Good morning. This is the conference call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Lottomatica Group's 9 Months 2024 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a 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 IR at Lottomatica. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Lottomatica Q3 results presentation. I'm here today with our CEO, Guglielmo Angelozzi, and our CFO, Laurence Van Lancker. Now, the floor directly to Guglielmo for the presentation. Guglielmo, please.
Thanks, Mirko, and good morning to everybody. Happy to share another very good quarter. We closed Q3 at EUR 166 million EBITDA on a reported basis, which is 30% up compared to the same period of last year. We had, the market had negative payout, but the volumes were very strong. So if we normalize the payout, this would have been EUR 179 compared to EUR 135 last year. So the increased percentage is pretty much the same if you look at the reported or at the normalized, around 30%.
And this is the result of mainly a couple of things. A very good trend in the market. The online market continues to grow very strong. It's up 19% year on year in the overall online in Q3. And our performance relative to competition, we are the market leader. We continue to beat the market. We continue to beat our key competitors.
We have reached 30% overall market share in online in Q3, and also very strong performance also in sports franchise at 42% market share. Continuing with the list of good news, SKS synergies are upgraded to EUR 75 million from EUR 67 million. Sorry, EUR 65 million. This is on the back of the integration process and us digging more into the synergies, into the cost structure mainly, but also on the revenue side, and this comes also with 50% of this total amount already secured. Secured, as a reminder, means that we have completed all the activities that will allow these synergies at a certain point to flow in the P&L. We had announced 20 million plus bolt-ons in the year, completed in the year. This is on track. We've already completed acquisitions for EUR 9 million, and 11 more are coming by the end of the year.
It's on the back of this positive news that we confirm the guidance for the year, EUR 2 billion and EUR 30 million revenues to EUR 2 billion and EUR 80 million revenues, and normalized Adjusted EBITDA between EUR 700 and EUR 730 million. Of course, I think it's worth highlighting that on top of this, you will have to consider another EUR 90 million, which is very well predictable, which is coming from the run rate effect, which will flow in the P&L at some point in time from SKS acquisition, the synergies, and the bolt-ons. We have very good visibility on what's coming next. We are page number three of the presentation. This is a focus on the online market.
The online market is 55% iGaming in terms of GGR, 36% sport, and 9% other online, which is a long list of products including poker, bingo, skill games, and all the list of products which are allowed in the Italian market. Now, the market is up. The total market is up 12% in the period. Lottomatica is growing double that speed because we are up year to date 24%. On the two most important segments, we also outperform the market. In iGaming, the market is up 18%. We are up 30%. In iSports, the market is up 4%. We are up 17%, and of course, then there is the tail of other online, which is very small and growing less, which is 5% up, and we outperform in that segment also, so strong market growth, and Lottomatica beats the market across all product segments.
Page number four, continuing with a quick deep dive on the competitive performance. As I mentioned in the beginning, we also outperform competition. This is an analysis which shows like for like, as if our portfolio of brands and that of our competitors was in place already since 1st of January 2022, including all assets, all brands, also for those transactions which have been signed and not closed yet, so this is kind of measuring the strength of the portfolio of brands and relative performance throughout a long period of time, throughout two years and a half, almost three years, and as you can see, Lottomatica is performing better than competition in the total online as an aggregate.
Moving from 24%-30%, this is on a like-for-like basis, as if SKS and BetFlag and all the other brands for us and for the competitors were in the portfolio at the beginning of 2022. We clearly outperform the market and every single competitor. This is true for the overall online market, but especially for the two most important segments. iGaming, as you've seen, is by far the largest part of the market and the fastest growing part. It's quite an impressive growth, that of Lottomatica vis-à-vis our competition, but also in sports. We are smaller than one competitor in other online, but as you had the chance to appreciate, that is just 9% of the market and growing much less, much slower than the rest.
