Good morning t his is the Chorus Call conference call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining Lottomatica Group's first quarter 2024 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mirko Senesi, Head of Investor Relations, Capital Markets and M&A. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks, operator, and thank everyone for joining. I'm Mirko Senesi, the new Head of IR at Lottomatica. I'm here today with Guglielmo, CEO of Lottomatica, and Laurence, CFO. Now the floor directly to Guglielmo for the presentation. Guglielmo, please.
Thank you, Mirko, and good morning to everybody. So let's start with the most important news, page number two of the presentation. We have completed the acquisition of SKS a few days ago, so early Q2 ahead of plan. A new strong brand joins our portfolio. Just to remember, a few key numbers, almost 800,000 registered customers, 400,000 annual unique active online players, and 1,000 betting shop licenses. The company has closed the year with roughly EUR 72 million of normalized EBITDA. Again, the normalization year is on the basis of the three-year historical average of payout for SKS, which is different than that of Lottomatica, as you will appreciate.
So 72 is practically in line with our expectation, but even nicer, Q1 2024 on a normalized basis looks particularly strong as volumes have been very solid. It's EUR 23 million on a normalized basis and EUR 80 million on an actual basis. So completed ahead of plan, good start of the year. Page number 3, this confirms Lottomatica leadership as the undisputed leader in the Italian market. Roughly 29% of online market share and 41% of sports franchise market share. When we go into the online, this breaks up into 28% iGaming market share, into 31% iSports market share.
We are the number one operator in total with a total of our portfolio and also number one operator in each and every operating segment. Page number 4, let's give a look at the market trends and how we've performed in. This is clearly without SKS as it is Q1 and how we have performed in Q1 as a total and by business segment in online. Well, the start of the year was very strong on bets for the market compared to Q1 2023. Less so for the GGR because of the online sports payout.
But the important point is that Lottomatica's way overperformed the market both in terms of bet 3 x more and in terms of GGR 6 x more than the market in comparison to Q1 2023. Similar picture we get when we look at the segments. In iSports, iGaming, and the rest of the online portfolio, Lottomatica by far outperforms the market both in terms of bet and GGR. We get so to page number 5 which is the evolution of the market shares. Compared to Q1 2023 the group increases its market share. This is without SKS.
SKS is basically stable compared to Q1 2023, and this is one of the opportunity and one of the items behind the investment thesis. The asset is very strong, and there's a very good team and, you know, we can work on this asset to also improve the competitive position. Actually, March has been the highest month ever for iGaming and also for total online, if we exclude the October 2023, where you may remember we had 25.4% market share in iSports, which was a complete outlier, mainly driven, actually driven by the underperformance of the small operators in a month with a very negative payout. They suffered more than the rest of the market.
So we continue to expect a very solid performance in the coming quarters in terms of growth of market share when we look especially at the March performance. This is true also by brand. If we compare our brands to Q1 2023, the Lottomatica brands are the ones growing most in terms of market share. Let's go to page 6, which is Laurence will get into the detailed numbers, into the detailed figures. This gives you a clear view of the strength of the business.
You can appreciate, you can see in the graph, revenues and EBITDA on a normalized basis, and actually, it's up, revenue 16%, and EBITDA almost 23%. And it's positive and positive for every business and double digits for online and sports franchise. Of course, the picture changes when you consider the reported numbers for the negative payout, given the volatility on sports franchise and online franchise, and of course, the most impacted is sports franchise. As online partially offsets the negative outcome of the payout in iSports with the other products, first online casino. But you know, the strength of the business is really very, very clear.
Just to spend 1 minute on the volatility of payout, we continue to monitor that. We've taken the series of market data by quarter in the last 10 years, divided by online and retail. And you know, basically, the payout of Q1 is bang in line with a normal distribution of the payout. Just to explain a little better, this graph, the red bars are the situations where you have a negative outlier. That is to say, the payout is high, very high, more than 2 points circa of payout, 2.2 points for online and 2 points for retail. And the green one is the outlier in the opposite direction, so positive for us.
Well, the first thing you notice here is that the number of reds is the same as the number of greens in a series of more than 40 quarters, and this is true both for online and retail. The second thing that you can see from here, which we, you know, confirms what we've always said, that is, retail is more volatile than online due to the larger share of aggregators. The last point I would say is the sequencing. So you can have sequences of more than one negative up to, you know, we've had even, you know, three in the retail, especially in the past. So this is what is happening is still, you know, fully in line with a normal distribution.
