Good morning. Thank you for joining us today to mark this new chapter in our history. I'm joined by Rob Hoskin, our Chief Governance Officer, who will take you through our sustainability pillar, and Rob Wood, our CFO, who will join us for questions at the end. Over the last decade, the gaming sector has transformed with new technologies, products, platforms, and ways of playing. In this time, GVC, too, has changed beyond all recognition. Today, we are the world-leading technology-enabled entertainment business with innovation, ambition, and player protection at our core. We have the best people right across the business who have driven the group to grow at tremendous rates.
Last month, we announced our 19th consecutive quarter of double-digit online growth, and I can only see this pace accelerating as we grow our core business, leading the U.S. into new markets, capturing opportunities with new audiences, and other areas of digital entertainment. In fact, I believe we can double or even triple the size of our business in the next five years. And in a moment, I will tell you why. But it is important that you know I do not want to grow at any cost. We must do this in a responsible way. Under my leadership, we will evolve as a business. We will grow in a way that is underpinned by sustainability, responsibility, and player protection. In recognition of this, and to mark a new chapter, we are today announcing a fresh vision and corporate identity. We plan to change our name to Entain PLC.
It is a name we believe captures the journey we've been on, and more importantly, our future direction and purpose. As Entain, we will be bold, ambitious, and disruptive. Our vision is to be the world leader in sports betting and gaming entertainment. And our purpose is clear: to revolutionize gambling to create the most exciting and trusted entertainment for every customer. This means providing a richer and safer experience for all. Our strategy is divided into two pillars: sustainability and growth. I'm certain that this approach will guarantee long-term success, certainty, and value for our customers, our people, and our shareholders. We can deliver on this ambition because of our greatest asset, our technology. Technology is and will remain the beating heart of our business. It is what powers us and distinguishes us from our competitors. You will have heard me say it before, but it is important.
Unlike our peers, we own 100% of our technology. This is critical. We have strong and growing digital teams across the world with 3,000 world-class developers, specialists, software engineers, and data scientists who deliver one of the most advanced platforms inside and outside our industry. Owning our technology means that we can operate at scale. We manage 2 million sports bets and 21 million poker hands dealt each day. It means that we have inbuilt flexibility, which guarantees a consistent and resilient service across a multitude of mobile and desktop formats. We operate in so many markets that the ability to provide customers with content that's relevant not just locally, but personally, means that the operator who can provide the best choice will be the leader. We aggregate over 6,000 games for more than 130 game content providers, and we offer over 250,000 events across 90 sports.
These are all promoted by our advanced recommendation engine so that we can ensure customers get what is right for them. Underpinning all of this are the protection mechanisms built into our system throughout the customer journey at every touchpoint of their experience. The most powerful thing about our technology is that it gives us the flexibility to support our growth, whether that is in existing or new markets, new categories, or new audiences. Our technology is built so that we can do all of this at the same time. We are not constrained by the ambitions of capital allocation or third-party multiple clients. We are entirely in control of our own destiny. And we deliver at speed because we don't have to coordinate with third parties to get stuff done. Let me give you some examples.
Integrating new businesses, our proven integration process enables us to onboard new businesses quickly and rapidly deliver cost and revenue synergies. We've demonstrated this with the integration of bwin, the Party brands, Ladbrokes and Coral, Foxy Bingo, Crystalbet, and Neds. And we are about to do it with our most recent acquisition in Portugal, Bet.pt. During COVID, we completed the Ladbrokes platform migration. We launched in three states in the U.S. and are now launching in Colombia. Others would have struggled to do all of this simultaneously, as we have done. But most importantly, our technology enables us to properly understand problem gambling so that we can take a tailored approach to each player. And we do all of this while ensuring that our platform is secure as well as ready for new and emerging technologies such as virtual reality and 5G.
The agility, flexibility, scale, and speed is why we see our technology as our competitive advantage. Our technology also empowers greater efficiencies. In terms of absolute cost of our technology, we continue to drive this down on a like-for-like basis. So as we grow, our technology becomes more cost-efficient relative to our revenues. We are also undertaking a rigorous review of our operational costs and will update you on progress as we go. Before I talk to you about our growth opportunities, let me pass you over to Rob to talk about sustainability.
Thank you, Shay. As Shay said at the outset, becoming Entain isn't just about changing our name. It's about starting a new chapter, repositioning the company, and revolutionizing the industry as we commit to sustainability, to responsibility, and to player protection. We know that a successful business is a sustainable business. To that end, today we are launching our new sustainability charter, the four cornerstones of which are regulation, responsibility, corporate governance, and our people and communities. As part of this charter, we are committing today to only operating in nationally regulated markets by the end of 2023. Currently, 96% of our revenues come from regulated or regulating markets. But we have decided to exit a number of markets where we see no viable route to regulation in the near term.
We are starting that process today so that by the end of this year, 99% of our NGR will be from regulated or regulating markets. We will keep an eye on the regulatory timetable for the remaining 1% and, where possible, work closely with the relevant in-country authorities and trade bodies to help develop a robust framework that protects players and maintains the highest regulatory standards. Operating in regulated markets provides greater clarity and certainty for our business. We are also becoming much more proactive in our engagement with regulators. As you will know, the U.K.'s 2005 Gambling Act will be going through a much-needed review that will set out the regulatory framework for years to come. It will address all forms of gambling in the U.K. and is an opportunity to address the fringes of the industry as well as dealing with the mainstream.
We fully intend on contributing to this process in a meaningful way and will argue for a balance between protecting the minority at risk while supporting a healthy entertainment experience that appeals to the majority and is commercially viable for operators. As we've seen, the effective changes made by gambling operators over the last couple of years have resulted in a meaningful reduction in problem gambling. It is critical now that any revised legislation is not too draconian, as this will have the unintended consequences of pushing customers, particularly those at risk of problem gambling, towards using non-U.K. licensed operators. This will simply exacerbate the problem and result in reduced tax revenue for the Chancellor, as we've seen in other jurisdictions.
We expect it to explore the applicability of stake limits based on sound analysis and evidence to address the issues that affect the small minority of players who may run into problems. This is a much more practical, pragmatic, and viable solution than the calls from some anti-gambling campaigners. We will work with our peers and the Betting and Gaming Council to ensure that the review is appropriately informed. As can be seen on the right side of this slide, we have started some of our own insight work to support this. The process should take around 18-24 months and will bring the much-needed clarity and stability that we all want to see. We are now taking a more scientific approach to safer gambling so that our interventions can be targeted and personalized.