So I would say a very strong performance in relative terms also when we do a like for like exercise, which is confirmed in the next page, page number five. We opened the brand and did a little bit of history because performance is good. Performance is always nice to have, but even most importantly, it's the consistency of performance which matters. And we've opened our performance across the brands. The original perimeter, as you all know, Lottomatica is coming from an original company which was called Gamenet Group. Then we acquired GoldBet, we acquired Lottomatica, we acquired BetFlag. We haven't put here SKS because it's been in our portfolio for a too short period to appreciate the effect of our activity.
But what you can see from here, what you can appreciate from here is that across time, across brands, across different starting points, so brands which were already growing like GoldBet or brands which were decreasing before our acquisition like Lottomatica and BetFlag, we have performed very well. We have continued to perform to gain market share in those brands who were doing well before our acquisitions. In many cases, we have increased the rate of the improvement of the market share, but we've also done very well in situations of turnaround like for BetFlag or for Lottomatica.it. So we've been delivering consistent performance across every and each brand in our portfolio across time and across different starting points. I'm pretty sure you will hardly find a similar situation if you look at competition, at least in Italy. Why is that?
That's because of a clear advantage that we have on hard elements like proprietary technology, which is the basis of our success in many areas, an effective omnichannel model, a multi-brand portfolio and strategy, and our integration capabilities, but also going to more like tools that we've built on top of these basic card layers, which in the end pertain to offer excellence. Offer excellence means the best product, variety of product, the breadth of product offer, the pricing, especially in sports betting, and our capability to innovate. Then, of course, the way we manage customer engagement. There is a deep dive in the next two or three slides on this.
So a sustainable advantage embedded in core assets like the tech, like an effective omnichannel model, which then reflects into the product offer, the pricing, and our capability to engage customers have resulted into this very consistent performance again across time, across brands, and across different starting situations. Now, let's deep dive a little bit on offer excellence and customer engagement. We are at page number six, offer. This is a focus on the two most important product lines. The first one is betting, and in the next slides, you will see an overview of iGaming. Now, on betting, these are two examples of our advantage in terms of offer. On the left, you can find the most important match of the year, the Euro 2024 final match, and you can look at how much offer we had in terms of pre-match markets and in terms of live markets.
You can see that Lottomatica had more offer, more markets, both in pre-match and in live than competition. So this variety of offer has allowed us to perform very well in relative terms compared to competition, but also the fact that we have been able to innovate. For example, in the case of the Euro Cup, we've launched new markets which we only had in the industry, like the possibility to bet on additional events on the match, some combos on the cards that the players may receive, and a bunch of other things that were exclusive to us and an innovation in the market.
Also, just to mention a significant data point, when you look at Same Game Parlay, which of course in Italy have a quite different meaning than in other countries because of some regulatory constraints, we've had 22% of the total GGR during Euro 2024 coming from Same Game Parlay. So let's talk a bit about pricing. When you look at our margins, we had an advantage compared to other omnichannel, the main omnichannel players of 1.2 points in 2023. We have confirmed that advantage year to date in 2024. And this is because we have in-house models to manage pricing. We have new models which have proven to be very effective for automatic ticket acceptance so that we can devote human focus only to those matches or to those tickets which are more relevant in terms of risk management.
We have a new in-house artificial intelligence-based scoring system which intercepts high-risk users and so allows us to manage that in a very specific manner. And what you see here is not the full speed of this capability. As we have already mentioned, this Planetw in, the last acquisition that we did, will switch to our platform, so we'll benefit from some of these advantages in Q2 2025 with the next football season. So there is more to come on the overall portfolio. So these were just two examples, but we believe very significant to show how we are always at the top in terms of product offer in sports betting. And that is the same also in iGaming, which is the other relevant segment of online. We are page number seven.
When you look at the group's portfolio in terms of iGaming content, you can see that by far we have the largest portfolio. We have more than 70 providers which ensure us a continuous innovation in the portfolio. We are able to deliver 900 new games per quarter to the market. We're also focused on internal innovation. We have, as you know, in our portfolio a company, a studio which is called Giocaonline, which develops games for the Italian market.