Also, we are sharing a few data for Lottomatica, and we have them only for Lottomatica. There's no. This is of course, is the market. The last bullet on this page is Lottomatica. There is no change in demand for sports betting. The average legs for aggregators is stable, shy of four. The incidence of single bets is stable, around 40%, and the incidence of live is stable, around 30%. These are the main drivers, apart from the results of the sports events of payouts in terms of demand. So let's go, as we usually do on, the drivers. Some of the drivers of our outperformance, product innovation and technology innovation.
These are a few significant examples on these two levers of what we have delivered to our players and to the market in the last quarter. We've expanded our product offering with more than 800 new casino games. We have new type of exclusive bets, some time-based exclusivity on slot games, branded slot games. In terms of omni-channel, we've rolled out a significant number of terminals, vending machines, where you can top up the game account in the retail network. We've improved the user experience of our customer, the user customer journey.
This has led to mainly two points, an increase in the registration success rate of 15 points, which is a great result, because lots of people, you know, in general, in this industry and in every online industry, get lost in the registration process, and this is a great improvement. And at the same time, we worked on another key point, which is cross-selling, by working on the user experience and user interface in the sports app, we increased 4x the cross-sell on casino from the sports app.
And last but not least, in terms of platforms, we are in the final phase of the switch of the Betflag sports betting platform to the groups to the group Pegasus platform. You may remember that, while Betflag is very strong on iCasino, we've always thought that there was a product gap in sports, and we have the objective of filling this gap by moving everything to the group's properties for the new championship, and we are fully in line with our plan.
So we come to our final consideration on 2024, on which we maintain a strong view, which has been reinforced by SKS anticipated early closing, and also by bolt-ons. I'll make a comment on this in a minute. The new guidance, which includes SKS pre-synergies, is EUR 2.02 billion for revenues to EUR 2.065 billion, and adjusted EBITDA on a normalized basis of EUR 680 million-EUR 700 million. This has included 8 months contribution from SKS, and implies a full year normalized EBITDA of SKS of circa EUR 80 million, which compares to the normalized value of EUR 72 million for 2023, which is roughly 11% growth in terms of adjusted EBITDA.
Even though it's not reported here, it's not shown here, it's also on revenues. So we are expecting an 11% increase year-on-year, revenues and EBITDA for revenues EBITDA in SKS. Then we have bolt-ons. This is a key part of our strategy. We have put during these first four months together a very strong pipeline. At right moment during the year, we will share more details on this. Really, this is very promising. And last but not least, our confidence in the year and in the value creation that we can generate from SKS integration and the bolt-ons is underpinned by the track record.
Just to mention, the last acquisition we did, we made, Betflag, we can make a balance as of today. We acquired the company in September 2022. In April, we recognized the full earn-out, which was kept at EUR 50 million. We have bought the company on EUR 36 million EBITDA, which if you include the earn-out, which without the earn-out is shy of 9, and with the earn-out is roughly 10. But actually, when you look at the EBITDA in the last 12 months in March 2024, which is roughly EUR 73 million, you get to an implied multiple of 5x the EBITDA.
You know, this shows that the significant value creation that we have achieved in a very short amount of time, also with the last acquisition. Also, in terms of synergies, we had committed to the market to EUR 6 million. We are running today for circa EUR 11 million euros of synergies. And as I said, I already commented the point of the migration of you know, deploying additional extracting additional value from this last acquisition, which is coming from the migration of the sports product and more to come. So with this, I leave the floor to Laurence t hank you.
Thank you, Guglielmo. So moving on to page 11. Here we can see how we have totaled at a group level in the first quarter, EUR 440 million of revenues and EUR 150 million of EBITDA. As Guglielmo mentioned in the previous section, you know, if you look at the normalized payout, the growth, the equivalent growth, would equate to 23% at an EBITDA level and 16% at a revenue level. We go on to page 12. Here, we're looking at the financials by segment. We can see that in total, out of the EUR 150 million of EBITDA, online contributed EUR 43 million, sports franchise for EUR 20 million, and gaming franchise for EUR 47 million.
