Hi, and welcome to Redeye. Today, we are joined by Gaming Innovation Group, who will present their Q2 results, and we're joined by Petter Nylander, who will do the presentation, and also Jonas Warrer, who will present the media segment. We will also follow this with a Q&A, and if you have any questions, please send them through on our webinar. Thank you very much. Please go ahead with the presentation.
Thank you so much, Hjalmar, and good morning or good day, everyone, listening in to this webinar. To start with sort of a high-level summary of where we think we are. Summarizing sort of our ambition is to really become one of the leaders in the iGaming industry, and we think this is a good building block in our ambition. What we're trying to do from the board perspective, together with the management and the excellent team we have at GiG, is really to transform the business, both the platform and the media side of the business, from a locally focused champion in the Nordics to become a European regional champion, and now we're aiming to be global champions, both for the platform business and both for the media business. We think this report illustrates that we are delivering on that strategy.
So, also, what we've been sharing in previous reports, we're making good progress to split the companies in the coming year into two separate entities, and some of the key milestones in this report has been addressed. So such, having new senior management for the platform and also the strengthening the media business with another acquisition we talk about later. So the media business has delivered 12 successive quarters with record revenue. So we have a very strong team, very data-driven, with very strong excellence in operational focus and delivery. So we're very happy, and we gave the mandate to the management to do another, initiate another acquisition within this year. So very happy to see that we can both drive organic growth and also deliver on attractive M&A activities for the M&A business.
So, very happy to see we have a new CEO that you will see in the Q&A shortly, who's sort of leading and also taking a lot of initiatives in the platform business to drive shareholder value going forward and prepare ourselves to be a standalone entity. So we believe, as we are today, and we think that the Q3 illustrates it, that both businesses are now well-positioned to drive shareholder value going forward in this, what we believe is an exciting global market going forward. So looking at the numbers, you can see, the underlying developments in revenues. You can see solid growth, versus last year, 39%. Also, an EBITDA positive development with 61% year-on-year growth, and EBIT follows the same pattern. So overall, very happy to see the underlying drive and, and sort of transformation of the business.
Combination, as you know, organic growth and also the latest acquisition we did earlier this year. So to zoom in and summarize, we deliver another successive all-time high revenue and EBITDA, and the EBITDA margin increased to 42%, an all-time high for us, and a strong progress towards our financial targets and goal of 50%. GiG Media, with another all-time high, both in revenues and EBITDA, just showing the excellence of what management and the team is doing there. Really nice to see. And our latest acquisition on the media side, AskGamblers, continue its positive momentum, and revenues are up 45% from the run rate. For the first month we took over to the run rate, the last 90 days in Q3, 45% uplift, which is just a testament again to excellence by our management and team within GiG Media.
Looking at the platform and sportsbook, we continue positive delivery with five new brands live during the third quarter. As said, we have added strong, experienced new management for platform and sportsbook, which is really key in our ambition to split the companies during next year. We also, as you have seen, some of you, last night and this morning, we are now introducing and working on another media acquisition that Jonas, our Managing Director, CEO for media business, will talk about shortly. Financial highlights then. All-time high revenues of EUR 31.8 million, an increase of almost 40%, whereof 23% is organic. Reported EBITDA, EUR 23.8 million, up 170% from 8.5 in Q3 last year. And then excluding reversal of earnout, adjusted EBITDA was EUR 13.6 million in Q3.
That's up 61% year-on-year. So that's a record revenue, despite unfavorable sports results that you've seen from the industry, preferably at or in September in particular, and we are trying to quantify that. The impact for us, it's about a little south of EUR 1 million hit in revenues in a normalized world. And we know that it goes up and down, and normally when the margins are lower, we have happy customers, and they tend to come back and spend it again. So we are not that concerned about those kind of fluctuations. It's normal in this industry. Okay. With that, I would like to introduce my colleague, Jonas, who is going to present and walk you through the media business. Please go ahead, Jonas.
