing acceleration there due to our sponsorship of Nottingham Forest. We expect our sports revenue to triple in the next year. That was prior to these changes, so we may be reviewing our product mix further anyway, obviously because of the tax differential between iGaming and sports in the year of 2026. I think there are quite a few levers to pull, but we are small in sports.
I guess the narrative is we're small in sports today, we'll grow it, we can mitigate this tax rate even though we are heavily concentrated to the highest tax burden, but we can mitigate it better than others because our EBITDA margins are sitting already in excess of 10 to 15 percentage points higher than others.
Understood. Just as a last one for me, maybe just to help on modeling, I mean, is there some sort of scale-up assumption that you can disclose in order to get from NGR to sort of GGR? If you're unable to disclose, maybe it'd be helpful if you can comment on how the intensity of sort of bonuses and free spins that you guys give out to your consumers relative to sort of other competitors in the market, that'd be helpful.
I guess you can do the proxy based on our revenue sitting at [66D] in 2025 and understand that the tax impact over nine months would be EUR 95 million. You can use that as a reverse proxy if you want to do it that way.
Understood. Thanks. That's all from me.
Thank you. Yeah.
The next question is from the line of Apostolidis, Alex with LGT. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Really appreciate you taking the time for this call. I have three questions. I'll ask them in order. The first one, just going off my colleague's question on slide four. EUR 229 million is the new EBITDA you present for fiscal year 2026, and this is prior to any growth. My question is, what gives you confidence that volumes will remain stable, let alone grow? Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the Netherlands, we saw similar increases, and the impact there was volume pressure. The first question is, why will volumes remain stable and not decline given the move to the black market potentially?
Good question. The key things which drive growth in the black market, yes, one of the key factors is tax. The other factor is regulation. Now, if you roll back and say, before yesterday, we had our existing tax rate and displacement to the black market was not happening. We can see that there is such a large long tail of operators in the UK market, there are approximately 1,000, right, who have substantially lower margins. We believe that our current numbers and everything still point to the fact that we will continue our marketing spend. There is a reduction there, but we are seeing people already pulling back from auctions and advertising that we believe our growth will continue. The regulatory balance with tax is on the edge. I will not deny that. As you heard in my comments, I want to ensure that the UKGC focus on preventing the black market.
Having said that, in all of the numbers we're seeing already, our growth comes from, yes, new player acquisition, but also our existing players becoming more loyal. In historic presentations, you would have seen that over time, our player spends grow. Now, if you think there's fewer players in the market and people spread their spend across multiple operators, this will accelerate as well. We think that we'll gain more players because fewer people are bidding for the same traffic, but also we see further upside, which I haven't accounted for here, in increased player spend because their spend is more concentrated amongst fewer operators than would have been previous.
[crosstalk]
No, thank you so much. Very helpful. Just to confirm, in the Netherlands, what was the impact on volumes there on the legal market? My understanding is we did see volume pressure and quite significant margin pressure, volume pressure, excuse me.
In the Netherlands, if you look at the data, you'll see that the majority of players, the counterplayers, are within the regulated market. The pressures that came, and we've already had these pressures, by the way, on limiting spend of individuals. Individual player spend, so VIP spend, call it, gets displaced. That has already occurred in the UK Very limited VIP spend. It's much more about the regular recreational player, which is exactly what we're built on. We have a high- volume, lower- spend audience. Black market in Netherlands, over 50% of revenue, 90%+ are playing in the regulated market.
It's about the VIP displacement. This has already occurred in the UK, and actually, when you look at the regulated market in the UK, we do not see further displacement from recreationals. Our business model is based on recreationals. We already hold a stake limit of maximum GBP 5 on a slot machine, GBP 2 for under 25s on slots. Our spending profile is much, much lower with an average stake of GBP 0.63 a spin on a slot machine.