Now, clearly here, the margins are also for online and sports franchise reflect the higher payout mentioned earlier. We go on to page 13. You can look at the CapEx profile in Q1 2024. We spent in total EUR 52 million, of which EUR 20 million on of recurring CapEx, EUR 19 million of a concession CapEx, which is in line with the guidance that we have given for when we presented our fiscal year 2023 results. And then on top of this, we've had one one-off/growth CapEx of EUR 13 million. These relate to the POS carryover of EUR 7 million. As we had mentioned, we had a carryover of approximately EUR 10 million, still from 2023, so EUR 7 million have been spent in Q1 this year.
The minority buyout of Billions, where we acquired the shares that we did not own in Billions for EUR 3 million, and deferred purchase consideration, which relates to all the distribution and sourcing activities and the acquisition of Ricreativo B carried out last year. Then in terms of operating cash flow for the first quarter, we totaled EUR 110 million. Moving on to page 14, you can see the bridge from of the net financial debt from December 31st, 2023 to March 31, 2024. So, just to walk through is adjusted EBITDA of EUR 150 million, net working capital, so cash absorption of EUR 24 million. As we know, the first quarter tends to be negative in terms of working capital flows.
CapEx, EUR 52 million, which we described earlier. Financial expenses of EUR 35 million, which excludes sort of the negative carry and the related costs of the issuance of the bond that we issued in December for the acquisition of SKS. Then other of EUR 14 million that primarily includes the negative carry of the bond that we issued in 2023. The total cash position goes from 295, it increases to EUR 319 million, and with a total net leverage of 2.1 turns. That's it. I'm finished on the financial section.
Please, operator, you can open up the floor to the Q&A section. Thanks.
Thank you, sir. Excuse me, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. To remove your question from the question queue, please press star and two. We kindly ask you to use handsets when asking questions. We will pause momentarily while participants join the queue. The first question comes from Ed Young of Morgan Stanley.
Good morning. I've got three questions, if that's okay. I'll ask them one at a time. My first question is about your online outperformance. It's been very consistent versus the market, and you've laid out those reasons quite clearly in the past, so I won't ask you to reiterate them here. But if I look at slide four, one thing that's interesting is your outperformance in other, which I guess is virtuals in online, is very strong indeed. I just wondered if you could talk about your competitive differentiation in that product. And if I look at the difference between your bets outperformance, which is, you know, 35-40 x, and your revenue, your GGR outperformance, which is more like the sort of overall 6 x you've talked to for your overall online product.
Does that suggest that your pricing on virtuals is better, or is there something else going on there in terms of comps or, or noise? That's my first question, please.
Yeah, maybe I add. I'll take the first part of the question, and then, Laurence, if you want to comment on the mix. Look, in other, actually, it's products like bingo, poker, skill games. Virtual betting is included in esports, and the outperformance in the class other is actually due to a couple of things. The first point is that, to be frank, we were starting from an underperformance. So, just to be straight, we are recovering and realigning the performance of the segment on where it should be.
There's been an improvement of the product, which is a third-party product on the poker, for example, but in this case, this is not, you know, it's products we buy, for example, same stuff for bingo. So this is more like a realignment, and then it's also driven by the overall CRM improvement capabilities user experience. So this has less to do with, say, the product that we produce in-house, and less to do with the omni-channel strategy and more to do with, like, the cross-selling opportunity, the CRM, and those sort of things.
Laurence, I don't know if you want to comment on the basically some the mixed difference between online bets and outperformance in terms of online bets growth and GGR growth compared to Q1.
Yeah, you mean, Ed, when you mean the difference between 3x and 6x? Well, that does predominantly due to the. It's a mix effect between the different products of iSports and iGaming. If your question is, again, the difference between bets growth and GGR growth in other, again, that it's a different change in mix between virtual poker and exchange.
Okay got it t hank you v ery clear. My second one was on the sports franchise business. You've given the normalized payout growth rates for revenue and adjusted EBITDA on page 6. I just note that your growth rate for sports franchise looks very high. You're suggesting it was 32% adjusted EBITDA growth on normalized payout. That would be, I think, something like EUR 44 million of EBITDA, if I'm that is correct, versus the 18, 17, and 20 that you've done over the last three quarters. Now, I know you said the last three quarters have been poor payout. I get that, but actually, Q1 last year was good payout for the market in sports betting.