We're not a B2B, and we do not intend to go that way, but having a proprietary studio which also serves the rest of the market allows us to have a much better understanding of the product dynamics to the extent that these companies are already providing accounting for 6% of our overall casino GGR, but especially it gives us a lot of insights on how we should choose the other games of the portfolio, and just an example of our innovation, we continue to target to be more and more specific in terms of customer targeting, and for example, we have just come out with Chinese language products, which is Chinese players are something very relevant in Italy. Last but not least, customer engagement. We have mentioned in the past some of these tools, but it's important to see them as a whole.
We've been the first one in the markets to adopt, we are page number eight, to adopt generative AI tools for customer acquisition and engagement activities so that we are able to personalize marketing communication, looking at players' interest. We have a very wide range of promos which are customized by customer cluster, but also they can be customized to very detailed, to fit for a very detailed customer segmentation. In the end, the story is that we have tools that allow us to hyper-personalize automatically the engagement that we do both in sports and casino games on our customer base. This is also clearly by a portfolio of brands which have a different and complementary positioning towards the customer base, which we can leverage to cover basically all possible targets in the market.
Also, the new brand that we've recently launched on August the 6th, Totosì, will also help us complete our proposition to the markets in terms of customer base coverage with the various brands that we have in the portfolio. So with these, I hand it to Laurence to deep dive on the financial and KPIs for the quarter. Please, Laurence.
Thank you, Guglielmo. So moving on to page 10, you can see that on a consolidated level, the group has achieved a growth of 28% on bets and 19% on revenues. In Q3, the growth has been 30% in revenues and a very similar result also when we normalize for the payout. At an EBITDA level, we see in the first nine months that we've achieved the EBITDA of EUR 483 million, which is a 13% growth on a reported basis or 25% on a normalized basis.
And when you look at Q3, the results are 33% growth in both on a reported basis and on a normalized payout basis, 33%. If you move to page 11, you'll see the continued very solid growth in online with a 45% decrease in revenues year on year or 52% with a normalized payout. Sports franchise plus 13% or when you normalize for payout is 25%, and gaming franchise slightly up at plus 3%. In the first nine months at an EBITDA level, very similar pattern, 31% growth in online on a normalized basis, 41%, and in sports franchise on a normalized basis, 19%. Clearly, the result then for on a reported basis is affected by the unfavorable payout. And gaming franchise up 1% year on year in the first nine months. Moving to page 12, you can see the operating cash flow.
You'll see that in the first nine months, we've spent EUR 169 million of CapEx, of which, and again, each of the elements, both recurring and concession, as well as extraordinary, they're all in line with the guidance that we had provided earlier in the year. The recurring CapEx amounted to EUR 67 million. So in line with, again, for the first nine months, and we expect for the year, as we've mentioned, the guidance was EUR 70 million-75 million for Lottomatica ex-SKS plus circa EUR 12 million for SKS. So adding the two, you're at a midpoint of around EUR 85 million for the year. Concession CapEx amounted to EUR 63 million. Just one point to note here is that in Q4 2024, we do not expect any additional concession CapEx.
The EUR 63 million that you see on the page are in line with the guidance and represent the full year amount for concession CapEx. Extraordinary CapEx amounted to EUR 39 million. Again, here we see the various elements in the box. The post carryover of EUR 17 million out of the EUR 20 million that we had guided earlier this year, the third purchase consideration of EUR 7 million out of the EUR 9 million that we had guided for the year, and bolt-on of EUR 11 million for the activity that we have completed so far, as Guglielmo mentioned earlier in the slide. When you look at the operating cash flow, we've achieved EUR 353 million of EBITDA minus recurring and concession CapEx. 2023 benefits from having lower concession CapEx.
If we were to adjust that for the similar concession CapEx that we have in the first nine months of 2024, the result would be EUR 317 million for the first nine months of 2023. So good growth also on that front. Moving on to page 13, sorry, on the net financial debt, the bridge, you can see how we've ultimately achieved a net leverage of 2.6 turns for the quarter. So starting from the H1 result from the 30th of June 2024, you can see the contribution of EBITDA of EUR 166 million, net working capital cash absorption of EUR 55 million, and that mainly is driven by the payment of the gaming taxes, in particular also for Imposta Unica. It's the reversal of the payments that have accumulated in prior periods. CapEx of EUR 54 million. As a reminder, this relates to the third quarter.