Very clear. Thank you. If I can just ask the other two questions together, in terms of CapEx guidance, you've given that to be low to mid double digits for fiscal year 2026 and 2027. Is it possible to provide a bit more disclosure on the exact level, which leads me to the last question, which is you're in New York, Arkansas, so congratulations. On Illinois, Ohio, Australia, when do you expect decisions on those? Expectation is still to renew. Importantly, at similar or perhaps lower margins given competitive intensity in the US. Thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.
I'm going to hand that over to Nikos or Andreas.
Yeah. Andreas, let me take the second part and you talk about the numbers of CapEx. We do have a pipeline which is going to materialize, I mean, the customers are going to take decisions rather soon. It has to do with the Ontario Lottery, the Maryland that still is an active process. We are waiting to see how the next step, the next step is going to be. Minnesota and also the VLT monitoring in OPAP that we are expecting a decision really soon, plus the VLT monitoring in Illinois that the submission date has moved to 5 January 2026. There is still also Texas that is going to issue an RFP in the first quarter, most probably of next year, and some other smaller projects in Latin America and the rest of the world.
On the three projects that you mentioned, first of all, Ohio, it is something that we have announced a year before that Scientific Games won. This is something that is going to run until 2027, mid-2027 for us. On Australia and Victoria, we are in a bidding process, in the middle of the bidding process for the licensing. On Illinois, both the PMA and the technology contract that we do have expire, both expiring 2027, still t here is no movement on issuing any other RFP, either for one or for the other. I understand based on what I hear from the legislation and what we read in the news that there is a debate what is going to happen with the PMA, if the PMA is going to be continuous as it is, if legislation is going to change.
Still, we are waiting to see what will happen there. My view is that according to what the decision the state is going to take for the PMA, we are going to decide when they are going to issue the RFP for the technology provider. Andreas, can you please take the numbers for the CapEx numbers for next year?
Yeah. Let me take this one. It's Chrys here. As we've mentioned, we have on average, both companies combined, we estimate about EUR 60 million of CapEx per annum average for renewals and normal course of business. On top of that, there may be spike years, and 2026, 2027 is one of those spike years because our projects, especially in the United States, as you know, they spread over 10 years. They have the CapEx in the beginning and then the revenue share model. There is a first cycle of the project where you're trying to recover your investment in three, four years. In the second half of the project, you are generating all the cash. If you have an extension, which is typically the case because these contracts extend to 15 years, that's even more cash generative.
Now, 2026 and 2027 are years where we expect big spending in certain projects, as Nikos was mentioning. The additional spending will be between EUR 50 million and EUR 80 million because we're spreading these investments over time. Of course, this will depend on the overall situation because these contracts may delay, the timeline may slide a little bit, but these 2026 and 2027 will be exceptional years. We think we are in a very good situation to cover whatever CapEx we need.
Thank you. Just to make sure I heard the number, so it is EUR 60 million for maintenance, normal course of business CapEx on top of the EUR 50 million [crosstalk] .
Maintenance and renewal.
Maintenance and renewal.
On average. Like, for example, the extension in Arkansas is part of the renewals, which is a much lighter CapEx case than if you win a tender from scratch. On average, that's EUR 60 million. Then you have the spike years.
Thanks again.
The next question comes from the line of Osman Memisoglu with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Many thanks for this. Just going back to the top line for UK from GBP 25,660 to GBP 720,000 that does include market share gain, but the upside is from higher spend per customer. Did I understand that correctly? Also, coming back to the black market, is it fair to say BII will be less impacted by leakage to the black market given the profile of the customers? That's my first question. Coming back to the share buyback comment, what is the timeline on that? When will the EGM be held? When could the share buybacks, if approved, start? Finally, related to that, the dividend consideration, the 35% out of 2026 results, is that still the case, or are there any potential changes there? Thank you.
Okay. I'll take.
Yeah.
Robeson, let me take the EGM one. There are a couple of issues post-transaction that we were planning to hold the EGM. The intention is to hold an EGM within the month of December, which may include the issue of the share buybacks. The dividend forecast, the percentage we have quoted is still the intention.