So I guess the broader question is, can you help us understand that, and also what we should think about broadly as, you know, your expected quarterly sports franchise on average? I mean, it's obviously a more volatile segment, but it'd be useful to have your idea on what we should be thinking about there as the sort of good normalized level, from an EBITDA perspective for franchise.
Yeah, I know. I think on the sports franchise, clearly, it is not only volatile from a revenue perspective, but it's also more the volatility at an EBITDA level is even more accentuated because of the weight of sports betting over the total business that, you know, it accounts for roughly about 70% of total revenues in sports franchise when you look at it on a normalized basis. I think what we said sort of in the past still stands true. So if you sort of normalize, if you look at the normalized, let's say, EBITDA margin for this business, it's in the high 20s.
Now, whether it's 28% or 29% with the normalized payout, that is sort of where we trend in terms of margins on a normalized basis. And then, you know, the rest is a question of you know between at a revenue level. It, the you know the bet levels have been always sort of have continued to trend nicely thanks to the results that we've had in with our also with our project POS. So that if you look at the productivity per point of sale has ultimately increased versus last year.
So but I think if you look at the, on a normalized level, and that's the only way you can really look at it, because of the volatility of this segment, assuming a margin in the high twenties, 28% or 29% is what we have guided to in the past, also for the mid, on a midterm basis. And I think that holds also, let me say, on a yearly basis.
Okay. It just seems like if, if you're saying that you could have done in the 40s in EBITDA on a 28% margin, looks like your revenue would be up a lot, but maybe, maybe we can catch up offline on that. And the final thing, just on the bolt-ons, you sort of signaled that the pipeline looks pretty full and you'll elaborate at a later stage on it. I guess we've spoken in the past about the size of the license fee potentially being difficult for subscale players to afford. So I wonder, is that starting to inform the willingness of sellers in the market around the ability for you to conduct bolt-ons?
Or to put it another way, are you starting to see a pullback in, or a change of behavior in the market, whether it's, you know, marketing or acquisition or whatever it might be, for those small players that make up the 15%-20% tail in the market? So not just a sort of sale position point of view, but are you seeing any operational change from them? Thanks.
Yeah, look, in the bolt-ons, you have pretty much everything for all product segments. You would have like, the standard distribution and sourcing. You would have a bit of gaming halls of retail acquisitions, which are strategic both for retail, but also are a source, are strong candidates for increasing the omni-channel, the iGaming omni-channel because of the type of locations. And of course, you would have some also in the, say, betting and online space. So this is a spot where we have everything.
Going specifically to the question related to the new tender, it's not only about the cost of the license, it's very much about, you know, the qualities, the requirements that are needed to be a significant and profitable player within the new framework because clearly, as it's always up and the requirements, the accountability levels increases. It's not just a matter of the up-front payment. That is one item, but there are many others. The quality of the product, of course.
So, let me just say that we are seeing very interesting feedbacks coming from our proposition, which we don't wanna unfortunately dig into much in this phase because it's clearly a sensitive topic. But we see that the market is receptive of what we can offer on this point. Let me just comment that this may not necessarily fall into the category of bolt-ons, as in many cases it's not really about acquisitions. It may come in a different form of collaboration.
But long story short, I mean, the core of your question is, is there any impact coming from the expectation of the new framework of the market? Yes, there is. We are starting to see that. Of course, it's not yet in the numbers, because it's clearly not flowing in the P&L at this very, very early stage. But clearly there is a very solid interest for our proposition to the market. So we remain optimistic also on that specific point. I don't know if this answer answers your question, Ed.
It does. Thank you. Thanks, all.
Welcome.
The next question is from James Rowland Clark of Barclays.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions as well. I've got three. The first is on your updated guidance today to include the SKS365 deal. You said that the synergies are not included, and I think, last time here, when you updated the market on announcing the deal, you said that about 10% of total OpEx synergies, which amounted to about EUR 55 million, could be delivered in the first year. So it suggests there's a EUR 5 million additional sort of EBITDA tailwind to your guidance for this year. Could you just update us on whether you still believe that is the case, or whether you think there's potentially upside there? And I'll ask the next two afterwards. Thank you.