To add rigor, discipline, objectivity, and accountability to this process, we have recruited Professor Mark Griffiths, a leading safer gambling academic and data scientist, who will review our existing policies and systems and propose improvements based on evidence with measurable metrics and performance indicators. Mark's work will draw on our existing multi-million dollar partnership with Harvard Medical School, which will provide open-source research to support a greater understanding of problem gambling issues. This research will be fed into the next evolution of our player protection ARC. This new and innovative Advanced Responsibility and Care program puts our exceptional technological know-how to good. A more scientific approach will enable us to more effectively protect the smaller minority of customers who are at risk of gambling harm. We are increasingly providing more personalized proactive protection measures for our customers.
Using advanced BI, our specialists and data scientists have built the first stage of this. It will track player behavior in real time and identify problem play before it escalates. Each player will have a dynamic risk rating that automatically updates in line with their play patterns and other criteria. An alert system interacts with customers when prompted and triggers an appropriate intervention. We are committed to raising the bar higher, and from next year, responsible gambling metrics will be added to our group-wide KPIs and incorporated into our remuneration policy. This commitment, combined with the market exits, will likely reduce EBITDA by around GBP 40 million in 2021, but it is the right thing for us to do as a responsible operator and the right thing to do for customers, our people, and shareholders.
Turning to corporate governance, we recognize that to be a world-leading company, we need to adhere to the highest standards of governance in all areas of our operations. Our board has been strengthened and revitalized over the last two years, notably with Barry Gibson becoming Group Chairman in February. We now have a robust corporate governance structure and policies in place that befit our status as a FTSE 100 company. Furthermore, last month, we announced two board appointments with David Satz and me joining the board to reinforce the commitment to regulation, governance, and responsibility. As the board and nominations committee is focused on introducing greater diversity to its membership, it is anticipated that further changes will be made in due course. The final cornerstone of our sustainability charter is our people and communities.
Our culture gives us the clear edge over our competitors, and we're proud to have the best people in our industry. You've heard the speed at which we can make changes in our technology. It's our people that make this possible, delivering day in, day out. Making GVC the best place to work is more than a label. We want to continue to attract and retain the best talent and embrace diversity of thought and experience because our people will ensure we remain bold, diverse, and ambitious and produce world-leading products. To ensure that, we trust and empower our people to do great work for our customers and build brilliant global careers here. We're imaginative. We set the pace, and we push boundaries, using technology to do more exciting and innovative work than ever before and do the right thing.
We're proud of our inclusive culture, where we attract more diverse candidates from a wider range of sectors than ever before. Over 36% of our senior leaders are women, an increase of 8% compared to last year, and we look after our people. Over 98% of our workforce was paid 100% of their salary through lockdown, and we offered all colleagues a range of mental health care initiatives and virtual learning programs. We invest in leading development and progression for long-term careers here, and we promote internally as a priority, the most notable examples being Shay and Rob Wood's promotions. As I've said, we have a strong philanthropic track record. The next step is to formalize these activities, and I'm pleased that we will be launching the Entain Foundation, which is committed to donating GBP 100 million over the next five years.
We're also proud that we retain our membership of the FTSE4Good Index for the third year and were recognized by the Carbon Trust for our carbon reduction initiatives. One of the things that I think we are all most proud of is our new Pitching In program. This provides support to grassroots initiatives. In summary, we are committed to doing the right thing for our customers, our people, and our communities. Before I hand back to Shay, let me just play a short video on Pitching In.
Sport, it's in our DNA. We live and breathe it. Without it, we simply wouldn't be who we are today. In these unprecedented times, sportsmen, women, clubs, and organizations face huge challenges, and we want to be there to support them. That's why we've launched our investment program, Pitching In, to promote and support grassroots sport and provide vital resources and finance. It's about what we can give back to the world of sport, and we're immensely proud to support two flagship projects.
The first, SportsAid, a charity dedicated to providing aspiring British athletes with financial support, recognition, and personal development at the outset of their careers. Secondly, the Trident Leagues, made up of 226 clubs at the heart of English non-league football. The importance of Pitching In is it's given the opportunity and funding at a really crucial point in time, I think.
Through our partnership with SportsAid, Pitching In supports over 50 aspiring young British athletes each year, helping fund the cost of training and equipment. We also give the athletes access to expert advice on nutrition, time management, training, and media relations.
Honestly, this award means so much to me. The support I had from you guys last year was fundamental for me qualifying for the European and World Championships. The grant will help me massively in terms of equipment I can buy. I think across the board, it's going to be good for sport. It's going to be good for community. It's going to be good for football.
We talked about a sustainable business for the future and driving long-term value. Now, let's talk about growth. We see growth opportunities in four key areas. One, the U.S. Two, our core markets. Three, new markets and four, new audiences. BetMGM is positioned to become the leading operator in a sports betting and gaming market we estimate will be worth at least $20 billion within the next five years. Let me pick out some key stats. In the nine states where we currently operate, we estimate our overall share of sports betting and iGaming to be 18%. We benefit from MGM's significant retail presence, and if we strip that out and just look at our online share, it's still an impressive 17%. However you look at the numbers, we are on the target for our 15%-20% market share and leading position.
This is set to increase as our investment in marketing and partnerships, such as with Yahoo Sports and integration with M life, start to materialize and drive customer acquisition. In New Jersey, we are performing fantastically with around 23% of iGaming market share. We launched in Tennessee on the 1st of November and have had a really strong start, taking a significant market share in the first days. All our teams came together and created a clear blueprint for launching on day one, and we are really excited about upcoming launches in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. The chart on the right shows how the momentum is building as we get ready to be in over 20 states by the end of next year. And remember, because of our technology, BetMGM benefits from a significant cost advantage.
One of the more exciting opportunities to engage with new customers is through our partnership with Yahoo Sports. With around 50 million customers and nine million fantasy sport players, we have been working hard to offer them a seamless experience using the BetMGM platform. I'm delighted that we have now delivered on that, and customers can place a bet on a game they are watching on or play games while staying with a Yahoo Sports account. Don't forget that the Yahoo Sports platform is one of the only places that customers can watch every NFL game live. We've seen significant growth in FTDs from Yahoo Sports, such that it is currently our leading affiliate. One of the many advantages of our joint venture with MGM is our access to the 34 million M life customers. The power of this relationship is already delivering.
25% of recently acquired BetMGM customers are active M life customers. Our technology has now integrated BetMGM with M life so that M life customers are able to seamlessly bet and game online. And we know these customers can be twice as valuable. Yet another advantage for our joint venture with MGM is the omnichannel opportunity. BetMGM enjoys prominent advertising in and on MGM properties, as well as benefiting from integration into website and apps marketing to both M life and non-M life customers. It is a truly omnichannel experience for BetMGM customers.
This is important because we know that customers who play through retail as well as online typically spend more. The single BetMGM app went live during October and is already driving value. We have launched a range of new products, such as Easy Parlay and Parlay Generator, that enable customers to place accumulator bets across multiple games. We've also been building advertising around our new brand ambassador, Jamie Foxx. Here is the advert that he did for BetMGM, which differentiates us from our competitors and resonates with sport fans.
