Hi everyone, and welcome to ABG Investor Days. My name is Nikola Kalanoski, and I'm an equity research analyst here at ABG. With us today, we have two representatives of Gentoo Media. That will be the CFO, Mads Albrechtsen, and the IR, Sebastian Mortensen. The idea is that they'll present Gentoo for us for about 20 minutes, and then we'll follow up with approximately a five-minute Q&A. And with that said, gentlemen, please take the floor.
Thank you very much. Yeah, my name is Mads Albrechtsen, CFO at Gentoo Media, and this is Sebastian Mortensen, our Head of Gentoo Medi. Our purpose in life is to connect players with operators in an online world. We are doing that with 450 employees with 47 different nationalities, and we do that across five offices based in Europe, and we are listed here in Stockholm. We have a listed bond as well here in Stockholm, so we have these two instruments to support our growth. We have 150 websites where we generate a lot of traffic. We have 3,000 partners, a very diversified mix of partners, where only 300 of our partners are contributing with more than EUR 10,000 on a quarterly level. We do that in 100 different markets. How we're doing that, we will explain that after this.
A little bit of numbers: LTM-wise, we have EUR 104 million in revenue and EBITDA close to EUR 37 million. We have guided for the year 40- 41, and we expect to reach that target in EBITDA. Our current leverage is a bit above three, and we expect that to go down below three by the end of this year. We are doing right now EUR 28 million in free cash flow, and that has been the sole purpose of us being a strongly cash-generative business, of course, to support and invest in what's necessary going forward. We have two verticals we're working in. We are working in casino betting, and we are working in sports betting. Casino comprises 75% of our revenue, and sports doing 25%.
We believe in a revenue share model, so the majority of our revenue, close to 60%, comes from recurring revenue of a player base we have built up with our operators, where we share the risk with them and also the reward in endeavor. Then we have listing fees of close to 30%, which is an operator can pay a certain price to have a certain exposure of one of our 150 pages. And then we have 10%, we call it CPA, which is more or less that the operator is paying an upfront fee for the traffic we are sending to them.
So a little bit about what actually happens and how we generate players. Essentially, the ecosystem we are part of, you have the players on one side and then operators on the other side. And then we are somewhere in the middle offering some transparency and trust.
So this figure up here illustrates how a player finds the operators. They do that through either traditional marketing channels, which could be social media advertisement, email marketing, or through our affiliate sites where they would go in and see some player reviews we've done or articles about special iGaming-related things. And what's important here is that we have, and our contribution to this is, as Mads said, we have the 150 websites. These websites have roughly over a million monthly visitors. Through the traditional marketing channels, we have shown EUR 8 billion ads the last year for our 3,000 partners. And we do this in these 100 jurisdictions that Mads also mentions.
And what was very important here is this figure over here, which is like our core, and that is that to our partners, the operators that we have all around the world, we provide them through the players that we convert around EUR 200 million in deposits quarterly to these people.
So how are we doing that? I think that, of course, we all recognize an evolving landscape around AI and traditional Google search. One and a half years ago, we took a decision to be way more product-driven than only SEO-driven. So if we look at our business model here, working in 100 markets, of course, we have these flagship sites we call our products we are most proud of. You can also find them yourself if you want to see what we're actually doing. 220 people are working around these 150 assets, where five are considered flagship sites.
And then we have approximately 50 what we call local champions. That could be an asset that is quite big in a certain market but does not have a global reach. And we fundamentally believe that's the right way to do it because either in a world where AI, of course, is also challenging our business, having a super strong product is vital. And we believe that having a player base coming back to our digital storefront is super important and actually gives us a competitive advantage in the market. So we definitely believe that that's the way forward for our business. The traditional marketing channel, only 20 people in our business, they generate approximately 20% of our revenue.
The beauty of that model is that we have very short reaction and go-to-market time, so we can find out if there is any potential in a given market through that channel. It has the downside that it costs some marketing money, so the margins in that business area are way lower than, of course, it is in the organic side where we build our own traffic. But it's a very good mix to have these two channels to work in, which we call publishing, and the other part we call paid. Then we also have a compliance tool called Sitebee, where we actually help operators work and be compliant in all the jurisdictions they're working in. So that's a tool, an own-developed tool. We are selling on a subscription model to operators in a very complex regulatory landscape. We help them and provide them insights of how to operate.
And then we have a complaint service where players can actually reach out to us if they have been cheated or feel cheated by an operator. They can reach out to us. We will help them get their deposits back. That's not a revenue generator, but we believe that's a very good product for us to have because it's created a lot of trust to all these things that we are doing. On the basis of that, we have close to 100 people working in tech. Having a strong tech platform can do two things for us. It could provide efficiency of our sites and, of course, also give us a commercial edge because if something is working very well on one side, it's very easy for us to duplicate that to the other side through our tech platform.