Yeah. James, look, the reason why this is not included, it's because actually the first year, it's in any case a small amount, right? You put, like, the 10%, it's not gonna change the shape of our growth. And so given, you know, we completed acquisition a few days ago, we are-- we have the opportunity of digging into our original estimates, and maybe we confirm exactly the same number. But, you know, since it's a few days ago, the completion, now we can access all the data. In the past, you know, we had to many data where we had to go through clean teams and and all these type of things, and there were clearly restrictions.
So given the fact that it's... That in any case, it's not gonna change for 2024 anything, because it's a few million EUR in any case. It's not gonna be something which changes much. But on the overall synergies, we just want to have the possibility of spending some time on that, on the detailed numbers, refresh that, and as we've always done, come out with a more precise view. Which we'll continue to update, if it is the case, from time to time, as long as we execute the plan. As simple as that. So for 2024, it's such a small number that we prefer to...
Now that we have the chance to have the time to dig into the overall plan and come back when needed. But of course, you know, we're not— It says, the numbers that we said are confirmed by definition, otherwise, we would have said something different.
Thank you. So my second question is just on the normalized payout in Q1. It would imply, I think that the Q1 EBITDA margin would be 37%. And your guidance for the full year, ex SKS365, from-- that you provided a couple of months ago, suggests about a 35% margin, margin if you take the midpoint. So I, I appreciate there's a little bit of seasonality to Q1, but it appears that the margin is structurally higher, at the moment on a normalized basis. So any, any commentary there would be, would be helpful.
No, I'd appreciate that when you look at the normalized, at the normalized level, you're looking at effectively, you take the benefit of all of the volumes as well as, you know, basically, you have, you necessarily when you have such strong volumes, your margin goes, your margin effectively increases. So but again, on a, we've always sort of maintained a conservative stance on this, and I think we will continue to do so. That we will, we'll maintain sort of the margin, the margin that we've set in the guidance. Clearly, if then, again, there's always a... I think we discussed this a few times, James, when you have, whether we want to keep the benefit of operating leverage or not.
And, we've always said that right now is the time to invest, and therefore, any sort of improvements that we get in terms of from a margin perspective, we'd like to invest for for growth. And that pretty much holds.
Thank you. So the conclusion there would be that when the online concession kicks in in the second half, the margin will fall ex SKS365, as you invest in market share gains?
Well, there's also the point about SKS, now that you put SKS in the numbers. SKS, as you'll see, has structurally lower margins, right? SKS is basically between sort of 22% and 24% margin, depending on... Again, given it's a, it doesn't have any gaming franchise business. It is predominantly, it's only sports franchise and online, and so with a heavy exposure to sports. So the margins tend to be more volatile, you know, let's say.... So the margin of SKS will, at least before realization of synergies, drive down overall margin.
But again, that's more of a mathematical effect, because we're starting with a base that is with a company that has structurally lower margins. Then over time, as we realize the synergies, clearly, the margins will improve.
Okay. My final one was just on the online strengths and share gains that, you know, you're clearly taking. Have you got a sense... Oh, sorry. Obviously, the reason, a key driver for that is the retail format. Have you got a sense of-
Excuse me, Mr. Rowland Clark, your line is breaking up. Could you-
Sorry.
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Yes, it's better now.
Can you hear me? Yeah. Have you got a sense of your retail base in sports retail and in gaming halls, of the proportion of customers there that you've cross-sold into online at this point? Thank you.
Hey James I'm sorry. Could you repeat the last part of the question? Have you a sense of?
Have you got a sense of the proportion of retail customers in, in sports retail and in gaming halls that you've cross-sold to online at this point?
Yeah, we, we do have an idea, but this is not a number that we have disclosed so far. Let's say we continue to see space in the sports and a much larger space in gaming. So sports is, as you know, has been going around for a long time. There is still space, especially in some brands. Better has improved a lot, but still has space compared to Goldbet, and just to make an example.
But clearly, the most important opportunity there is the gaming one, the gaming part of the business on which we are still at the early stages of this phenomenon, and that is really, as we said also last time, one of the focuses. But you know, there's still a long way to go with these within this picture, but we will not disclose the number yet.
Okay, thank you very much.
The next question is from Fabio Pavan of Mediobanca.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions, and thank you also for having provided us the updated guidance with SKS365. On SKS365, my question is, if you can share with us some qualitative comment on how things are going, if you are satisfied with what you are finding inside the company, when you will start working together with the team, if eventually there is some incremental data point that you can share with us. My second question is on the payout for April, if you can give us a comment on this. And the last question is, if in view of the busy summer season for sport events, you are preparing to launch new products. Thank you very much.