Finance expenses paid on lease payments of EUR 24 million, and then other cash outflows of EUR 21 million, which primarily include extraordinary costs of EUR 14 million and the EUR 4 million increase in the lease liabilities as a result of the acquisitions we have carried out so far. So we close the quarter with EUR 1.9 billion of net debt, including a net cash position of EUR 145 million and a net leverage over LTM run rate EBITDA of 2.6 turns. And with that, we're finished. Operator, we can open the Q&A session.
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 the touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. We kindly ask you to use handsets when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. That's star and one. We will now pause for a moment as participants join the queue. The first question is from Fabio Pavan from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, Laurence. Thank you for taking my two questions. The first one is on Q4 VDA. Your guidance assumes normalized payout on the full year. What are your expectations for the last quarter of this year? And the second question is on market dynamics. Since the company was listed, we entered the process of significant consolidation in the fast-growing online segment. I was wondering, do you think there is still room for sizable deals, or do you believe that the focus now should be on addressing the long tail of fragmented market also in the line of the new law framework? Thank you very much.
Okay. I can take the first one, Fabio. So maybe it's easier if we help you bridge Q4 2024 with starting from Q4 2023. So we closed last year's fourth quarter with EUR 154 million of EBITDA. Then to that, you would need to add the contribution from SKS, which we didn't have last year. Plus, you have to add to this also the impact of the unfavorable payout. The fourth quarter last year was probably one of the worst payouts we've had.
We were almost six points above on retail. So if you just sum these two factors, you're basically already in excess of EUR 200 million by performing for these numbers. To this, clearly, you have to add that there's been growth. You have additional synergies that you didn't have in clearly last year, and then you add the effect of the bolt-ons. These are the key elements to bridge to the EBITDA for Q4 2024.
I'll take the second part of the question. How do we grow in this market? Look, what is sure? Let me start, Fabio, from what is for sure possible in this market. There's a long tail. It's there. We have a proposition to consolidate that. We have a very compelling offer for that. It's cheap because it's a very cheap way to grow, a very efficient way to grow market share. So that is something which is sure. You have the tail because it's there in front of us. We have the proposition, which is compelling, and it's not particularly expensive. Then if on top to these larger opportunities may materialize along the way, we will consider them.
But what is reassuring from our perspective is that while the second part will not only depend on us, but will also depend on what is available in the market, which we don't know, the first part is very much dependent on inevitable market dynamics and from what we do. And so we control that much more. And that's something that we are actively working on, and we think that is a relevant opportunity.
Many thanks for your answer. Very clear.
The next question is from Ed Young from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Three questions, please. The first is on cash. So absolute net financial debt was flat in the quarter. Do you expect stronger cash generation in Q4 and higher EBITDA generation? Laurence, you've already flagged there's no concession CapEx in Q4, but what should we expect on working capital and exceptional costs? The second one is on slide two, you talk about the incremental run rate effect of SKS synergies and bolt-ons of about EUR 90 million. Can you give us the breakdown of those three areas to help us bridge the FY25 forecast, please? And then finally, you've talked about how iGaming has been a particular source of strength in terms of market share gains. I just wondered if you could quantify what you think the multi-channel benefit is to your growth there. Thank you.
Thanks, Ed. I could take the first two. So in the fourth quarter, typically, we have working capital fluctuations are sort of flattish to slightly negative. That's definitely less important than what you see in Q3. Also, if you look at our historical numbers, that's the case. In terms of other costs that you have, clearly, you pay the second part of the taxes.