You want to make every game interesting? Step one, open the BetMGM Sportsbook. Step two, put some skin in the game. And step three, showtime. TDs, back with K's, RBIs, and the TKOs. Hey, B-I-G. The overs, the unders, the underdogs, and the upsets. Ooh, yeah, that hits different. When they go, "Oh, go!" You're all in. The buzzer beeps, the walk-off blasts, and every Hail Mary pass is one tap away from you doing your victory dance. Now you're in the ring with the king of sportsbooks. You know what to do.
We have delivered continuous and steady growth, 19 quarters of double-digit online growth, to be specific. At our last quarterly update in October, we saw a two-year compound annual growth rate of 17%, and I'm pleased to say that this performance continues. The sporting calendar has remained active. Margins have been favorable, and gaming remains above pre-COVID levels. This delivers a full-year EBITDA up this year by approximately GBP 30-40 million, and this offsets the costs from the current enforced store closure as a result of COVID lockdowns that we announced on the 2nd of November. As a result, the guidance we gave with our third quarter of GBP 770-790 million for EBITDA this year remains deliverable. The trading performance through the next year adds approximately GBP 50 million to EBITDA expectation for 2021. We see growth opportunity for several reasons. We have in-built growth in our core markets.
93% of revenues is from markets that are growing more than 10% a year. Outside the U.K., 81% of our markets have less than 20% online penetration. As I've already told you, we have a world-class system developed by world-class people, and those systems generate vast amounts of data. Owning the entire system means that we are able to pull that into a single data lake across markets and brands and develop models that are much more comprehensive than our peers, improving both customer experience and digital marketing. Many of our competitors have fragmented technology, meaning needs to reconcile data for multiple resources, making them less agile and less accurate. We can apply those data analytics across our markets, including the U.S. Within 24 hours of onboarding a new customer, we know very quickly what their lifetime value will be and what products they will prefer.
Our technology integrates with marketing channels like Google and Facebook, allowing us to benefit from the enhanced capabilities, such as dynamic granular audience segmentation. This enables us to optimize our marketing spend and drive better ROI. As an example of real-time marketing, your horse doesn't run. We'll let you know really quickly and give you some alternative betting options. We have a clear long-term strategy for retail. We must remember that today the retail market in the U.K. is worth around GBP 2.5 billion, and our European retail business remains in growth, and COVID has shown us that customers want to enjoy the retail experience. Volume in our retail estate came back to within 10% of our pre-COVID levels. In the long term, customers will, of course, migrate to online, but in the meanwhile, we have a clear strategy to maximize our share of the GBP 2.5 billion. Our technology is key.
We've developed our own point-of-sale system that integrates with our platform so that we have a single view of the customer, streamlining that online transition. We are building our own software for the self-service betting terminals that reduce costs but also add to that database of customer experience. We actively use retail to encourage customers to use our apps and our loyalty cards. And let's not forget that retail operation in the U.K. generates around GBP 100 million of cash each year. With around 3,000 shops, we get significant advertising benefits as well. There are significant opportunities across the globe with over $50 billion gross gaming revenues from regulated markets in Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe, twice as much as the size of our business today. We have the products, the technology, the people, and the global brands.
Some of these markets are different from the way we operate elsewhere. For example, many of the countries in Africa are more reliant on mobile, with many still operating on 2G or 3G. That means we have to adjust our content. There are also low-stake markets, with customers placing low-stake accumulators bets across a large number of games. So we are looking at what sort of technology and expertise we would need to enter markets like that. As you know, we announced the acquisition of Bet.pt last month. Portugal is a recently regulated and rapidly growing market that we expect to be worth around EUR 450 million by 2023, and we can grow Bet.pt within that. It is this sort of opportunity that we are focusing on. We are proud of our track record of value creation through M&A.
We are able to deliver that because of our technology and product portfolio. We can take a business, provide our products, data analytics, digital marketing skills, and our technology platform to drive cost and revenue synergies. We have integrated 20 businesses in the last five years. But just looking at the last three major acquisitions here, we can see that in each case, we increased value for shareholders. Just picking out Crystalbet in Georgia, it was a small private business that was reaching its limits. We leveraged our technology, gave it our expertise, and access to our leading product and sportsbook, and increased the value to our shareholders by over two times. Crystalbet now is the number one operator in Georgia. We are seeing some exciting opportunities emerging in consumer trends. There are vast and tough markets out there. The gaming market is huge and growing every day.
Currently, there are around 2.7 billion gamers in the world. 100 million people watch the League of Legends World Championship. This is a huge and growing audience. Gaming is fast becoming the hub of other digital activities, creating a whole new ecosystem where customers interact with the online market, including betting. The esports betting market is expected to be worth $1 billion by 2024, and we anticipate exponential growth from there. Furthermore, new technologies such as 5G and virtual reality will make all forms of betting more engaging. These emerging trends create new audiences. We have invested in understanding who they are and how our offering can be tailored for them. These audiences tend to prefer mobile, are keen on technology, and like new betting concepts. It's an exciting and growing market of which we will be at the forefront. This short video should give you some context.
The global interactive gaming market is huge. It's continuously expanding and evolving, creating exciting new opportunities. In 2020, this market is worth an incredible $142 billion, and by 2024, it's estimated to rise to $180 billion. Currently, there are over a billion adult gamers around the world, with numbers increasing rapidly each year. Within the gaming sector, the fastest-growing segment is esports. Already, this market is worth over $1 billion, and this is set to double by 2024. Esports are exploding in popularity, played and viewed by millions around the world. Already, an incredible 500 million people currently watch esports across the globe. The League of Legends World Championship was seen by over 100 million people. That's more than the Super Bowl.
This increase in popularity has created an entirely new and exciting market for sports betting, where adult gamers can place a bet on themselves against a friend or competitor or on their favorite gamer or team. It's estimated that by 2024, this new audience will place around $1 billion of legal bets on esports. The launch of 5G is propelling gaming and esports into a new era, with the online mobile gaming experience rapidly catching up with traditional desktop and console-based experience. This has led to major names in world sports such as FIFA, the NBA, and NHL jostling for positions to join the action. Global tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and NVIDIA have all invested heavily in technology to bring cloud gaming to the fore, creating a brand new online ecosystem.
This, coupled with esports, gives us the opportunity to revolutionize interactive gaming entertainment for millions of consumers. Ultimately, we want to bring our expertise to deliver an engaging, immersive, and safe betting experience in this exciting new world.
In summary, our investment in technology has enabled us to deliver strong growth over the last decade and outperform our competition. Our continued investment in technology will see us grow further in existing as well as new and innovative markets. We see tremendous scope to grow our business through partnership in gaming, in esports, and interactive entertainment. The strategy that I've outlined today under sustainability and growth will achieve greater certainty by being in regulated markets, greater geographical diversification, and higher quality revenue streams, delivering for all our stakeholders: our customers, our people, our communities, and our shareholders. Thank you all for listening. I would like to turn over to questions.