So, Fabio, let me start with the first one on SKS. There were lots of restrictions during the interim phase because of antitrust reasons, we have closed last week, we've already deep dived on several topics with the team. It's a very strong team. It's you know, on every aspect, you know, we found a very committed and knowledgeable and we drive group of people. Clearly, they've been busy in the last couple of years or so in the exit process, which is always a bit of disruptive sometimes on the growth opportunities that you may take advantage of.
So we like the asset a lot. We confirm our strong view on the brand, on the properties, on the team, on the people, and we like the attitude also. We are starting already working with them, and we'll most likely give a more precise update with next quarter. But the teams are already, you know, moving. There's already been immediately a new organization has come out the very same day of the closing. We're gonna. The respective teams are in contact. There will be additional meeting in the coming days. So it's we come out from this very first few days with a very positive view.
In any case, it's, it was really a strategic... On the-- I'll take the last one, and then I'll, I'll ask you the favor, if you could repeat the second one, because-- Oh, Laurence, L-Laurence got it. I'm, I'm sorry. So on sport, let me answer, let me answer in a, in a, in a quite, maybe, maybe it's not the most precise, but you may appreciate there is a bit of, also sensitivity around the topic. For sure, that is an opportunity, and we always, are focused on improving, our offer. That's, that's, you know, I know it's a very generic answer, but, but, but, but, that is. But, but we're very aware of the opportunity that, that brings.
As you can see, also in a normal quarter, we continue to come out with, with new stuff. So for sure, that is something relevant for us. Laurence?
Yeah. I mean, listen, for you, Fabio, you asked for the payout in April, right?
Yes, correct.
This payout in April is pretty much in line with our normalized level. So no, it's pretty neutral.
Okay, tha k you so much.
The next question is from Domenico Ghilotti of Equita.
Good morning. A few question. The first is on the bolt-on opportunity. So if you want to share with us, well, how much capital you are ready to allocate on this opportunity in general and particularly in online? And second question is on the market performance, has been very, very strong, particularly in iGaming yet today. So if you can give us your updated view on what can be, say, the market GGR in iSports and iGaming for 2024. And last, well, a couple of housekeeping questions. Well, I see that gaming franchises at different ranks, if I look at bets and if I look at revenue. So bets and GGR were weaker, and so I am trying to understand why.
On the concession CapEx, you are running, if I'm not wrong, at EUR 19 million. That is a bit, say, more than, say, I have, I had in mind the EUR 60 million, so if I'm not wrong. This was the kind of guidance ex SKS, compared to the EUR 19 million that I saw in Q1.
Okay, and, Domenico, forgive me if I miss... Let me just start with maybe the last question first. So on the concession CapEx, EUR 19 million, it's just a phasing of the CapEx, and nothing changes versus our guidance. Q1 and Q2 are more heavy on CapEx. Q3 is lighter, Q4 is slightly lower than the first two quarters, but the sum is always EUR 60 million. So it's just a phasing during the year.
The difference between bets GGR and revenue/EBITDA in gaming franchises is predominantly driven by the effect of the distribution and sourcing, which has a positive impact on revenues, which is an accounting, but it also has a direct impact on EBITDA, right? And that also includes the acquisition of Ricreativo B. So as a result, you will see that bet GGR are more reflective of market. Revenue and EBITDA are more reflective of sort of our performance and includes also all our inorganic growth initiatives.
With regards to how much capital we'll dedicate sort of to the bolt-ons, I think in the guidance we had said that we had between EUR 10 million and EUR 30 million of bolt-on CapEx. Again, depending on the opportunities and we have a very, very solid pipeline, we may, you know, be at the higher end or, you know, depending and potentially even more. We, you know, we've put that statement in the last page, you know, where Guglielmo described, because the pipeline is pretty full. And therefore, if we continue to find value creating opportunities, we will continue.
In the first quarter, we've been a bit more shy in terms of bolt-on activity, and particularly because we're also waiting to close the SKS365 transaction. So now that we've closed, we can sort of resume at probably a faster speed than we had previously. I may have missed one of your-
The last, yeah, on the market, market GGR in online. If you are changing or if you are reviewing or updating your expectation of market GGR, growth in iGaming, iSports.