I think we can say because it's a certain number, we'll pay EUR 44 million of taxes. That's the second installment that you pay in the year, which that's the way sort of the tax cycle works in Italy. Then the rest, it will be a bit more heavier on bolt-ons because we will complete all the acquisitions that we've announced, again, in line with guidance. I don't know whether we'll spend the whole amount of bolt-ons just because there may be a difference in timing between the time we sign and the time we have to actually fund. So that's the other element. Will there be other extraordinary costs?
The additional extraordinary costs we'll have in Q4, as you've seen also in Q3, that primarily relate to the integration costs for SKS, as well as we've had also integration costs in relation to the BetFlag migration to the new platform. That's what we've totaled to date. So I think that there will be a clear also integration CapEx. So it's predominantly integration costs and OpEx and CapEx for SKS. These are the main cash flow items, in addition to the usual one that you will have modeled, so interest costs and what have you. For the second question, I think on the 90 million EUR, so the split is broadly it's 29 SKS, 47 synergies, and 15 bolt-ons that get you to the incremental 90 million, which clearly are not included in the range 700-730.
Yeah. So I'll take the last one on iGaming and multi-channel. So that is for sure a very relevant point. If you look at the overall market trends, we're probably starting to see some more material switch effect from retail gaming to iGaming.
And you can see that in the market data from retail gaming, the slightly negative that you have on the retail gaming segment as opposed to what we expected at the time of the IPO, of a slightly positive has to be put in context with the much better performance than expected of iGaming. So there's probably a switch effect from retail gaming to iGaming. In this context, as you know, we've set up a specific omnichannel model on iGaming, which is working very well. It's still in the rollout phase, but on a run rate basis, it's accounting for many hundreds of millions of euros of bet.
So we haven't disclosed the final number as it is always changing. It's on a growing pattern, but it's already between EUR 500 million and EUR 1 billion. It's very sizable, right? So that is something that we have a tool that we have in our toolbox to benefit more than proportionally from this type of macro trend. And on top to that, also on the betting side, you have to consider that there is a very good cross-sale ratio between sports betting, iSports, and iGaming. So that is another element that should be considered in the overall picture. So long story short, yes, it's relevant. We see some more signs of this macro trend, which we have commented in the past, and we have the right tools in place to benefit from these macro trends more than proportionally, more than our fair share. That's the story.
Thank you.
The next question is from Domenico Ghilotti from Equita. Please go ahead.
Good morning to everybody. Two questions. The first is on the SKS synergies, given the fact that you have upgraded the number, if you can provide us, say, an update on the main sources and also if you have also an updated timing for extracting the synergies. The second is a bit of color or drill down on the payout topic. Well, first of all, I'm trying to understand if there is any reason for a structural higher payout in retail gaming, as we have seen so far. If you can give us maybe an update on the current trading, given the fact that October is almost over, and so you are suggesting that you are guiding for a normalized payout, but actually the first nine months were actually a bit below the normalized level.
Maybe just to complete on the payout, if you have also an updated sensitivity on the impact of payout on EBITDA, that would be great. Thank you.
Okay. I can take both questions. On the first one, the incremental EUR 10 million is EUR 5 million OpEx and EUR 5 million revenues. They predominantly come from synergies from suppliers on the OpEx side. Then on the revenue side is a number of actions that we've already sort of implemented where we see the clear benefits of the new product injections that we've put in SKS. Listen, in terms of timing, we think that broadly, again, well, then our assumption so far is that the incremental EUR 10 million will come in 2026.
In terms of payout, so maybe the easiest way sort of to answer the question is, and again, as you know, our guidance is on normalized payout because that's the way we look at the business, and that's the way we forecast the business internally, and it's the most sensible way for us to look at to prepare sort of forecasts. So removing the effect of the volatility of results. Looking at where we are now, if we and again, please, as you know, we don't guide on actual numbers, but if you just run the math as to where we sit now and look at what and assume a normalized payout for the last quarter, our actual numbers, actually EBITDA, should fall in the range that we've provided, so 700-730. And on the sensitivity?