And so that's why it's vital for us to keep on investing in tech and a tech platform. If we look at the market overall, the iGaming market is growing, and it's doing that in all markets, actually. We are a part of what we can call the affiliation part. And the affiliation part is, we believe that all players, or at least all the analysis we can see in the market, is that all players, 30%-40% of all players are generated through affiliation channel. We also see that a lot of the operators are quite stable in their spend in affiliation. So we fundamentally believe that it's a market that is growing, and we can grow with that market. Only 70% of the world's gaming markets are actually regulated.
And the good thing for us is that we are working in regulated environments, so there is still 30% potential upside for us. When a market is regulated, that's actually a potential for us. On the other hand, of course, we are also working in jurisdictions in Europe, etc., where we see, of course, more regulation coming in. So we believe having a diverse model, as we have, working in so many jurisdictions with so many assets, gives us the advantages that we are able to adapt to these changes but also pick up the possibilities and potential in the future. It's also important to notice that the land-based part of gaming overall is still twice the size as the online gaming. We still have a lot of jurisdictions, also quite mature markets, where we see a lot of switch from offline to online.
We are only in the online world, so only that factor, considering that change, is also something we see as very positive for us. All that said, a lot of untapped potential in the industry we are in. What is our play here? For us, we are right now considering how you measure it, number three, four in the world in what we are doing. We want to be the leading affiliate. We are okay being in casino and having the split we have today of 75% of our revenue from casino. We like that industry. We know that industry very well. The split we have today, we believe we should keep going forward.
We also believe that having a very resilient business and this high element of recurring revenue is a very good factor for securing revenue, but it's also a very good instrument to grow because when you're going into a new market or an operator is entering into a market, we actually share the risk with the operator. So they're not paying us anything upfront for a player, but we can grow with the operators. That has been a super good model for us. We believe that's still the model going forward for us. Then we have only two assets in our business. Of course, we have our tech and our assets, but we also have our people, and we are in an industry where it's difficult to find a qualified workforce as many other companies.
So we believe that taking a great part in the educational system of people is the way going forward. So in the jurisdictions we are, being present at universities, being present in universities will help us actually gain the most talented employees in the industry. Then, of course, we need to implement and enhance all the commercial activities we are doing now. We need to keep on being better at that, and we need to do that at a lower cost. Even though we have a quite strong margin also in the industry standard, we still believe there's way more to come for us. But, of course, as in the past, we have also done M&A, and we consider that as an important instrument for us going forward, both for gaining better capabilities, people-wise, better assets entering into a market.
We still believe that's a very good instrument to be able to use as a business. That being said, we still need to invest in our tech platform, keep on investing in our tech platform, and utilize all the investments we have done, and we, as a result of that, believe that we will reach our goal of being like the leading affiliate in casino in 2030. There are some facts around our stock. I think it's evident that right now, if we look at all the commissioned research or the analysts, they say that we are quite undervalued compared to our competitors. So at least, as we see, there is still a lot of potential for us. Telling you guys, tell the market of all the good things we are doing. Our bond has also been a super good instrument for us.
We have raised five bonds, I believe, in the past, and it's a quite good coupon interest. If you are not into the equity part of the business, then, of course, the bond could also be a good instrument to invest in, which has showed a quite stable outcome for our bond investors over the years. We are maturing in the bond in the end of 2026, so the next year here, I'm spending a lot of time on making sure, of course, that we're choosing the right financial structure for us going forward. Then it's time for Q&A. Yeah.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. That's great, so just I thought a couple of questions, I guess, on the market. As you mentioned, a lot is happening in the markets where you're active, a lot of regulatory topics that you can dissect, but maybe if we could just dive into some of your perspectives on the Brazilian market, so some, which, by the way, is regulating, some market participants are painting a rosy picture, but I think you and some others have a bit of a more conservative stance. Would it be fair to say that that characterization is correct in your case, and what are your takes on the Brazilian market?
I think that there are two elements to that market for us as a business. One thing is that, as I said, 75% of our business is in casino. The Brazilian market is mostly sports. So that's only 25% of our revenue in total. And we are not, of course, even though it is the biggest market for us in that channel or segment, then it's still, if you compare it to our business overall, then Brazil is an important market, but not more important. We still consider it as a very immature market. I think that in the beginning of the year, we had very high expectations to that market, as everyone else had. It is one of the biggest markets in the world, gaming-wise.
But what we have seen is just that all the dynamics we believed and all the rationale we believed and what we have seen in the past when a market is regulated, that didn't happen in Brazil. So that's why we are way more cautious now in how to invest in that market. We have invested a lot in a player base. So out of the EUR 200 million here, of course, we have invested a lot in building up a strong player base there because we still believe in a longer perspective for Brazil. But right now, we are quite cautious of how much we invest in that market.
Yeah, and I think, as you mentioned, maybe there were, I guess, the industry maybe had its hopes up for the market initially, and then it realized that, okay, things are maybe progressing a bit more slowly than one might imagine. What would you say are some of these hurdles to the growth that people were initially expecting?
I think that one thing is, of course, how the operators are behaving and how easy they can get a license into a market. For instance, of course, that's important for us. They have a license. They need to work in that way, but the other thing is, of course, when we are doing revenue share and we are sharing the risk with our partners, then we have a certain metrics of how we are getting compensated, and one of it is, of course, that when we are sharing the risk, then the investments the operators are putting into a certain market, some of that we also share with them. So when they are building up market share, then, of course, we also see what we call a lower revenue share earnings, and we have just seen that margin.
So, our level of revenue share, revenue, sorry, revenue share and the value of deposit, that matrix is super important for us. And in Brazil, that has just been super low, way too low. And that needs to go up before we see us doing more investments in that market.
Yeah. That sounds like a very good explanation, I think. And I think if we maybe move on to some of the more, I guess, current regulatory topics. So the U.K. raised its remote gaming duty. They proposed to raise the gaming duty from 21%- 40% for online iGaming. Would you say that this impacts you in any way? Has a negative impact on your clients? How would you say that it impacts you?
Yeah, yeah. The short answer is that it will have an impact. Every time a market is regulating, it can have a positive short-term impact in our business. U.K. is one of our key markets. So it will impact us, but it's also a growing market for us. So, yeah, the net impact of this, we believe, is close to zero for us. Close to, but it's also because it's actually a very growing market for us. But, of course, it's something that we are looking very much into how to actually address and also, again, cautiously assessing how much investments we should put into that market.
You think maybe channelization will come down in that market, but maybe you expect the growth in the underlying market to come up maybe more than the channelization and offset it. Would that be fair to say?
Yeah, that would be fair to say.
Yeah. And I think maybe just to wrap up the topic of regulation, is there any market out there that you say should be an example to others maybe that would be interesting to follow?
To be honest, I don't have an opinion about that because every market is different. And so, no, I don't have a specific market in mind to highlight. I think all markets try to do it in their own way. And there are also the ethical aspects of things here. And we welcome regulation. It's not that we don't believe in that, and we believe in for players being able to take informed decisions. That's our value proposition. So we welcome regulation, but, of course, there's always a balance of over-regulating something because that can lead to that the regulated markets are actually not that efficient because the unregulated market can enter and take a lot of players. And so that's the balance each market needs to find.
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. In some markets, maybe you don't want to over-regulate and reduce the channelization too much, which is the topic you're referring to. Yeah.
Being in 100 markets, there are always ups and downs. And so for us, that's why it's so important to have this diversification in our portfolio of sites and also our presence in different markets. And we also like having, again, the paid channel because the paid channel, if we see, for instance, how the U.K. will react to these things, we can invest through paid marketing and very quickly see results on behavior or change behavior. And that's very important for us because in the organic business, it takes way longer for us, and it's a way bigger investment for us. So having that balance is very good for us, and we believe that's what we should have going forward also.
Yeah, I think that's very clear. And I think maybe enough about regulation, maybe some more company-specific topics. So I guess it's fair to say this year you've been streamlining the operations. You've been rationalizing how you invest. And as you mentioned there, you expect your leverage ratio to come down. So what would you say are some of your top priorities for 2026?
The key is, of course, to keep on driving more efficiency out of what we're doing. And one thing is that we have grown so much over the last years that it's also evident that we have had some growing pains to some extent in our way of driving the business. And I think that's normal. We have adjusted to that now. And for me, it's important that when we're growing, we're doing in high-quality markets and high-quality revenue streams. And that means for me, we generate more cash than we have done in the past. That's the key metric for me because I don't mind us growing a bit more if we just generate more cash. And so the cash conversion and the way we look at our balance sheet, working capital, all these metrics have just improved over the year, and we will keep on improving that.
Yeah, I think that's very clear. And then maybe just to wrap up, I think it's fair to say that all affiliates have had quite a tough time, but the comparisons are getting easier. So the financial comps are getting easier every quarter. What would you say that you look most forward to, maybe not necessarily next year, but a couple of years from now, given that dynamic?
I still believe that, of course, we as Gentoo need to be more bold in choosing the right markets. We need to, and we need to analyze it thoroughly, but we also need to invest in different markets to see when these switches are happening from offline to online that we are part of that transition. Then, of course, the AI and all the efficiency that can lead to internally in our business, but also being as product-driven as we are, we actually believe that it's good for us to see that happening. So for us, making sure that our business is resilient to change in the technology and AI around us, but also making sure that we take up all the new potential in growth in new markets. Because right now, we are predominantly in Europe and in Latin. That's our biggest markets.
That's fair to say that that's a more mature market. We also need to see the potential in other markets.
Yeah, well, perfect. I'm afraid we're out of time, but thank you, everybody in the room, for listening in. And thank you to everybody online for also tuning in. Thank you very much.
Thanks.