Thank you. For those on the telephone conversation, if you would like to ask a question, please press star two on your telephone keypad. That is star two on your telephone keypad. And the first question we have is from Michael Mitchell. Please go ahead. You're from Davy. Your line is open. Thank you.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. Just two, if I could, both on the growth side of the presentation. First of all, on new markets, and maybe we could use Africa as an example, could you just kind of set out your thoughts in terms of market entry? Are there some of these kind of geographies and confidence that you go into organically, or is it all by inorganic means?
And specifically to Africa, maybe you could just kind of set out the operator landscape today, how advanced it is, and whether some of those operators actually operate across multiple geographies. That's question number one. And then question number two, somewhat related in terms of investment. Clearly, you're setting out a pretty significant growth opportunity across multiple verticals. How should we think, or how do you think about investment across the group going forward? Are you willing to kind of invest significantly at the expense of near-term EBITDA to secure future medium-term growth? Thank you.
Thanks, Michael. Morning. So I'll take the first question. Maybe I'll give a broad answer to the investment allocation question. In terms of Africa, it's a market we've been studying probably for some time now, for the last 12 months or so. There are quite exciting, I would say, more than 20 regulated markets in Africa which allow online sports betting with a license. Clearly, as we put our strategy, our focus is only on regulated markets. What we did learn in Africa is that the technology, in order to penetrate Africa, operate in the African market, it's required some localization, both in terms of content and in terms of reach for the customers. For example, mobile payments is very popular in Africa, so there's quite a lot of integration.
So I guess it will be a combination of some of our existing expertise, our brands, like bwin as an example, our marketing expertise, and our existing technology. And probably with some other expertise, we will look externally to combine it together and to go to the African market, which I hope we can be able to do something in Africa somewhere next year. As I mentioned, there's quite a lot of regulated markets. The focus clearly will be on digital. I mean, countries like Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, they're all interesting markets, which we'll look into it. Rob, do you want to take the second answer?
Sure. Happy to. Morning, Michael. Good morning, everyone. So I think the first thing to say is that because we have such a strong cash generation profile over the next few years, we do have the flexibility to invest, invest in M&A, invest in the U.S., pay dividends, and delever all at the same time. If you look at our track record, some of our investments, particularly M&A, have a near-term return, very strong EBITDA creation. The U.S., though, is the opposite. That's an example of investment where EBITDA is clearly much slower to come through. So we're willing to do both, but clearly, if we're buying businesses that are already in our space, Bet.pt is an example in Portugal. We are looking for near-term EBITDA generations with that type of deal.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. And our next question is from Ed Young from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Line is open there.
Thank you. I've got three if that's okay. The first is on the emerging trends and expansion to new audiences. I appreciate that somewhat of a vision you've laid out, but you have named and focused on esports a number of times in the presentation. What's your current mix of esports in the portfolio, and should we expect acquisitions in adjacent spaces? And I guess wider than esports, how wide could it go? Could it involve social casino or broader than that?
Where do you set the limits of your horizon? The second is on current trading. It's obviously very strong to get an upgrade this late in the year. So can you talk about what you're seeing that's giving you the confidence that this volume is going to stick? And should we expect that in sports and gaming? Should we expect to see growth in those next year? And then third is, it was a bit of a throwaway line, but just checking, you said that you're reviewing the cost base. Is that just business as usual in terms of cost discipline, or is there potentially some margin opportunity there? Thanks.
Morning, Ed. So I can take the first question on esports and other emerging trends, and Rob Wood, if you can take online trading and the cost base. So I'll start. Yeah, I mean, again, one of the things that we try to deliver through this presentation as well is that our strong position as a tech-driven business. Again, one of the big things that the big asset that we have as a group is our technology. We are a very tech-driven business, which enables us also to expand and use this advantage to other emerging categories. As we know, the world is moving fast. Consumer behavior is changing. The new technologies are emerging. So we are looking into beyond just esports, things like virtual reality, 5G, another form of gaming.
How does this affect our existing core business, and how can we expand to new forms of technologies and new forms of consumer trends as well? I wouldn't limit ourselves for anything. I mean, pretty much anything that I think we can create value, again, leveraging our brands, our technology, our marketing expertise, our licenses, everything that we can leverage from that and create a value, I think we should definitely look into it. Esports is probably a trivial one. Again, it's a growing trend. We see probably esports today is a small percentage of our revenues. It's probably a single low digit of our sports revenues, but we do see it growing. I mean, specifically during the pandemic, as sport events were canceled, you're seeing more bets on esports events. But if you park that, esports communities are growing. Gaming or general gaming becomes more and more popular.
It becomes a more popular form of general entertainment, and there are full ecosystems around gaming, and betting is one of them. So we see a great opportunity for this for the future. And I believe that this is the right time for us to start making the first investment and the baby step into positioning ourselves as a future leader also in the esports. And we will not limit ourselves there. I think other areas like skill games, social casinos, other forms of gaming and entertainment, or interactive entertainment, we should look into it as well. Rob, do you want to take the two other questions?
Sure. So firstly, the one on current trading. So yes, the strength has continued into Q4. The first thing I'd say is that the £30-40 million upgrade to online, that's roughly half margin and therefore non-recurring and half volume. And really what we're seeing is strength in volumes that we've seen over the summer. Yes, there has been some tapering off, but not as far as we thought would happen.
And therefore, we've got increased confidence that those volumes will not just carry on through Q4, but also into next year as well. And that's really the heart of the £50 million upgrade to expectations next year. And specifically, it's both sports and gaming in a fairly equal mix. On the last question around costs that were referenced in the presentation, we do constantly look at opportunities to make ourselves more efficient. I think the answer to your question is it is more in the camp of efficiency program rather than BAU. You'll hear a little bit more about that next year. Yes, it should lead to margin accretion as a result.
Thanks very much.
Thank you. And our next question is from Simon Davies from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, morning, guys. Three from me, please. Firstly, can you talk a bit about ESG? It's obviously an increasing focus for investors. As a data-led business, is there more that you think you can be doing, both in terms of disclosure, but also in terms of target setting? And secondly, you talked about 3,000 tech developers employed within the business. What do you estimate your annual technology costs are, CapEx and OpEx combined? And do you think that that needs to rise given your increased focus on technology? And lastly, as a slight throwaway line, you mentioned the push to move to your own SSBT platform. When do you think that might happen?
Morning, Simon. So I'll take the SSBT question and maybe a bit about the 3,000 tech. I think, Rob Wood, if you can take the cost of that, and maybe Rob Hoskin to take the ESG. So I'll start with the SSBT. Yeah, I mean, maybe again, as a tech-driven business, we have all of the capability now to develop our technology. We already own 100% of our full technology on the digital space. I mean, something which became very clear today on the presentation.