On the sensitivity on a pro forma basis, so if you include a full year of contribution of SKS for a full year, so if you take Lottomatica and SKS for a full year, 1% payout plus or minus impacts the EBITDA plus or minus EUR 14 million of EBITDA. And then on online, it is EUR 24 million as the impact. Now, maybe just to put some context also around this, the volatility in the results, so the volatility of results affect online much less. So if you look at the payout patterns for online, you really see much less volatility in the overall payout for online. As you know, the reason for this is that there is a much higher component of live and a smaller component also of accumulators when you compare it to the retail business.
While in retail and also clearly sports accounts for less than half of the amount of the total online business, the rest being iGaming and other. While for the sports retail business, you have better payouts, so more favorable to the operator, right? So if you look at our numbers, it's around 80%. So more profitable for us, but just more volatile, sort of with higher volatility. Again, because of the weight of accumulators and the stronger and the more heavier weight of generally sports as a percentage of the total sports franchise business.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question is from James Rowland Clark from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. My first is just on the guidance.
Laurence, I think you just said that in Q4, if you'd had normalized payouts, then you would be on track for that 700-730 million of EBITDA for the full year on a normalized payout. Okay. Sorry. Wasn't backward looking. Fine. Okay. And my second question is on regulation. There've obviously been some rumors, articles recently about the prorogation scheme in retail being extended for another two years. I just wondered if you could update us on your thoughts and expectations there. And then finally, on the online concessions framework coming in soon, are you seeing any change in the competitive backdrop there? And how is your strategy to develop and take share coming along? And are you feeling still quite confident about taking your fair share of the tail when the time comes? Thank you.
Yeah. James, on the two-year extension, the way it works is that all retail concessions are, at least this is what's in the draft law. This is still to be approved, and we will know the final outcome in December, but the proposal is to extend all retail concessions until the end of 2026, so two years, and this comes at an incremental cost for us, which is in the range of what we've seen in some reports. It's between EUR 5 million and EUR 10 million, below EUR 10 million, which we believe it's very fair in the sense that you move the whole tender amount for two years by paying this extra cost, which is absolutely a fair approach by the government. On the online, there is also an extension, but that's a technical extension in the sense that technically the online concession ends at the end of this year.
Until we are assigned, we are awarded the new concession, we have to get the title for operating. That's more a technical thing. It can be six months, it can be nine months, it can be whatever. It can be one year. But we think that the process is well grounded there. It's progressing. It's on a very normal path. In terms of competitive landscape, frankly speaking, already everybody's in Italy. We don't see any change to that. We confirm, as I said before, that we see a very clear opportunity in the retail. We have launched this Totosì brand, which is already a brand which was already known in the market. We revamped that and we launched that with a new offer on August the 6th. We already came out with our proposition. It's a compelling proposition.
We think this will allow us to deliver, to perform better than we would on the basis of the fair share in aggregating these tails. There's no changes in terms of the reasons why this should happen. We provide a very compelling proposition to these operators and to these customers. And so yes, the answer is no changes in the online landscape, and we continue to assess that there is a very good opportunity for us in this consolidation process of the tails, and we've come out now. We've moved from the project phase into the delivery phase. We're already in execution. As I said, we launched, we're actually active in the market with this Totosì brand since August the 6th, so it's already up and running.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from Andrea Bonfa from Banca Akros. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning to everybody. Most of my questions have already been answered, but I spoiled the opportunity to ask you if you start seeing some, let's say, bolt-on market for online small concession. Maybe if you can elaborate on that or if it's too early to envision such a scenario. And the second one is if you see any, let's say, difference in attitude from Snaitech in the online market after their disposal. Thank you very much.
So Andrea, thank you. On the first question, bolt-on in the online, there may be occasional opportunities here and there, but we don't think that that is going to be the main avenue of growth of consolidating the tails. That's why we launched this Totosì project, which is another way of aggregating, of putting together, of aggregating these tails and reaching those customers.