Yeah. Hi, everyone. My name is Jonas. I have been leading the GiG Media unit since Q4 2019. As Petter mentioned, another record quarter for GiG Media. All-time high revenue, all-time high EBITDA. It is the 12th quarter in a row now with all-time high revenue. We grew our growing revenue 49% year-over-year, of which 23% is organic. EBITDA is up 53% year-over-year, ending at EUR 10.4 million. That gives us an EBITDA margin at 46%, which is basically the area around where we want to be, and of course, it's a goal for us to try to massage that number up and get it higher and higher over time.
Publishing reached all-time high in revenues, up 70% year-over-year. If we exclude the AskGamblers unit, publishing or the old publishing business is up 20%. And as you will see later in when we talk about player intake, the publishing unit in general is in very good shape. Paid revenues is up 9% year-over-year, despite I would call it a weaker Q3 in terms of of sports events and sports margins, especially the end of September was a bit rough on sports margins. If we look at player generation, first time depositors ended at 114,000, a 32% increase year-over-year. Similar to previous quarters, we believe very much in in the value of revenue share earnings, i.e., recurring revenue.
The bulk of the players, similar to previous quarters, the bulk of players we made are on a deal with a revenue share component, either a full revenue share or a hybrid deal. As I said, we see very good underlying growth in the publishing business and in the FTD generation in publishing. If we include AskGamblers into publishing, FTD intake is up 150% year-over-year, and if we exclude AskGamblers, FTD intake in publishing is up 98% year-over-year. If we look at the paid department, as I said, Q3 was somewhat of a not that interesting sports quarter.
So, purposefully here, we have a lower player intake, simply to save, marketing, money that we can invest in subsequent quarters, where there's better sports events or more sports events, and it's, easier to generate players. If we look at revenue splits, again, similar to previous quarters, our revenue share earnings is in this quarter at 63%, up from 61%, and it hovers around that area, 63%-65%. As I said, we have it as an ambition, of course, to try to increase that as much as possible. I think, we are, and we will probably try to aim for something around the 65% going forward.
So I think this gives a healthy mix of revenue share earnings, listing fees, and then occasionally CPAs, to try to take unique opportunities in the market. Revenues from the Americas increased 33% year-over-year, and now represents 18% of GiG Media revenues. Latin America, it remains a strong region of growth for us, and will also do going forward. We still grow in our legacy markets. We started out in the Nordics. We still grow in the Nordics. We are still also growing in Europe. I think there's still a lot of potential for us in Europe to grow even further. But of course, the relative importance of, especially Nordics, and also to some degree, Europe, goes down as we grow in other regions.
GiG Comply, our marketing compliance tool, signed one new client in the quarter, and re-signed five existing clients. Diversification, when talking about markets and where we are growing and where we're getting revenue from, just wanted to touch on this one. It's a key theme for us. We think that diversification is sort of, is the key element, to secure sustainable long-term growth in the business. Why? Simply because it reduces risk, and it makes you less volatile to what is happening. I think everybody that has worked in the industry for some time understands that this is a very fast-moving industry. During the quarter, and not only during this quarter, but also during the many previous quarters, we have, and we will continue to diversify the business.
This means that more websites, more clients, and more markets will drive revenue growth for us. And if you look at, for instance, at the amount of customers we work with that generate quarterly revenue above EUR 10,000 , just as a metric, you can see that in Q3 2022, we had 94 clients, and now we have 162 clients. The same with number of websites. We have more local-focused websites that drive revenue for us, and we grow revenue in more and more markets. So, diversification is happening, and it is a continued focus area for us going forward, because this is what will generate the highest long-term growth for us. A bit on the AskGamblers status. As Petter mentioned, AskGamblers is in excellent condition.
The post-merger integration plan is on track and performing well. Very positive results after taking over operations. Monthly revenue and player intake, as Petter mentioned, if we look at Q3 average, is up 45% compared to February, and EBITDA is up 65% compared to February. The team in AskGamblers is doing excellent here and have been very easy to adapt into the organization. If we look a little bit ahead, and for Q4 specifically, we are working very dedicated now to migrate AskGamblers.com onto the GiG Media media platform. And when that happens, we expect to see a further boost to numbers. Product quality will go up.