We see it as not only just an advantage, it's like a core DNA for us to own the technology and to be able to be flexible, control our destiny, give customer choice, and aggregate all of the customer interaction into a single database, which allows us to better understand our customers, our DNA, and provide them a better service as a result of it. We've been running some big technology investment into retail in the last two, three years. We just deployed a full point-of-sale system, an electronic point-of-sale system, into the Coral shops and about to conclude it next year into the Ladbrokes shops, which again connect the betting shops into our overall gaming hubs, and our plan is to extend it also to the other technologies of the betting shops as well, including the self-service betting terminals. This project is ongoing.
I assume it will be another. It's very hard to estimate. We're not going to rush into it. We're going to do it properly. I would assume it's another 12 to 24 months before it will be fully operational. And we're not going to rush into it. We're going to build it properly. Just maybe to touch one more thing before I hand over to Rob Wood is that, yeah, we are, technology is very key for us. We have more than 3,000 IT people in our organization, including developers, software engineers, data scientists. And we're making every investment into technology. I mean, the SSBT is just one example of many. And we will continue to invest further into technology as well. And in terms of figures, maybe Rob, you'd better mention.
Sure. I'll take that. Good morning, Simon. So if we just look at technology and product cost, you'll get to around 7%-8% of our online NGR. And we think that compares favorably, of course, to competitors who are typically paying double digits for those services. And then, as Shay referenced, we can clearly scale beyond that and get that percentage further down over time, as you saw from the chart in the presentation.
Yeah, Rob, take the ESG.
Great. Morning, everyone. Just on ESG issues, I think this is very much a focus of Entain. We continue to be a member of the FTSE4Good Index, which assesses practices and public documents against a series of criteria around governance, social practices, environmental commitments. Also, in relation to the environmental piece, we've obviously been working with the Carbon Trust to play our part in reducing our environmental footprint. I think where we would look now is to show greater transparency around our practices. I'd anticipate you'll see that early next year in the annual report.
Yeah. Okay.
Great. Thank you.
Great.
Thank you. And our next question is from Christine Zhou from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning. Thank you. A couple of questions on the U.S., please. Firstly, in terms of the actual customer experience on your BetMGM app, how do you think you differentiate that compared to peers? I suppose linked to that, how sticky do you find your customers, and what is it that brings them back to BetMGM over other apps? And secondly, just in terms of your responsible gambling strategy, how are you viewing this in the context of the U.S. specifically? And I guess that's in light of the amount of marketing spend that's coming through both for you and for the industry more generally as a whole. And are you worried that there's not enough focus on this industry-wide in the U.S. in particular?
That's okay. Morning, Christine. So let me, I mean, let me take both of them, and Rob will lead me if needed on the RG. In terms of customer experience, I mean, again, clearly, us owning our own technology gives us a great advantage, I mean, versus other peers who operate in the U.S. market, owning part of the technology and not the full. And this gives us the ability to be more innovative. I mean, today, one of the things that I mentioned is that our ability to integrate, for example, the M life program and the Yahoo Sports into a seamless journey with the BetMGM. We also launched some innovative accumulator enhancements, which are quite unique in our offering in the U.S. We are first to market.
I mean, our strategy now, as we did in Tennessee, we did in Colorado, and we hope to do it in Michigan and other states as well, is to be first to market in other U.S. states as they open up, and we continue running ongoing customers' feedback, voice of customers, and improving our user experience, which I think we're getting really good momentum. I would say that on gaming, I believe that we have the best product in the U.S. market. You can see it also from our market share in New Jersey, which is probably the most competitive market in the U.S., and also our market share in West Virginia. In terms of iGaming, and I think, again, through our technology, this investment is continuing with our thousands of developers who will be able to continue and develop this product further.
I really think, actually, that the long-term winner in the U.S. is the business which will have the best product and the best service. I believe it will be us because of this capability to own our full technology and localize it. Maybe the last piece on this, which is important, again, because we own the full tech, it means that every customer interaction with this product is actually logged in our database. As a result of it, we have better ability to understand these customers and then localize the experience for them better. Again, this is a journey. I think as we will progress, we will continue to show results based on that, as you're already seeing that we're making good progress.
Now, in terms of RG in the U.S., maybe I'll just say a few words, and then Rob can elaborate further as well because we're doing some great stuff there as well. I mean, clearly, one of the key advantages of us as a group is that we're operating in many other regulated markets. Therefore, we mean that we have quite a lot of expertise in terms of responsible gaming. We have the right controls and the best practices in the group. And when we launch in the U.S., clearly, we use many of these best practices already for day one. And all technology that we have in other markets, like in the U.K. or in other markets that we operate, are also available for the U.S. market and for the U.S. customers as well.
And actually, I see GVC as a great potential to bring our responsible gaming knowledge and deploy it in the U.S., which is a relatively young market. And today, we launched a big program, which is, to be honest, an evolution of something which we're doing for some time, which we call it ARC, our Advanced Responsibility and Care Program, which the core of it is us being even more proactive, protecting customers, again, using the data and the technology that we have to try to predict harmful behavior before it happens and create proactive and active interaction with customers and put some controls. Rob, anything you want to add on this?
Yeah. There are various initiatives that GVC is working on with various partners in relation to the US and responsible gaming. So as you are all aware, we have a five-year research partnership with the Division on Addiction with the Harvard Medical School. And that's focused on customer behavioral patterns as well as problem gambling-related issues. And that's really focused on the U.K. and the U.S. And the research coming out of that will be shared and available publicly so that, as an industry, we can learn, develop, and evolve around better practice on responsible gambling matters. We've also got an exclusive partnership with Epic Risk Management to provide lived experiences with responsible gaming classes across 14 U.S. states. And we are working with various sporting associations and universities so that we can teach people about responsible gaming matters.
We also have various partnerships with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas around educating on remote gambling and matters related to that, and with Seton Hall Law School, where, again, we're trying to get across, to the point Shay made, our learnings from other markets on sort of best practice and responsible gaming matters. We're also a member of the National Council on Problem Gambling in the U.S. And we've partnered up with RG24seven in relation to the U.S. to provide gambling industry regulation and RG training. So there are a number of initiatives there which we're very proud to partner with various third parties. And I think we're very much doing our bit in relation to developing responsible gaming know-how in relation to the U.S. market.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. And our next question is from Kiranjot Grewal from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. I just have a couple of questions. Just as you were talking about governance and regulations, the scientific approach and technology that you'll be rolling out for customer protection, to your knowledge, will you be one of the first ones to do this, or does this potentially already exist? Then secondly, outside of the U.S., what are the markets you're most excited about? I know previously you've spoken a lot about Brazil. Could you perhaps update us on your Brazilian performance and how you see that market developed? And then just last question, in the longer run in the U.S., do you think the business will end up being more heavily skewed to iGaming than the rest of your business, just because that's where a lot of the strong performance we've seen so far has been? Thank you.