Listen, for now, no, no, we'll keep the same. I mean, we have had the benefit now of four months. I mean, well, let's see then later on during the year how, if we continue at this pace, we may want to revisit, but for the time being, I would say we keep it as it is.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Simon Davies of Deutsche Bank.
... Yeah, morning. Two from me, please. Firstly, what impact do you expect from the European Championships football? Do you view it as primarily an opportunity for, for, new customer recruitment, or do you think it could be a significant boost to profits for the full year? And secondly, SKS, you talked about lower structural margin, down at 23.2% run rate. Where do you think that can get to when fully mature and integrated within the group? I'm sorry, just lastly, on SKS, can you break out the revenue contribution from SKS in your, your raised guidance?
The revenue contribution for the eight months. It's around EUR 200 million and sort of EUR 220 million. Okay.
Okay.
Again, we're giving one single, sort of, one single number, again, to make it easier also to add our range and for SKS.
Okay.
Listen, in terms of margins, what I'd say is, you know, there is clearly, if you do the mathematical equation, the mathematical calculation on the line, SKS's margins with ours, you'd get to a higher level of synergies, right? But frankly, we feel comfortable with the level of synergies that we've described. So you basically take the EBITDA of SKS and then add on top the synergies. We had included EUR 50 million of OpEx, and I think we added EUR 5 million of revenues. But if you add EUR 50 million of OpEx, that sort of gives you an implied margin for EBITDA. And then, going forward, we will see and update as appropriate.
I think in terms of, I think the last point regarding the European Championships, we don't disclose a particular number. I think it moves the needle, but very, the impact is so far, we forecast like we've done for the World Cup, is relatively small. It's a good, very good opportunity to bring on board new customers, and we have good track record also in keeping those customers. But again, it doesn't really move much the needle in terms of, with respect to the guidance that we've given, and the guidance already includes the European Championship.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Andrea Bonfà of Banca Akros.
Hello, good morning to everybody. Most of my questions have been already answered, but I got a couple of details. One is that the increase in the synergies for SKS this year, is the initial process to overall increase your target, or you are just bringing forward what you've been guiding for? And the second one is it on the overall performance of the wager in the first half of the year, especially in online, which has been pretty strong. If it's possible to know what your underlying, let's say, at least internal brackets, guidance for online wagers in light of your sales guidance, if it's possible. Thank you.
So maybe to answer the first one, we no, we haven't changed the sort of the synergy. I mean, we've literally just closed last Wednesday. So we and the target, the synergy target stays exactly as we had announced at the time of the transaction. And again, if there are any changes, we'll update. If there are any positive changes, we will update as and when appropriate. So it's still fair to assume use the same assumptions that we've disclosed in November when we signed the deal. In terms of... We don't, and forgive me, Andrea, on this, but we sort of, we don't sort of give guidance on all the specific verticals for online.
We've always said, and again, we continue, we will see double-digit growth. We've always said sort of mid-double-digit growth, particularly for online, probably iGaming growing faster than iSports. You know, the market is growing much better, and we've also been doing better, let's say, than... Actually, we have been doing better than market, sorry. Again, but providing specific guidance now on the specific segments is, I would say, I would just reiterate what we've always been saying so far. And then, let's see, maybe middle of the year we'll, we may revisit that. But again, we still got another eight months to go for the end of the year.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Chenhong Zhu of Aegon. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. I only have one. So, given the low interest rates you probably have to pay now, is it safe to assume that 27 bonds will be refinanced when it becomes callable in September? Thank you.
Hi, sure. No, listen, it's a very fair question. I think if current interest rates hold, it's absolutely, it's very rational for us to refi that piece of capital with potentially a very attractive savings. When we again, as and when we will sort of update the market, but it is, it's definitely a very expensive piece of capital that which deserves attention because of the, you know, good savings that we can achieve in a refi. So the answer is very rationally, under the current market conditions, the answer would be yes.
All right. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your touchtone telephone. Gentlemen, at this time, there are no more questions on the conference call.
Okay. I think this conclude our call. Thank you all for joining us. We remind you that the next release will be on the thirteenth of July for H1 results, and of course, we remain available for any other follow-ups. Have a nice day, everyone, and please, operator, you can close the call.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.