Okay. I will pick up the other questions. Part of the growth that we're expecting is in RPU increase, but we're still expecting natural growth that we see from our marketing acquisition because we'll still be spending in the marketplace. I don't think our reduction in marketing will be as substantial as our peers. Also, as I was trying to emphasize before, player spends grow over time. Growth comes from actually your retained audience, not only adding new players on top. We get that because our players are lower spending. They actually spend very little at the beginning, and they continue to build over time. That means we're a more sustainable business. Also, to your exact point, we're less exposed to the black market because we don't have high-end customers.
We haven't got those big VIPs who get displaced by regulation, and they go over to the black market so they can still get their big bets away.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Katsios, Nestoras with Optima Bank. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Coming back to slide number four and your projections on EBITDA for 2026 and 2027, I can see that there's almost flat assumption for Intralot. I guess you haven't taken into account any potential new contracts. Is that correct?
Niko, do you want to take it?
Yes, yes, please. Can you please repeat the year? 2026, you mean?
Yeah, and 2027, I can see almost flat EBITDA for Intralot. So your [crosstalk]
I think it's a slight increase in 2026, if I'm not mistaken. Let me see the screen. EUR 5 million, if I'm not mistaken.
Niko, in the table we have published, we have not taken into account new projects like the ones we have.
This is probably as let me tell you something. First of all, this is mainly on Robeson's comment that this build-up and the bridge that we have here is really conservative. What I can tell you for next year is that we are going to start two new projects in British Columbia. The first is going to be the iLottery, which it's going to start either in April or May. I am not talking about contract wins because this is already there. I am talking about implementation. This is the first one. The second one, we have not announced yet, but we are going to announce a contract with Managed Services, which we are going to sign in the next weeks. It is already approved by the British Columbia Board. We are going practical to outsource a significant part of the operation of the system to us.
We are also going to have growth in markets that we are going to deploy the Vitruvian platform, as we have said repeatedly. The main one is in Croatia, where we are going to start the UAT in January. We believe that by the end of the first quarter, we are going to be live and operational. We are expecting, obviously, the organic growth that we have every year, but especially in the US, give or take, follows the inflation. Last but not least, we do believe that we are going to have growth by adding some significant states that I cannot disclose. Just in the deck of USA, this game is going to really take off. All in all, there are prospects that some of those we have already secured.
We are cautious because of the situation, especially in the States, if there's going to be any recession, if there's going to be still a flat line, especially with the scratch card, the instance that represents, give or take, 65% of the market. As I said in the beginning, and Robeson in his initial statement, this is a conservative forecast. It does not incorporate any new contract. Keep in mind that apart from the renewals, the contract that we are going to win, even if we win a contract today, a new contract, we are not going to realize any revenue in 2026. We are not projecting any revenue there because the experience that we have in the US is in the last couple of years, that there are significant delays, both in legislation in iLottery, but also in the evaluation and in the awarding of contracts.
If I may add something to this, the table that we presented on slide four was intending to just explain the mitigation part on the UK tax, and that's why these estimates are conservative. As you may have noticed, the general range given by Robeson's quote is between EUR 420 million and EUR 440 million. In the optimistic scenario, it may include Intralot incremental revenue and EBITDA, which is not on this table. That's why we end up in the lower side of the spectrum that we said in our renewed guidance. Of course, this is even more for 2027. That is further out. We have not calculated any of that incremental potential here. This was just the exercise to present the mitigation plan, and that's why the numbers that we come in the end are on the lower end of the spectrum.
Okay. Because I missed the previous question, you said about the dividend, you are sticking to your intention to distribute from the next year?
35% of net profits, yes.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Pointon, Russell with Edison Group. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. Two questions. First one, I suspect, is for Robeson. On slide four, the generosity marketing savings are broadly equally split. Now, I noted your answer earlier about you will be flexible. Does that mean the revenue elasticity of cutting marketing versus generosity is on a like-for-like basis very similar?