Yeah. Morning, Kiran. So let me start with probably the second question. And Rob would let me with numbers around Brazil. Then we can talk about U.S. gaming and then about governance, the third question as well. So I mean, as I mentioned, I mean, there's probably, again, from small research we run, there are more than 60 regulated markets. You can get a license and operate online sport betting and gaming outside the market we currently operate. Our focus that we put lay out today is to focus only on regulated markets or markets that are regulating in the next short term that we can engage with authorities and work with them. The focus is that we know that these markets outside the U.S. are other markets in Europe.
There's quite a lot of countries, such as Portugal, which we just entered Portugal a few weeks ago, in Central and Eastern Europe, countries in Latin America. I mean, you mentioned Brazil, but there are other countries, I mean, like Colombia. We're about to launch any day now to Colombia as well. I mean, Mexico will be quite interesting as well. And Africa as well, which we did mention this as well. I mean, so if you put into it all of these regulated markets, which can operate, again, our brands are relevant, our technology is relevant, then it's quite an exciting opportunity for us. In terms of Brazil, I mean, Rob, you want to mention numbers about Brazil?
Sure. I'll only mention that year to date, Brazil continues to grow extremely well, second only to Australia of our major markets.
That's great. Now, in terms of U.S., U.S. in terms of yeah, I mean, I believe that, again, sportsbook is currently more widely regulated in the U.S., but we do see iGaming as a lucrative market as well. I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, clearly, player values in iGaming are higher than sports betting. You see it in New Jersey, and probably you will see it in other states as well. So yeah, I do think that iGaming can be a very interesting, attractive market in the U.S. I mean, we clearly, with the partnership with MGM, with the MGM brand, with our best product on iGaming.
I would believe that we will clearly lead that. And I think it could be, yeah, an attractive market. I think probably many states who regulate currently only sports betting would probably will regulate poker and casino as well. So I think on the long term, it will be very, very lucrative. On the first question on the governance, can you just repeat it to make sure I answer exactly what you're asking?
You've mentioned you're going to be taking a scientific approach when it comes to customer protection. Are you one of the first people to take that approach where you have a very logical and clear way of pulling customers out and picking up bad gambling habits, I suppose?
I mean, I would imagine that we are not the first one. I mean, there are a number of smaller businesses, startups, which we've been looking at and trying to partner with, doing similar things. But we're probably very unique on this because, again, we sit on quite a lot of data. And we're owning our own technology as well, which, again, puts us in a very unique position to actually do it. So maybe there might be some initiative in the past to do something like this.
I think we are in a very unique position to do it properly because, again, we own our full technology, which means we also own the full interaction with the customer and every customer interaction going to our database, meaning we can analyze it better and use our data scientist teams, which now has been also expanded by Professor Mark Griffiths with his knowledge to develop these predictive algorithms, and based on that, to adjust the customer experience to make sure that we're doing whatever we can do, the maximum, to protect customers.
Perfect. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. And our next question is from James Rowland-Clark from Barclays, please. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Three questions, please. Just following on from what you were just answering about the U.S. in terms of the long-term opportunity. I mean, clearly, you're showing that you have excellent products in New Jersey for gaming, and you're gaining a lot of market share there. How do you think about your ability to be the leading player in the U.S. when considering also sort of sports betting and some of your peers having the opportunity to effectively cross-sell DFS players and other sports platform players into sports betting that might put them ahead of you? So do you think you, therefore, might need to do some sort of acquisition in the U.S. to kind of leverage a new sports betting platform or brand? So that's the first question.
And then on esports and digital gaming, is this a sort of standalone expansion into new audiences, or do you see that as essentially a way of you can effectively sort of cross-sell those new customers into traditional online sports betting and grow that part of your business? And then finally, on an interview this morning, you said that you might be interested in William Hill's non-U.S. assets. So how would that sit in the sort of priority list versus other sort of new markets and M&A and effectively other growth opportunities? Thank you.
Great. Okay. So let me take them one by one. So in terms of the U.S., I think we are quite confident that we will be a leader in this market, if not the leader. Again, it's very early on the journey of this market. The states just getting regulated. I mean, Tennessee just launched pretty much a few weeks ago. So it's still ongoing. And again, if you look into a few things, which I want to emphasize related to your question, one is that we really just started 12 months ago, right? I mean, while both DraftKings and FanDuel, as you mentioned, have been going for longer.
You already see the impressive progress that we've been doing with 17% or 18% aggregated market share for the state that we are operating. Again, show the capability that we have in terms of, again, our product, our marketing, our brand, our market access, etc. We see this momentum continue. I wouldn't expect us now to the market share to grow drastically immediately, but I do expect us every month to show a small progress. If you measure it over the next 12-18 months, I would expect us to continue to grab further market share and start taking to a further leading position. We do have access to DFS as well. I mean, we have the partnership with Yahoo, which has Yahoo Sports, which now has been more integrated or properly integrated to our BetMGM.
So now, if you are on a Yahoo Sports DFS platform and you want to place a bet with BetMGM, you don't need to leave the app. You can do it during the Yahoo Sports app, which I think is very good progress, and we already see quite good engagement. But I think the key advantage we have actually beside Yahoo is actually the M life program. And I mentioned it earlier today as well. I mean, M life has more than 330 million customers on this database. And even more importantly, it's an active database, meaning post-pandemic, when people are back to travel and will visit Las Vegas and will go to and stay in the MGM properties, they will become M life customers.
We are integrating, already integrated, and will continue to integrate the BetMGM experience to the M life experience, meaning it will feel almost a natural journey if you like sport, if you like iGaming, to stay in MGM property and continue to bet with BetMGM. We did mention today that we already see quite encouraging numbers. 25% of our recent acquisition players are actually M life customers. And we also know that these customers are very high valuable. So if you put in the M life, the Yahoo, and the fact that we have a very strong product and technology capabilities, and the fact that we are continuing to grab more and more gradually market share, I'm very, very positive about our U.S. future. Now, esports, I mean, you put rightly two options in terms of esports or to crowd, to audiences.
I mean, the strategy was actually to look into both of these. One is naturally sports betting, current sports betting fans, people who like sports, who also like esports, they can go currently to the existing business that we have, to the bwin brands, to the Ladbrokes brands, and put also bet into esports events as well, but I think even the more interesting future opportunity is for us to come with a new product, and this is what we'll be looking to do, which will be more attractive to the gaming communities as well. This is more like network like Twitch and do some partnership with other game providers from that and be the trusted, leading, wagering business that can go to that ecosystem, and I think this is probably where we see it quite attractive.
It probably will be done by extracting our own capabilities, again, our technology, our product, our know-how, which probably might be even some acquisition in this area as well to enhance our capability there as well. And the last point, the non-U.S. assets of William Hill. I mean, I did mention this morning in an interview. The reporter asked if we'd be interested to look into it. Yes. I mean, as I said, never say never.
Clearly, we have a strong track record of integrating and acquiring business and creating synergies from that and accelerating them. And I think we have all of the platforms for that. I mean, we will do it clearly if it will be accelerating for our shareholders. So there is the price for that. We'll not be interested in the retail business. I mean, retail, we are quite pleased with the current retail business that we have. So we might look into the digital business, but I wouldn't put it as a high priority on our list.
Thank you. Could I just ask one follow-up? What portion of customers in the U.S. came from the Yahoo Sports platform? You said 25% for M life. How much from Yahoo?
I don't think we are quanting this number yet. But the only thing I can say, it's grown drastically in the last few weeks because the integration is just launched. So again, if you look a few months ago, it was pretty much if you are on Yahoo Sports, you get a link and you go to BetMGM. What we have now is that if you are on the Yahoo Sports app, you can stay on the app and you go to BetMGM and place a bet. So this clearly drastically creates better, but it just launched a few weeks. So I think it will be quite irresponsible from my end just to throw you numbers. I think it will require more time, but it looks really good.
Sure. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. And before we take our next question, I'd just like to remind you that if you would like to ask a question, please press star two on your telephone keypad. That is star two on your telephone keypad. So our next question is now from Alan Johnstone from Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just one from me, please, which is I think I'm right in saying that your predecessor back in February said that in the U.K., you rely on 1.4% of your online customers for 38% of your revenues. So my question is basically, as a result of the increased investment in responsible gambling, should we expect that ratio to change? And therefore, are you less impacted by a more-regulated regime that involves staking or loss limits? Thank you.
So again, I cannot comment about the numbers. Maybe Rob would comment about the numbers. But I can definitely say that our business has become more and more recreational. I mean, this is by definition. I mean, again, clearly putting all of the right controls and blocks in place, our business has become more and more recreational. And I see it just continuing to this direction. And this is part of the strategy we put in place. So yeah, I mean, this is. I don't know. Rob, would you have anything or Rob Hoskin, anything to add?
No, I just echo what you've said there, Shay, that the trend, of course, is in the right direction as we entirely prioritize and focus on the recreational audience.
Cool. Thanks very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you. And our final question from the telephones is from Richard Stuber from Numis. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Three questions, please. The first one is on esports. I'm talking about the greater emphasis into esports. How is that consistent with your strategy to increase the regulation and responsible gambling? Because I would presume that the esports market is slightly less regulated, player integrity may be slightly lower, and also greater exposure to underage gambling in that product. So it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on that.
The second question is on the U.S. You've spoken a lot about how differentiated your product is. Can you also talk about pricing as well? One of your competitors said yesterday that they are pricing pretty aggressively in terms of margins. Are you also competing on the price side there, and do you expect those margins to remain low? And the final question is just talking about exiting markets which there's no viable route to regulation.
It's about 3% of revenue, or I guess about GBP 100 million. Could you just confirm which markets you will be exiting, sorry, which markets you'll be exiting? And just finally, when you say you consider a viable path, what does that actually mean? Does that mean that there's legislation already happening in Parliament, or what is your definition of a viable path? Sorry. Thank you.
Okay. Good morning, Richard. Okay. I'll take the first two, and I'll take Rob Hoskin to answer the markets. So yeah, in terms of esports, as I mentioned, I mean, we are not. I mean, again, this is a long-term journey. I mean, again, this is our intention to expand our business through our capabilities to other audiences, other categories. And esports seems probably the most trivial one. I do accept and agree with everything you said about the challenges around esports, about integrity, about the regulation is less mature. But again, the idea here is not to rush. It's to start making the baby step to invest. I mean, we do know that it's going to be a large market, a large industry. There is a need. There is a large audience which is growing quite fast, an exciting area.
I don't think that the exact experience that we provide today to our customers on sports betting and iGaming is the similar experience you need to provide to that audience. It's a little bit different audience with different demographics. I think for us is to make these baby steps to start investing in this technology to better understand, again, clearly work with regulators, work with the different leagues, the integrity leagues, and start building our name into this business. I wouldn't expect it to get mature quickly, but I think it's something which will be very lucrative in the long term. We are starting this journey. This is pretty much on esports. In terms of U.S. pricing competition, I mean, clearly we want to be competitive. I mean, it's a mix.
I mean, again, from our experience outside the U.S. with customers, it's a mix of everything, right? I mean, it's the service you give them. It's the price, of course. It's the customer experience. It's the brand. It's everything together, right? I mean, I think it's unlikely that customers will just stay with a brand just because of the price. Clearly, the price needs to be attractive, of course, as well. And we do ensure that our pricing are competitive and attractive. Clearly, because it's a more competitive market, I think, again, and it's more also the U.S. average bet currently, it's more tends to be single bets rather than a combi bet. And I think by definition, this market on sport betting has lower margins than other markets we used to, which are more combi, etc. But I do expect it to change over time.
I do expect the customers in the U.S., as the products are involved and the customers better understand the depth of the products, to do more and more combi betting, which is driving usually more higher margins. Rob Hoskin, you want to take the existing markets?
Yeah, sure. So in relation to regulating markets, the process we've got. We've got a governance monitoring process which is very much run and frequently reviewed by the regulatory affairs team. But we are looking at markets that are genuinely showing signs on a political level of introducing licensing regimes, which we would then look to take up those licenses and enter into those markets on a regulated basis. There will be some markets through this review process which we don't regard as regulating anytime soon. So if we take or regulating in a way which would allow us to get a license. So if we take one example, for instance, Norway. They run a state monopoly license regime. And the government there is looking to actually increase its enforcement powers against offshore operators.
That will be a market where we don't see the opportunity for private operators to really get in on a license basis. That is a market we will withdraw from. We are, as I say, frequently monitoring these markets and updating our analysis. It's very much an evolving process. Countries may and will move. Some of the regulation may take longer than originally anticipated to come through. I think generally, I think everyone has seen that particularly over the last 10 years, countries have caught up with the online gambling phenomenon and are interested in regulating it and also collecting taxes, which is becoming ever more important as treasuries are under strain from episodes such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
If I could just add to the end of that, Richard, just to help you with the numbers, as you say, moving from 96% to 99%, so that's 3%. Actually, a decent chunk of that is, as Rob's outlined, going through that assessment of the regulatory regimes in various territories. We formed a view that Canada is now a regulated territory given developments in Ontario, and hence that's a reclassification. So in terms of market exits and lost NGR, it's a much smaller percentage. It's more like 1% rather than 3%. So 1% on, call it, GBP 2.5 billion of online NGR gets you GBP 25 million or so of NGR. And therefore, at EBITDA level, it's around GBP 20 million of regulatory impacts that we have guided to today.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions from the phones. So I will now hand over to questions from the webcast.
Hi. Thanks for that. We've had quite a few questions, so I'll ask them one by one. So just rounding out what looks like the last questions on the market exits is, how will we be exiting those markets? Is it just a straight wind down, or are there opportunities for disposals?
There is an exit plan, and I think there will be communication. You want to take it from there?
Yeah. So on the whole, it will be a general wind down, organized wind down rather than disposals. So that's the overall plan.
Yeah. Okay. And you touched on it a bit in the presentation, but a really good question about what happens to U.K. retail eventually as operations wind down, as and when customers shift online, and when does break-even point be reached?
I mean, again, the U.K. retail is quite. I mean, it's quite a core piece of our business today. I mean, it's performing very well. As I mentioned in the presentation today, we do see it for the years to come still contributing GBP 100 million of free cash for our business, which is quite strong cash generative. It also creates a long-term advantage for us with, again, marketing of both the Coral and the Ladbrokes brand. And the investment we've just done on electronic point of sale, the EPOS, and the SSBT that we're doing into the betting shops is also integrating these betting shops into the omnichannel and into the digital experience overall. So I do see a long prospect for our retail business.
We did run also last year and earlier this year some pilot for more social environment shops as well, which we call them shops of the future, which is quite interesting as well, which I believe that actually the future of retail will more and more go in this direction. So I do see a long-term. I do see a long-term sustainability for the retail as well. And there might be probably some adjustment, but again, the future will tell us.
Thank you. And how will the company measure and report the responsible gambling KPIs that are going to be part of the bonus scheme?
We will report on them in the Remuneration Report each year, explaining obviously what the metrics were, what the process was for implementing, and then using third-party to verify what has actually been achieved and what the resulting situation is. It’ll be publicly disclosed in the annual reports, Remuneration Report.
Thank you. On costs, where's the opportunity on things like operational OpEx costs versus CapEx? What sort of areas are we looking at?
Do you want me to take that one, Shay?
Yeah, please.
Sure. So what sort of areas? The way I would characterize it, over the last couple of years, we've had an integration program looking to deliver all the identified synergies after GVC acquired Ladbrokes Coral. And going through an exercise like that, we've uncovered a long list of other opportunities as well. And really, what we're talking about today is a new program to capture those opportunities. It spans both retail and online. It's both operating costs and CapEx and cost of sales. So sort of an all-encompassing review of the cost basis. We try to make sure that we're efficient and lean and scale in the most economic way.
Thank you, Rob. A couple of questions on the U.S., whether we can give any greater split on sports betting and gaming market share in the U.S., and where do you think we're placed versus the competition, and any update on guidance for GGR for BetMGM as a whole this year?
I mean, in terms of split, I mean, I think the New Jersey numbers are public. I mean, we are 23% market share on iGaming. And I think we are shy of 10% on sports in New Jersey, and it's probably the largest market currently in the U.S. I mean, West Virginia on iGaming is, I think it's more than 30%-35% market share on iGaming, West Virginia. And then if you know basically West Virginia and New Jersey, you can run the math on the sports as well. And in terms of guidance, I mean, just a few weeks ago, we gave guidance of $160 million NGR this year with BetMGM, and we're still behind it.
Thank you. And a couple of questions on Germany. Do you expect some legal challenges to what's coming in Germany from others? And then obviously, this is a bit of a step down in revenue and profits next year. But when does the market get back to growth, and how long does the sort of recovery take?
Do you want to take the regulatory?
Yeah. I think GVC, it's been quite a journey, German regulation over the last 15-plus years. But I think we're landing in the right spot. It's a challenge for operators generally. I think that some operators, there is the risk that they will challenge some of the processes, some of the license processes. But that is obviously up to them. I think from our perspective, we've received four sports betting licenses. We are complying with the gaming toleration regime, and we'll seek gaming licenses when the application process opens after July 2021. And so we are looking forward to what will be a sustainable market going forward. bwin's a huge brand in Germany. And while the short-term commercially may be a bit bumpy, I think long-term we are confident in the prospects for the group in offering licensed gambling in the German market.
Esports, what's the way into that? Is that organic, or do you think there are acquisitions?
I think probably—I mean, I would assume that the fastest route for us to go will be through an acquisition. I mean, and then combining it with our organic capabilities. It will be a mix of the know-how within the business or, again, our existing technology that clearly can be leveraged to many other categories as esports. Our know-how, our brands, our regulatory licenses, expertise as well, our safer gaming technology as well, and probably to acquire some talent around esports to make sure that we can really understand and work very well with these audiences and communities.
A couple of people asking, have we got any updates on the HMRC investigation yet?
No, we don't. So there's nothing materially to update since the announcement on the 21st of July. The group continues to fully cooperate with HMRC and their production order. And we've provided them now with all the documentation they've currently requested. We do expect this process to take some time to reach a resolution. And as and when there's material development, then we will obviously update the market.
Thank you. Reading directly, your predecessor previously said he had no interest in further M&A in the U.K. Are you of the same opinion? In the U.K.?
Yeah. I mean, we already have a very successful and growing business in the U.K. I wouldn't put it as a priority for us. I mean, I tend to agree. But on the other end, I would say never say never. I did mention it before as well. I mean, again, if we can create value for our shareholders and there is an opportunity for us to acquire regulated, clearly, it's only our focus revenues. And we already have all the products for the U.K. We have the technology.
We have the proven record to integrate businesses in the U.K., which we successfully just concluded earlier this year. The Ladbrokes migration has been extremely successful for us, and we accelerated further through our technologies and streamlined synergies. Can we do it again? Of course, yes. Probably wouldn't be very strategic because we would want to expand to other markets, but we will at least give it a look.
And a couple of last questions looking forward to some of the numbers. Have we got any guidance for 2021 as yet in terms of EBITDA? And then finally, also, what are we thinking about dividends going forward? Rob?
Can I take both of those? Yeah. So I mean, yes, too early to guide clearly for 2021 EBITDA, although, of course, you'll have seen today that we are increasingly confident in our ability to hold on to the Q2 volume uplift that we saw online and hence the upgrade to the tune of GBP 50 million, offsetting the regulatory impact. So net fairly neutral, but of course, a better quality of earnings, which is important, and 99% of them being either regulated or regulating, as we've talked about.
And that also talks to the Germany question as well. So we've got a long track record of growing through regulatory impacts and coming out of it with a higher quality of earnings. Just on dividends, so that remains under review is the answer. So you'll remember back in August at the interims, we said that we would keep it under review and come back to the market with a recommendation in March of next year, and that position is unchanged.
Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Rob. That's all the questions we've got, so I'll just hand you back to Shay.
Thanks, David. So thank you all very much for your question and for joining us today. I really hope that you saw today that Entain has a very exciting future ahead as we will deliver on our two core strategies we presented today with the objective of sustainability and growth. Thank you.