It will probably be a much better site in terms of SEO rankings going forward, easier to deal locally saved offers, all of the details that makes a good business. And this is something we hope to complete by year-end. At the same time, also a very other interesting part for AskGamblers is that we are working on adding sports betting content to the site, thereby broadening website audience and market presence. And I think if we add sports, we are sort of doubling the addressable market that AskGamblers have. So a very interesting one. When we have migrated over to the GiG Media platform, it will be relatively fast to add sports to the site. Then, of course, there's a big one, also for this presentation.
So last evening, we announced that we had signed an agreement to acquire KaFe Rocks. KaFe Rocks is a well-known actor in the industry and very reputable. I would say it's one of the competitors that I personally have considered a very serious contender for sort of the trial, you know, the leadership role in the industry. It has a global portfolio, diversified across 15 markets or above 15 markets, and most notably featuring U.S. flagship brands, Time2play.com and USCasinos.com. Similar to what we do, management in KaFe Rocks believe very much in the value of recurring revenue or revenue share earnings, and KaFe Rocks have about 70% of recurring revenue share earnings.
And this is, of course, very positive for us, when talking about the value of KaFe Rocks and the risk with acquiring KaFe Rocks, hence why I mentioned it. The strategic importance behind this acquisition, there's three key elements here: secure and maintain our pole position in the casino affiliation world, advance our position and presence in the U.S. market, a very lucrative market, and then going back to the diversification, I talked about further diversification, more markets, more partners, and more websites to drive revenue. If we just spend a bit of time on the two first elements, pole position and casino affiliation and increasing presence in U.S., I would say both these elements are very lucrative to us, and of course, when we saw this opportunity, it was a very interesting one to go after.
If we look at the acquisition price, it's a deal at EUR 37.5 million, 15% or EUR 15 million upfront, and then EUR 20 million over 24 months with sort of a payment each six months. Then we have EUR 2.5 million in shares, pending operational targets. The 2021-2024 EBITDA multiple at 3.6x. We anticipate revenue for KaFe Rocks at EUR 23 million in 2024, and an EBITDA at EUR 10.5 million. Similar to AskGamblers, we expect to see a revenue boost for the KaFe Rocks assets using GiG Media marketing, media technology, and of course, also all of our data and our data technology.
So simply put, we expect there to be very high synergies when taking, with taking the KaFe Rocks business and applying, all the technology we built up in, in GiG Media and all the processes. There's, of course, also quite a solid cost synergies in merging the businesses that will further maximize the EBITDA growth, and we expect to close in, December. And if anybody from the KaFe Rocks team is, listening in on this presentation, I look very much forward, to working with all of you and, and I look forward to, welcoming you to the company. Then I'll hand over.
Okay, thank you, Jonas. So we're going to cover now the platform and sportsbook side of the GiG business, and then a summary, and then we're going to enter a Q&A together with Hjalmar. Okay, so as mentioned before, we are very proud and happy that we have been able to identify and attract some of the best names in the platform industry to join GiG. So that's a key milestone for the third quarter and also in preparation for this upcoming split. So Richard Carter, who is the CEO, is also here today. You will see him shortly. He will introduce himself. He's now, as of September, leading the business of the GiG Platform & Sportsbook. Further, after Richard joined, he was also able to attract and bring aboard another strong name from the industry, a gentleman called Andrew.
Andrew, who comes from SBTech and DraftKings, similar background to Richard, who now entering the hat and role as Chief Business Officer, given our ambition to grow the business and to sort of really take the opportunity now with so many markets opening up and re-regulating for iGaming. So both of these individuals have a strong experience, not only from SaaS, but also from iGaming, which with including relationships with attractive stakeholders for the platform business. So Richard has already introduced a lot of new initiatives, which we believe is the foundation to secure profitable growth, such as creating a flatter and more efficient management structure, stronger and clearer domain ownership to leverage and support future growth opportunities.
So we already see very good initiatives, and things are happening to build the foundation for the future value creation of the platform business. Looking at the numbers then. The revenues for platform sportsbook was at EUR 9.3 million versus EUR 7.8 million last year, an increase of 20% organic. EBITDA, we had at EUR 3.2 million, that's 90% up versus last year, and the EBITDA increasing 35%, the margin increased to 35% versus 22% last year. We think we had good commercial development in the quarter with two new agreements secured, and 5 new brands went live on the platform during the third quarter. Notably, we're very proud of our partnership with Betsson, and we went live with Betsson Serbia under the brand name Rizk during the quarter.
Also, something that we find interesting, of course, is regulation coming on a global level. What we noted for us, which we find attractive, given that we have a client in that geography, is that New Zealand has a new government in the third quarter, and they have indicated and communicated that they intend to regulate iGaming in New Zealand in the years to come. Exactly the timeline we haven't seen, but we think that's a positive thing for the industry and hopefully also for GiG going forward. So integration pipeline. We have a delivery pipeline with another 14 brands in integration pipeline as we speak, to build future revenue and margin expansion. We are now looking at geographic diversification, covering a total of 38 markets, including the current pipeline.
More than 70% of the pipeline have both sportsbook and platform products, which we find very solid. So, overall, then, you can see then, on the pie chart here, the geographical sort of how we looked, and that's just underlying the ambition that we have, going from a Nordic player to pan-European player and hopefully sort of stronger global focus for the platform business. And as you know, this is an industry with quite long relationship, quite good partnerships. It's all about securing happy clients, adding new clients, and securing innovation and core innovation to make the clients thrilled and excited to stay as a platform partner with GiG. So 82% of the operator's revenue here is coming from locally regulated or soon to be regulated market, which we find very healthy for the platform business going forward.
So summarizing before we enter the Q&A, on the right-hand side, we think we are really well positioned. We think the third quarter is a testament to the overall strategy ambition to become one of the world leaders in iGaming, both for the media side of things, moving, as I said, from a Nordic, pan-European, global force, and the same thing, same ambition for the platform business. And we think the third quarter just illustrates that we are making good progress to that ambition. So we deliver an all-time high revenue and EBITDA for the quarter. EBITDA margin of 43%, progressing towards long-term financial target that we have communicated early of 50%+. And the strategy of diverse geographical footprint, supporting the growth across both media and platform business, is sort of well on track.
GiG Media initiate a second transformative acquisition, 2023, on top of the good organic growth, which you find a strong message in this report. And again, we reiterate that we anticipate a full year of revenue between EUR 125 million and EUR 130 million going forward. Thank you for listening in, and now we're going to have a Q&A session, and you'll also see us on stage here, Mr. Richard Carter, our CEO for the platform business. So Hjalmar, do you want to?
One of the big news today was the KaFe Rocks acquisition, or late last night. So I'm going to start with a quick few questions on that, I think. Maybe if you can give us some information about the kind of historical performance of these assets over time, and yeah.
Yes, sure. Yeah, I think, as I said, KaFe Rocks is known in the industry as a very solid actor, a very solid competitor. I think the company had some plans in the past that didn't materialize, and then there was a good opportunity for both them and for KaFe Rocks to sort of make this deal happen.
And, are you—I mean, you're looking to realize some synergies here, as it sounds. Are there any similarities to the AskGamblers acquisition with these assets, or is it different kind of synergies you're looking for?
No, I think very much the same synergies. I think with the technology setup we have now and with this, the way we use and work with data, it's sort of the same setup where we can go in and apply both the assets we have and also the process we have, and then improve the KaFe Rocks business, hopefully by quite a lot. If we, in let's say, in six to eight months, can stand here and say that we have grown revenue with 50%, from where we to go, I would be very happy, of course, similar to AskGamblers.
Sounds promising. And you gave us some information that this will improve your footprint in U.S., and you mentioned two assets that KaFe Rocks have there. Could you give some sense on, I don't know, revenue or traffic that is from U.S. in of the total revenue from KaFe Rocks so?
I can say that KaFe Rocks have invested quite a lot in especially the Time2Play asset, and it's an asset that's doing really good and with good momentum in the U.S. I think it's an asset they have worked on for quite a few years with good investments. So very happy there to also meet the team there. I hope also there will be a good synergies with our U.S. assets there. So we increase sort of the pool of knowledge we have about the U.S. market.
Right. Right. And in terms of other issues like technology, are you more migrating KaFe Rocks to your technology stack, or can you get something from them as well in that sense?
I still have to get into the-
Yeah
Full details there, but I would say our IT team will probably be very busy in the next half year or year to migrate all the sites over to the media platform that we have built, and we believe very much in giving the history we have seen over the last three to four years.
And you also gave us a number of recurring revenue. Revenue share mix was around 70%. Is that kind of a historical trend for them, or is it growing or trending up or down?
I think similar to GiG Media management and KaFe Rocks have very much believed in the value of revenue share earnings. So I think I guess that would be the answer to it.
And then moving on to or back to GiG Media as it is now. I think one thing that was interesting to see in Q3 that you continue to have very strong development in the FTDs number, which now is more maybe driven by publishing than paid, partly because you had the FIFA World Cup last year, of course. But would you say there's anything, any particular asset in a particular market that is driving this good FTD growth?
No, and that's actually very nice. It's a growth across the business, across the different units. A very strong organization behind me. All the different teams are doing amazing. So very nice to see again, it's also diversification, that we don't have any sort of singular drivers. And I think also here now we see the value of being a multi-channel affiliate.
Mm.
You know, now publishing is growing a lot, while paid is maybe not growing that much, and it will probably maybe also change going forward. So, you know, as long as we are multi-channel, many markets, many partners, many websites, we can see that we keep growing.
Right. Right. Okay, you keep saying diversification, but I'm still gonna ask, strong growth in Europe. I mean, it's a market where you typically see soft growth, I guess, but you have been able to have good growth historically as well. But it sounds like the European growth was even stronger than normally this quarter. Was that correct, or is it just business as usual?
No, that's correct. No, actually, I would say in Europe, we still have so, so much growth potential. We are. There is many markets in Europe where we are still... Where I consider GiG Media relatively small.
Mm.
In terms of market size, it's probably only, I would say, Nordics where we are very big.
Mm.
But if we look outside Nordics, we have so much growth potential still in, even only in Europe, in Latin, in North America.
Mm.
Then we have the emerging markets, maybe in Africa-
Mm
And in Asia, you know. So there's a big potential out there that we haven't tapped into yet.
It's interesting to see your chart there with your number of customers that have a run rate of above EUR 10K. Is that kind of per brand or per operator or how is that?
That's per brand.
Yeah. Okay.
Mm.
And if you, I mean, you gave us some sense that you're aiming to diversify even more. Where are you in this process? I mean, are you halfway, or how much further do you want to go there, so to say?
That has probably an upper limit to how many big partners you can have.
Yeah.
I would maybe like to see some of the mid-tier partners grow even further in size. And of course, it's also some of the big partners we work with and have worked with for over 10 years, we do it because they're doing an amazing job.
Mm.
So, you know, it's. But maybe grow some of the mid-tier partners and then have a new layer of if we call it outside tier one, two, three partners coming in, that we can see also will be there in the future.
Mm.
There's new markets coming up and new regions. There will probably be new partners there that we still haven't met and have worked with.
And you mentioned that AskGamblers is looking to add sports betting on their content, so to say. And you see that as a big potential could, I mean, double the reach, or the same maybe. But I mean, how quick will that work? And are you sure that casino audience will opt for sports betting, or are you looking for a new audience that will go to the site?
I think a lot of sports players also have, you know, a preference for casino.
Mm.
Maybe not that much the other way around, but I think one thing that we will offer on AskGamblers that will be very strong in the market is, of course, we will also offer our customer service complaints feature within sports betting. So this is where we sort of mediate between the operators and the players if there's any disputes about activities, bets being played, money being deposited or not withdrawn.
Mm.
We go in then mediate. And we will, of course, also offer that feature for sports betting.
Mm.
-where I think there is, quite an upset, untapped market there-
Yeah.
-because, yeah.
Interesting. And looking at next year, you gave us a guidance for the media segment, of course, partly driven by the acquisition. But in terms of growth trends per market, I mean, you have highlighted LatAm as a growth market, and of course, there's lots happening there. But the growth next year, is it U.S. maybe that is gonna be more of a growth driver, or is it the classic growth all over for next year?
Yeah, I would actually say hopefully we grow in North America, LatAm, Europe, and we still grow a little bit in Nordics.
Yeah.
Then maybe we have a little bit extra coming in from Africa and Asia, something like that. Yeah.
Maybe a question for both of you in terms of future M&A potential. I mean, you did AskGamblers last year and now, KaFe Rocks. How is the consolidation potential in the media market look now? Is it fewer assets out there, or is there still the potential to do things in the future?
You want to comment on that, Jonas?
Yeah, yeah, I would say there's a lot of assets out there. It seems like the industry has really accelerated lately, in terms of people wanting to do transactions.
Mm.
There's still a lot of potential out there.
Mm-hmm.
I think this is more from our end, it's more about doing it in a pace where, you know, we keep, we keep being good at what we do, and the assets we onboard, we first give them an immediate boost. So there's probably sort of a timing issue here. How many assets can you take over in a short amount of time? I'm very comfortable with the AskGamblers acquisition and what we have done now with the KaFe Rocks acquisition. Going forward, we have our eyes open, of course.
Yeah. Okay, sounds promising. And maybe moving over to the platform business a bit, and welcoming Richard Carter as well. I think I'm going to start asking you. I mean, you, you've been in this business a very long time, SBTech, among other.
Yep.
Maybe can you give a short introduction of yourself and then maybe what you see if you compare GiG to some of the other businesses you've seen historically?
Yeah, sure. So my name is Richard Carter. I used to be the CEO of SBTech, merged that business with DraftKings, and then subsequently became chairman and then CEO of Bragg. And then recently got to know GiG, and during that process, got very excited about the building blocks they have in place. So it's quite an easy decision. I think if you look at GiG Platform and Sportsbook today, they've got exceptionally strong product verticals in sports, casino, platform, managed services, and that's all underpinned by data. Also, we've got a very strong market presence in regulated markets.
I think we're certified in 32 markets today, we've got six in the pipeline, and that underpins a very strong market addressable market for us, which is probably over about EUR 35 billion. And we've got a very talented workforce. So in a nutshell, we've obviously got a very strong product offering, which I believe that we can take this business to the next level.
Mm-hmm. Sounds good. I mean, since you've been in this industry for a long time and look at the different market developments, what markets are you most excited about looking over the next five years? I guess, both geographically and in sportsbook versus the platform product.
Well, there's a lot of interesting markets. As Petter touched on, obviously, New Zealand's about to regulate. We've got a very exciting client there, so that'll be a very big opportunity for us. There's a lot of interesting developments going on in LatAm.
Mm.
Peru's gonna regulate next year, Brazil, and there'll be many more to follow. So I think for us, it's gonna be a focus just of doubling down on our core markets in Europe-
Mm.
Looking into LatAm, and then there's gonna be some ad hoc opportunities, I think, in North America, and in particular, also Canada.
Good. And looking at the pipeline, and you keep having a good lineup of clients in the pipeline, would you say that the ones that are in there now are similar to the mix that you have, or anyone that have more revenue upside potential than the average, let's say?
Well, I think we've got a solid pipeline. I think it could be a lot better, and it's gonna be a lot better, and that's one of the reasons for hiring Andrew Cochrane. And already we're starting to see some strong traction. I think in terms of the pipeline today, I think, yes, in terms of the clients we're looking at, is there's certainly gonna be higher revenue-generating clients. And in terms of the future, we'd expect to obviously increase the average revenue per client.
Mm-hmm. And, I mean, you mentioned that 70% of the pipeline has, has a sportsbook, but only 34% of the existing clients, is that part of that trying to, to upsell?
Yeah, there's a huge opportunity in sports. I knew Sportnco, because I actually looked to acquire it a couple of years ago, so I know it very well. We've already made some quite significant improvements in the product there. We've got a very strong roadmap. So one of the big opportunities and one of the things Andrew Cochrane is gonna be tasked with, is trying to improve the upsell and cross-sell of our sports into existing clients. And then going forward, obviously, there'll be a greater focus, so I'd expect that 70% number to increase.
Mm-hmm. Interesting. I mean, I guess you have some background from the U.S. market, from SBTech and DraftKings there. How would you say that market has evolved, I mean, compared to a few years back? I guess a lot of things happened, but do you think the potential for outsource sportsbook have increased or what are the trends over there?
I think if you look at the market today, and you look at the sort of top three operators, it's significantly concentrated. So in a lot of the states, you know, you've got over 90% of sports going through three operators. So I think if we went back to sort of before the market regulated, there was a big opportunity, which we all thought, and lots of these smaller players would come into the market, but what's transpired is that the bigger have just got bigger. So I think actually the opportunity is gonna be very ad hoc. I do think there's gonna be a big opportunity with the tribes over the next few years.
Mm.
So it'll be just on an ad hoc basis, trying to get or trying to do, build relationships with local players that have significant market reach. But I think in terms of, as you're seeing with a lot of the, smaller players, it's, it's a very difficult market.
Also, regarding M&A, I mean, you did Sportnco. Do you think there's, I mean, the consolidation potential in the sportsbook or platform market, are there, like, small tech opportunities you can add on to your business there, or are there similar players like yourself that you can do M&A there, or what's the M&A for the platform segment?
You wanna comment on that?
Well, obviously, the theme going through the industry is obviously consolidation.
Mm-hmm.
I don't think we would be looking at consolidating in the sportsbook. We've got a very strong sportsbook, so it's gonna be just a process of upgrading it, adding better product. Then in terms of other verticals, I think, you know, there's gonna be opportunities, I think, for, for our business to look at the casino verticals.
Mm.
And then, as you say, there's probably gonna be some opportunities for bolt-ons as well.
But also adding to that, so that's really the, one of the key rationale behind splitting the two companies-
Mm.
So they standalone can make their own decisions, the two separate boards, about how to drive shareholder value, but in a combination of organic growth and potential acquisitions. And that's will be helpful there in that perspective, so.
Right. And managing the split up, I mean, you mentioned that you are looks set to do this in the first half of 2024. I mean, are there any obstacles remaining, or is it mainly market conditions or yeah?
Yeah, so internally, we are holding the timeline.
Mm-hmm.
and one of the key sort of, of course, milestones that we talked about earlier was to find a strong management who can drive this on a separate sort of environment, and that's a big tick in the box, and sort of looking maybe to strengthen it even further. but so internal timeline, we're on track, and then, yes, of course, it's subject to macroeconomics and so on. But otherwise, internally, we are having good pace and on track to do it next year.
All right. I'm moving back to the platform. One more question there on the... I mean, you did mention the sports margin win was a little bit lower than normal. Was this a larger swing than you typically see in the business? Or, yeah, if you can elaborate on that.
Yeah, I don't know if Richard, you want to cover it or the September one.
Yeah, if you look at all of the major operators in the industry, they all reported a very weak margin. Unfortunately, all the favorites won during that month, so it was quite an unusual swing in terms of just the proportion, statistically, of favorites winning. So that's all it was, and obviously, these things tend to reverse over time, so, I don't think it's anything structural.
Yep. Yep, got it. And then moving to your guidance here for 2023. I mean, you keep your guidance for the year. It looks like you're looking for a strong year end there. Can you give us any more flavor on this? I mean, the October run rate, maybe do you see more potentially media versus platform, or how should we view the last quarter?
No, so we're reiterating the guidance for the full year, and Q4 is normally a strong quarter. So, as we say, we're not giving any more details on that, so we're on track to hit the guidance.
Okay. Okay. I'm going to see if there's any additional question coming here, here on the web. Not any additional yet. Let's see if I had some more here. We're still here. Yeah, I guess on, on, on moving back to KaFe Rocks, maybe. And you mentioned two assets there, but what's the diversification in, in, in the, in KaFe Rocks and in general? Are these, these two assets a large part of the revenue, or are a lot of smaller assets?
No, KaFe Rocks is more diverse than if we look at the AskGamblers acquisition, where, you know, you predominantly had AskGamblers. In KaFe Rocks, you have many more websites that drive revenue. It makes it a little bit more complex in terms of, you know, migrating sites and improving everything-
Mm.
But it also makes it more, diverse and with a lower risk, of course. So, yeah.
All right. All right. Great. I think we have gone through all the questions from me and, and from audience as well. So thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you for having us, and thank you for listening.
Thank you. Thank you.