It's not through M&A, but through a compelling proposition to the customer base and to the current operators, which is something different from a bolt-on. This doesn't mean that we cannot do bolt-ons here and there, but it's more on an opportunistic basis if we find some assets which are really, really that fit that model. But that's probably not going to be the main tool for consolidating the market. That's why we focus so much on making sure we were on time in the market, well, ahead of time with a new brand and a new proposition for doing that, let's say, semi-organically. Let's put it this way. No, no changes observed in Snaitech, actually. That's pretty much no changes.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you, Andrea.
The next question is from Simon Davies. Please go ahead.
Three from me, if I may. Firstly, you've been through a period of considerable market share gains, I guess, driven largely by revenue synergies from M&A. As we look out to 2025 and beyond, is it realistic to assume that there is much more to go for, or should we think of revenue growth being more in line with market growth? Secondly, can you give us some color on the run of sporting results so far in October? Is that in line with your Q4 expectations? And lastly, on bolt-ons, you've obviously seen a step up in activity in 2024. Going out, what should we think of as being a normal year in terms of bolt-on activity, and what are the main areas in which you see opportunities for small-scale M&A?
Yeah. So Simon, I'll take number one and three, right? Number two. So the growth of market share through revenue synergy, yeah, for sure, there's been a part which has come from revenue synergies.
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm not sure, operator, you may be open mic. No problem. Look, so there's been for sure part of the revenue synergy, the market share increase which has come from revenue synergy, but I wouldn't say that has been the most relevant part by any means. The most relevant part, as you can also appreciate from the like-for-like exercise, which of course may have embedded some uplift on the revenues of the acquired assets, but it's not only that. It's coming from the elements that define our structural competitive advantage in the market. So it's coming from a superior offer, it's coming from a superior customer engagement.
This is made possible by the fact that we have a hard integration of the platforms which allow us to do things that others cannot do, and in other cases, they have to rely on, say, a toolbox of soft skills more than really hard levers embedded in the product and in the technology, so that's been the strongest driver of our market share, then, of course, when you take BetFlag, right, which is running on a sub, which is doing a great job in iGaming, but as a lower-performing sports betting platform, and you move that to our group platform, and just in a matter of one month, you increase market share by shy of 80%, well, yeah, that's nice to have, and it's or it's we've observed the same thing.
We've had some positive also, even though it's not integrated yet, but on the way SKS is managed, or we've had a turnaround of the Lottomatica assets that we bought in 2021. So there is for sure a component which you can label revenue synergies, but I would say that the most relevant one is just pure organic performance on the market share, which is coming from those levers that you've seen in the slide. So that's the story. So long story short, our target is to continue seeing market share increase even though there is no M&A activity. So I'll take number three, and then we go back to number two. On the bolt-ons, yeah, in 2024 has been quite active, but also in 2023, we had done quite a lot.
What I can tell you is that probably there is going to be, even though we have it's hard to say at the moment, but probably we will have opportunities also in 2025, material opportunities, which now it's difficult to quantify because we are focused on delivering the 2024 pipeline. But I wouldn't be surprised if we had also material opportunities also in 2025. Where is this going to be? This is going to be for sure in gaming machines and some sports betting also. It's in what type of assets? It's assets where we can acquire a very compelling accretive multiples, but also in many cases with the strategic objective of improving our omnichannel position. When we buy here and there, for example, a few gaming halls, high-quality gaming halls, that's for sure nice to have in terms of EBITDA, and it's accretive.
But at the same time, that's another opportunity for improving and enlarging, extending our iGaming omnichannel model, right? So all these, the characteristics of this bolt-on is that they come at very compelling multiples. They are very accretive, but in many cases, they also bring a side value which is going to be more and more material as time goes by, usually on online in terms of omnichannel model or cross-sale opportunity, right? So that's the rationale. But long story short, yes, we've been active in 2024, and I'm pretty sure there's going to be stuff to do, material stuff to do also in 2025. And for your second question, Simon, I'd say, listen, we've still got another couple of days to go in October. The Italian Championship is happening today and tomorrow.
But that said, so far in October, you're seeing online payout in line with normalized, and the retail one is a little bit above the normalized level.
Brilliant. Thank you very much.
This concludes the conference call. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect now.