I deliberately broadened the definition of saying generosity. Generosity means a few different things. It's however you can give returns to your customer. It can be across the space of odds, can be across the space of reward, and so on. I think we have to be flexible there. We can easily cut more marketing, to be clear, but I don't intend to. There is much more flex. We chose a balance because we have to watch what happens in the marketplace. That is why we've said 50/50. In reality, I suspect that there is potentially more revenue elasticity, which comes from concentration of wallet share of existing players because of the pressures that are coming to other operators who, as I've said, this entire tax rate removes all profitability. We have flex in our marketing, that's for sure.
We are already observing, and as I've said, I was a little bit shocked that I saw this on day one, that we do not have to spend the marketing in the same places to have the same volume of traffic. People have already—and it is not like you might assume everyone will reduce. Many operators have removed fully, right? You could easily make assumptions on what it means for the overall required marketing spend to capture the entire marketplace. We believe it is sensible that it is— have put it into buckets of maybe EUR 15 million for generosity and EUR 15 million for marketing, but I am not going to hold myself to that. We have to adapt in times of change, and that is what we have shown we are good at doing over the last 20 years.
Right. Thank you. My second question, I think the answer is—and I already know to this—but I just want to make sure with the now lower profitability expected for the group in the coming year or so, that does not frustrate any aspirations the group might have had in terms of new contract wins elsewhere across the globe?
No. On the contrary. As Chrys, I think, mentioned before, we are not shy of the necessary CapEx, either on the lottery side or on launching B2C operations. The plan remains the same. As I mentioned before, especially on the lottery stuff, we are moving on going after the contracts that we have in our pipeline. The same goes also on the launches that we have planned on the B2C space.
Okay. Great. Thanks, Nikos.
The next question is from the line of Baagil, Aminah with Arini Capital Management. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I understand on a year-to-date basis, your performance is stable with some impact of FX. If we look at just the quarterly performance, the decline is quite pronounced at double digit. Would you be able to just explain this? Thanks.
Okay. Let me take this one. The variance in the third quarter compared to last year again is attributed to the effects, but also accompanied, as I said during my analysis, on a slower pace in relation to the growth of markets in Argentina and Turkey. The market had a slower growth compared to last year, and this is why the FX hit was higher, although normally the market catches up with the devaluation. In this case, in this quarter, this was at a slower pace. This is the variance compared to the full-year effect. Of course, it's not only the Argentina and Turkey. I mean, we saw the same effect even in the US. Overall, the FX was negative.
Sorry, just to clarify. If I see the year-on-year [delta] within the Americas, there is around EUR 10 million decline in the revenue. Is it driven by one particular region, or is it across the different geographies within the US?
It is across the different geographies.
Can you confirm that there was not anything different last year, perhaps higher marketing spend or any project behind this decline?
No, no. It was just the FX.
Got it. Thank you.
As a reminder, to register for a question, please press star and one. The next question is a follow-up question from Raman Narula with Principal Asset Management. Please go ahead.
A quick follow-up for me. Sorry. Didn't quite catch what you said earlier about the share buyback. Is that going to be from Bally's Corporation in the US increasing their stake, or will the combined sort of Intralot Bally's Group look to buy back shares from the exchange?
I can take that. With respect to Bally's Corporation, Bally's Corporation will purchase shares and not buybacks, but purchase shares and increase its stake.
Understood. Thank you.
Making a recommendation, though, yeah, obviously dependent on approvals too as Bally's Intralot to make share buybacks as well because this company is strong for the medium and long term.
For Bally's Intralot, is there any sort of, are you able to give any sort of quantum, like max quantum, which you'll be looking to buy back, assuming your approvals are given, or?
I think we'll just review that as a board.
Understood. Thanks.
We still have a focus on delevering. We want to make sure that we grow appropriately and do these things together. We want to do all of these things in.
Hello. Mr. Raman, are you're done with your question?
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. That was it for me. Thanks.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now hand over the conference to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
For joining us today. This company is very strong for the medium term, and I'm very proud of being part of it and delighted that we have combined Bally's International Interactive and Intralot together. I look forward to speaking to you again very soon, and all the best for the festive season.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded.