Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Brent, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Bragg Gaming Group fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. It is now my pleasure to turn today's call over to Mr. Yaniv Spielberg, Chief Strategy Officer. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. I'm Yaniv Spielberg, Chief Strategy Officer for Bragg Gaming Group. I'll be hosting today's call alongside my colleagues, Chief Executive Officer, Yaniv Sherman, who will comment on our fourth quarter and full year performance, and Ronen Kannor, our CFO, will review and discuss our fourth quarter and full year results. If you've not already done so, you can follow our earnings call presentation from our website at investors.bragg.group in the section called Latest Presentation. On this call, we'll review Bragg's financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2022. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the conference call to a question and answer period. I'll start the call with some brief cautionary remarks regarding certain statements that may be made on this call.
Certain statements made on this conference call and our responses to various questions may constitute forward-looking information or future-oriented financial information within the meaning of applicable securities law. Statements about expected growth, respective results, strategic outlooks, and financial and operational expectations, opportunities, projections rely on a number of assumptions concerning future events, including market and economic conditions, business prospects or opportunities, future plans and strategies, technological developments and anticipated events, trends and regulatory changes that may affect the corporation and its subsidiaries and their respective customers and industries. While we believe these assumptions to be reasonable, they're subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are outside of the company's control and which could cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different.
There can be no assurances that these assumptions or estimates are accurate or that any of these expectations would prove accurate. For a complete discussion of these factors, please refer to our recently filed press release and other publicly available disclosure. With that behind us, I'd like to turn the call now to our CEO, Yaniv Sherman. Yaniv.
Thanks. Hi, everyone. I'm Yaniv Sherman, Bragg CEO. Thanks for attending our 2022 4th quarter and full year results presentation. We're excited to take you through our strategic, operational, and financial highlights, as well as sharing some more of our plans for 2023 and beyond. Moving to slide 4, 2022 marked a transformational year for Bragg. Beyond our financial results, our record revenues and Adjusted EBITDA, we've continued to transition from a regional Central European leading online platform to a global content-led iGaming solution provider with extensive distribution across U.S., Europe, and Latin America. We've integrated our teams and sites under a unified brand, Bragg, working towards a joint mission and vision. The Braggers are persistently executing against the strategy and the course that we've charted, and I'm very happy to share the progress we've made.
On slide number 5, after concluding our U.S. acquisition, we are perfectly positioned to fast-forward Bragg into its future. We marked the launch of two new Bragg game studios, Atomic Slot Lab and Indigo Magic, and we were able to develop the first batch of proprietary and exclusive market-tailored games for U.S. and Europe. Our U.S. rollout is progressing well, leveraging Bragg's cutting-edge tech stack and development core, coupled with unique game production know-how. Having launched in new regulated markets in Europe, our recent success in the Dutch market was complemented by customer and game rollout in the U.K., Switzerland, Belgium, and the Czech Republic, just to name a few. On the product front, we are religiously developing our products, tools, and features to introduce our partners and their players with the best possible customer experience in iGaming.
While 2022 and 2023 are by no means the end of the journey, I'm happy to say we are definitely on our way. I'd like to turn this to Ronen for a review of our financial results and then take you through some more operational highlights in more depth. Ronen.
Thank you, Yaniv, good morning, everyone. I'll begin my comments on slide 7. As Yaniv indicated earlier, 2022 was a transformational year for the group, and we can see that in our financials and operational results. The group continued to execute very well during the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter total revenue was up by 50.3% year-over-year to EUR 23.7 million and up by 13.3% from the previous quarter, representing an all-time record revenue for the group. In addition, the group's year-over-year revenue growth was 45.3% and reached record of EUR 84.7 million.
The growth was mainly derived organically through its existing customer base, new onboarded customers in various jurisdictions, in particular the Netherlands, with a solid revenue performance from the Wild Streak Gaming and Spin Games existing U.S. customer base. From a professional and KPI perspective, total wagering generated by games and content offered by the group during the quarter was up by 65.4% from the same period in the previous year to EUR 5.1 billion, and up by 24% to EUR 17.7 billion year-over-year. As you can see from the wagering chart on the right-hand side, Bragg has seen a positive momentum since the effect of the inception of the German regulatory restrictions on gameplay in Q3 2021, which demonstrated its ability to transform and diversify its operations.
Gross profit for the quarter increased by 61.6% to EUR 30 million, with gross profit margins increasing by 390 basis points to 54.9%. On a full-year basis, the gross profit increased 59.2%, reaching EUR 45.1 million, moving margins by 460 basis points to 53.2%. The margin increase is a direct effect of a change in our composition of revenue derived from the increase of iGaming platform, managed services and proprietary game studios, which have no cost of sales, compared to third-party games and content which have associate third-party costs.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was up by 128% to EUR 3.6 million, with Adjusted EBITDA margins reaching 15.4%, an improvement of 530 basis points from the same period in the previous year. On a full year basis, Adjusted EBITDA was up by 64% to EUR 12.1 million, a record result for the group. The change in margin was mainly as a result of scale, a change in the product mix of iGaming, alongside with high investment in salaries cost as part of the group's strategy to expand its software development and product portfolio, all with the focus of margin control. Operating profit from the quarter amounted to EUR 0.2 million, an improvement of EUR 2 million from the previous year.
On a yearly basis, it saw an improvement of EUR 5.5 million to an overall EUR 0.8 million operating loss as a result of improved underlying performance. Finally, we are pleased that in the first few weeks of the year, we have seen a strong current trading matching our expectations. Turning to slide 8. As I mentioned earlier, our entry into new markets, particularly the Netherlands, has been exceptionally strong. This, coupled with new client wins and the ramping up with operators launched early in the year, has given consistent quarterly growth since third quarter of 2021, with the fourth quarter 2022 seeing a 13.4% increase quarter-over-quarter and 50% from the previous year.
The key drivers for the fourth quarter outperformance is new launches of iGaming and turnkey solution customers, mainly on the Dutch market, which is ComeOn and Bet Nation, and Macao in the Czech market. Performance of customers launched in financial year 2021 and in financial year 2022 was better than expected, mainly on the content segment, and North America content revenue tracking in line with our expectations with the rollout of new content in Michigan and New Jersey. Overall, new business pipeline, new market entry, and more focused sales underpin the financial year 2023 revenue targets. As you can see on slide 9, gross profit margins are in the growing trajectory since third quarter of 2021 due to the shift of Bragg's product mix.
We are scaling up our business in line with both our revenue growth and the continued movement in product mix, as indicated on the right-hand side of the slide. Product mix has changed noticeably since last year, third quarter. It is trending towards PAM, turnkey solution and proprietary content, leading to improving gross profit margins and profitability. The gross profits increased by 61.6% to EUR 30 million in the fourth quarter, with a full year growth of 59.2%, reaching EUR 45.1 million, with margin improving for the quarter by 390 basis points to 54.9%, and for the full year by 460 basis points to 53.2%.
The fourth quarter revenue performance driven mainly from the content, aggregate and third-party exclusive content and proprietary content, while platform and turnkey solutions were slightly lower proportionally. In the fourth quarter, total games and content revenue segment amounted to EUR 80 million and represented 76% of the total revenue, compared to EUR 11.4 million and 72% of last year. Proprietary content deployment is positively progressing both in the U.S. and E.U. market by increasing both distribution and games performance. As we indicated in the previous quarters, the group is targeting gross profit margins improvement to reach 60% by financial year 2024, mainly by increasing its revenue portion of its proprietary content, PAM, and turnkey solutions.
Moving to slide 10, Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 3.6 million against an operating profit of EUR 0.2, and on a full year basis to EUR 12.1 million against an operating loss of EUR 0.8. The gap was driven by the following non-cash and exceptional items. Depreciation amortization. The increase in intangibles amortization is part of the Wild Streak and Spin acquisition in June 2021 and June 2022 respectively, and the increase of capitalized software development costs. Share-based payments. The charge of awards granted to senior management during the period composed of deferred shares units, restricted share units, and share options. Transaction and acquisition costs. Costs mainly associated with acquisition of Spin acquisition in June 2022, M and A activities during the year, and costs associated to the convertible debt financing completed in September 2022. Exceptional costs.
The costs mainly associated with the strategic review process took place early in the year, with one-time board compensation and recruitment fee. As you'll see on slide 11, we ended the quarter with cash balance of $11.3 million compared to $60 million of December 31, 2021, with outstanding liability of $10 million convertible debt. As of this date, the total outstanding liability after share conversion is $9 million. Our net working capital is approximately $8 million, excluding current convertible liability, compared to $11.6 million at the beginning of the year.
The cash difference between the start of the year and the end of the year is explained by EUR 9.1 million consideration paid upon the Spin acquisition, a continuing investment in CapEx and TAC in a total of EUR 7.3 million, and this offset by EUR 8.1 million net proceeds from the convertible debt and improvement in the group performance. Looking forward, we are projecting a positive free cash flow from operation where there is no CapEx or technology debt required in the business. Management is confident that there is no immediate refinancing or further debt requirements need for the business. Turning now to our outlook for 2023. We started off the year so far with continued momentum and expect that we will continue to successfully execute on our growth drivers throughout the year.
This morning, we provided revenue guidance in a range of EUR 93 million-EUR 97 million and Adjusted EBITDA guidance in a range of EUR 40.5 million to EUR 16.5 million. The midpoint of these ranges represent year-over-year growth of 12% for revenue and 28% for Adjusted EBITDA. With our record fourth quarter performance and strong current trading, today's guidance compares positively to the initial outlook we provided last November when we reported our third quarter's results. With that, I will turn the call back to Yaniv.
Thanks, Ronen. Our games and product development machine has been reinforced with top content partners and complemented with tier one customers. Partnerships with leading companies like Bluberi and Galaxy Gaming produced online-first games and deployed with blue chip operators in the U.S. and Europe, including our newly launched turnkey partners, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. Our ability to successfully operate on both sides of the Atlantic and our focus on iGaming has proven to be a key differentiator for Bragg in what is a crowded and competitive marketplace. Slide 15 showcases our recent content production and development, headed by our Las Vegas content hub, developed and integrated by our amazing teams across Slovenia and India. Within a year, we've established two new studios and managed to develop and deploy 20 new titles across our network. We aim to more than double this production capability within 2023.
On top of this proprietary portfolio, we've developed and integrated 23 titles from our exclusive partners under our Powered By Bragg program. This combination offers another point of differentiation. By working closely with our operating partners, we're already optimizing game performance and applying the growing data set to the 2023 games development roadmap. This is a key driver in our quest to become a must-have content partner into all markets we operate in. Slide 16 demonstrates the initial impact already apparent of our content-led strategy. By expanding our proprietary and exclusive portfolio, we are able to offer a unique selling point and simultaneously expand margin towards our long-term goal. This is just the beginning. Game development, when done right, takes time and persistence. However, the team's ability to set up, produce, and roll out this new game portfolio in a short time frame is an amazing achievement.
We're now focused on ramping up our game production and distribution through 2023 as we want to leverage this early success, create momentum, and brand recognition as proven performers. The bottom graph also demonstrates our strategy's execution effect on revenue and market diversification. Another key differentiator in our ability to offer content coupled with regulated and compliant tech stack. It's not just about the games. It enables us to create new revenue sources that serve as a foundation to future growth. We're going toe-to-toe with much larger competitors and aim to disrupt our field and gain additional market share. iGaming has always been a super dynamic sector, and Bragg's agility and creativity has allowed us to succeed even under extremely challenging conditions. Product excellence and market diversity are key to our future success and will eventually win the day.
Moving on to slide 17, specifically in the U.S., which is the fastest growing iGaming market in the world. Our existing distribution and existing relationships are helping us roll out new content across major gaming states at a growing pace. Online casino is now recognized as a key component in the U.S. growth and profitability story for the operators, and we see an increasing demand for well-performing games. Atomic Slot Lab's game development philosophy, which leverages proven land-based titles and game mechanics, has resulted in a new content portfolio we are very excited about and has already been well-received by American players and complements the already established Spin Games roster. We are now focused on cranking up our production capabilities, aiming to introduce more proprietary and exclusive games from our partners and working closely with the operators in order to deploy and promote these games.
Our clear goal for 2023 and beyond is to position Bragg as a content must-have partner across the key iGaming space. In slide 18, 2022 was no different than previous years in terms of online market regulation, which has only accelerated. For Bragg, it has been a year of new market entries alongside existing markets expansion. Establishing Bragg as a market leader in the Netherlands was complemented by new content deployed in the U.K., Sweden, Canada and Switzerland. Our hub aggregation platform was deployed into the Belgian market and our PAM went live in the Czech Republic. This, of course, follows our new content deployment in the U.S. Deals to introduce our content in the Italian market, the second biggest in Europe, and in Mexico have been signed. We are now looking to launch and expand our presence in these important markets.
Looking ahead, new opportunities lie in markets going through different stages of regulation. Brazil is one key Latin American market we have our sights set on. We also continue to monitor the developing German online sports and casino regime relaunched earlier this year. Our tech and games have long been proven performance in this market. In North America, our licensed and certified proposition will help us capitalize on future U.S. states and Canadian provinces regulating iGaming in the mid and longer term. To summarize, we're now lapping another record year for Bragg financially and operationally. We are consistently executing against our product and market strategy, entering new markets with our multi-product approach and increasing our proprietary content footprint. We're continuing to reinvest into our product and teams as we grow Bragg into a B2B key player organically.
This also enables us to take on additional inorganic opportunities in the future. With our strong current trading and 2023 guidance of between EUR 93 million and EUR 97 million in revenues and EUR 14.5 million to EUR 16.5 million of Adjusted EBITDA, we're excited about the opportunities we have in front of us, and we can't wait to execute against them. I wanted to take this opportunity and thank our Braggers for their dedication and an amazing year. These are truly their achievements. Thanks again for listening. We'll be happy to take any questions you may have.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from Edward Engel with Roth MKM. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you for taking my question and congrats on a nice quarter. Last quarter you had the slide up that showed a timeline of your state-by-state U.S. rollout of proprietary content, which was largely being completed by the end of 2023. Can you just talk about how you're tracking in terms of rolling out in new U.S. states and then I guess, major operators within those states?
Sure. Go ahead. Yeah, we're, the plan as we presented it is progressing well. We are live in the three major gaming states with top operators there being New Jersey, Michigan, Connecticut. We have Pennsylvania as planned, as we communicated last time around, on plan, on target and final stages of testing, and we hope pending regulatory approvals that we can go live there immediately. In terms of our rollout plan, both with operators and with in the different U.S. states, we're on track. Now it's about, as we mentioned, getting more share out of the operators and also moving down the list, sort of increasing our market share in each one of those states and our share of wallet in each one of the operators. It's progressing per the plan that we've communicated.
Perfect. Thanks. On slide number 16, it shows there's a pretty decent uptick in your gross profit from Bragg Studios. Was that just a factor of a lot of game releases or I guess what was kind of driving that strength in December?
Well, it's, it represents the segment. We're always seeing the effect of over-indexing in terms of monetary value. This is still a low base we're working off, but the proportion of Bragg Studios inside our overall game proposition, both exclusive and proprietary, is growing at a nice pace. Again, reaffirming the business rationale behind expanding our production capabilities around it. That is trending well and the initial batch of games is has been performing per our expectations, in some cases exceeding them. These are good initial signs.
Perfect. Just one last one if I could squeeze it in. The gross margin in the fourth Q had a nice uptick. Just wondering, would it be fair to assume that gross margins should be higher in the second half of the year as you're kind of rolled out with your provider content across more states?
Yeah. Well, that was the original plan. Again, focus on deploying deployment in the first half of the year and starting getting that effect in the second half of the year. We are mostly demonstrating our ability to consistently grow that margin. Having said that, if we have opportunities to invest or to develop the product or the proposition further, we may choose to, you know, apply more capital towards it. At this point, that is
Seems to be the direction we're heading in. Again, if we wanted to ramp up our game development and product development capability, we're able to do that. The trend is to expand growth margin through the second half of the year and into 2024.
Great. congrats again.
Thanks.
Your next question is from the line of Matthew Lee with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.
Hey, morning guys. I'd love to start by breaking down the updated guidance in terms of what's changed, both in terms of revenue and more importantly, profitability. You know, the midpoint of your guidance suggests high teens EBITDA margin, which is a pretty substantial jump in current levels. Just want to get your thoughts there.
Yeah. What changed? Well, we maintain consistency in terms of our previous guidance, just with monetary value. We've communicated low teens on revenue and at least 20% growth on Adjusted EBITDA. Developers at the fourth quarter was stronger than we anticipated on the back of a good, mostly activity around World Cup. That momentum continued into this year. That's mostly we revisited the growth trajectory, and we wanted to make sure that we were bullish enough on our estimate at this point. That was mostly when we spoke last in November. It was pre-World Cup, and we were cautious about our expectations because frankly, no one has ever seen this type of event at this time of the year.
Again, we were pleasantly surprised by increased gaming activity around it, which led us to revising guidance.
Right. That's fair. Then maybe on the content side, you know, proprietary currently makes up about 10% of total revenue. Maybe can you help us understand where you set that to be for 2023, then maybe longer term, given your expectations of acceleration of that business? Then, you know, have you changed the number of proprietary games that you're expecting this year and then maybe next year?
Sure. I'll take the second one first. We're changing the number of proprietary games. We're putting more development resources behind them. We've established, and again, as we outlined, in record time, we were able to regroup or reestablish two new studios around the resources that were in the company that acquired through the U.S. acquisitions. We're building around them. More developers, more game production, more certifications and more territories also separating between the EU and the U.S. production lines. That's the reason why we're looking to increase both production and deployment, because deploying in regulated territories is not a trivial task. We're streamlining that process so we can do more with the existing resources.
On the proprietary content, well, basically what we are expecting is that production and capability and the deployment capability ramp up will result in accelerating their proportion of the total revenues. Right now it's ticking up to 10%, and then naturally every percent we expand there should have a bigger impact on the bottom line, and that's basically the plan. We don't have a separate target for proprietary content for 2023 and 2024, but we do realize that is embedded inside the guidance in our budget. If you look at the budget, know the guidance and the number of proprietary games that we're planning to deploy, you pretty much get the full picture of the effect that it will have. The bottom line is growing faster than the top line.
All right. I appreciate that. Thanks. I pass the line.
Thanks, Matt.
Your next question comes from the line of Adhir Kadve with Eighth Capital. Your line is open.
Thanks, guys. Good morning and congrats on the quarter. Lots of new content in New Jersey, Michigan. I'm just wondering, can you give us kind of like early feedback on how this content is kind of being received by the players and by the markets?
Yeah. We've had a good initial experience. Just a small group of these games have gone live in these markets still. It's subset about 5 or 6 games since November through today. We're looking to redeploy a few more batches inside Q1 and then Q2. The initial results are encouraging in the sense that every game that we've put out there made an impact, and specifically with the leading gaming operators that we deployed them with. I'm talking mostly on GGR and activity levels. It's now about 2 other factors that we need to make sure that we consistently improve, is one is positioning.
These games typically are well accepted. You need to make sure that they are promoted and positioned in a way that will keep activity high. That's something that we're working with the operator towards. The second is cadence, making sure that we release those on a steady and well-communicated plan. That saying is also very relevant to Europe with the larger operators. Creating that visibility and roadmap into the second half of the year is very important. I think that would create a long-lasting effect. The initial signs show that the games are working and they're getting traction and also getting the appropriate attention from the operators. That's what we're looking to build as we scale up.
Okay. Thanks for that color. Just, you know, on the back of that, like are the games that you have, for example, in New Jersey and Michigan, are they easily transferable into markets like Connecticut? If you see very good results in New Jersey, do you require a lot of kind of investment into games to kind of launch them into a new, into a new state or potentially a new country?
New state, no. It's the games are consistently across the U.S. The main thing is certification, which needs to each state requires a slightly different certification process and, you know, with the operators. That's once the game is live in one state and certified in another, it's pretty streamlined or I wouldn't say easy, but it's more transferable. Other markets, games from the U.S. into Europe and vice versa, it's not as trivial as people initially saw. That's the reason why we've structured this both market-specific or call it continent-specific. Some U.S. games are accepted. Well, we've seen some Atomic Slot Lab games received well in the U.K. and other territories.
Generally speaking, we're trying to cater for each market, and if we get the benefit of transferability, that's great. We assume that the players in each market sort of have their own taste, especially when you talk about Central Europe versus the U.S.
Okay, excellent. And maybe one last one from me, and then I'll pass the line. GGR generated on the platform was fairly high this year, this quarter, at $5.1 billion. I assume a lot of that is on the back of transactional activity from the World Cup. But can you kind of give us what, like a second order benefit of that when you see these people coming on the platform, transacting, playing games? How do you kind of leverage that into the future, and how does that kind of help you guys as a group?
Well, a lot of it is with the operator. We provide them with the tools, but at the end it's always a game. The World Cup generally is a big acquisition event. What we, as I said, we were pleasantly surprised is the gaming activity. Most of this is still gaming activity, not necessarily sport. We do provide sport in some key markets like the Dutch market. This is predominantly gaming activity. If you see an increase in bet, it means the players are playing. The one thing that you want to make sure that in terms of engagement that players keep on playing is the levels of activity or the number of actives keeps increasing to increase that wagering activity.
Once the bets are increasing, you were able to acquire and retain the players. Again, this is a lot to do with the operators' CRM and acquisition. Mostly their retention and engagement efforts. We do offer them an increasing number of tools with greater depth so they can retain those players and increase activity like Fuze that have seen some great initial success in making the games and events more sticky. So far that increase, as I said, the momentum persisted into the first quarter, which suggests that the players stay with both the content and the platform, which proves to be sticky in that regard. Wagering is a good parameter of activity, generally speaking.
Excellent. Thanks a lot guys. I appreciate the color.
Thanks, Adhir.
the guidance for the quarter. Bye-bye.
Thanks, Adhir.
Your next question is from the line of Mike Hickey with The Benchmark Company. Your line is open.
Hey, Yaniv. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Bragg team. Congratulations on your fourth quarter year and your strong guidance here. I guess the first question, I realize fourth quarter was strong. Your current trading activity seems to have, I guess, carried a lot of that momentum. I'm wondering sort of how you factor in the macro environment into your thinking for 2023. Obviously a lot of pressure on the consumer, the player. Curious how that's impacting your business in key markets.
Thanks, Mike. I think the major factor behind it is diversification. You're absolutely right that in a sort of a recession prone or I don't want to call it a recession mania riddled environment and consumers are generally more conscious of expenditures and free cash flow. Generally speaking, when we diversify our revenue flow and our revenue sources, then especially across different markets, but also through different product verticals, we create sort of a safety net around that. I have to say that some of the growth that we were seeing sort of on a broader level, so more entertainment and consumer driven spending. Some of the content also well received is, let's call it on the entertaining or entertainment side.
Generally speaking, the way we think about this, the macro environment is definitely something that we need to keep an eye on, but it's mostly on the side of the operators and markets themselves. Our customers, our partners are directly impacted. In that regards, we're very focused on creating long-term partnerships that have, you know, two-way incentives so both parties can demonstrate margin and control, especially in regulated environment. This is the long game and that's the way we're building it. Diversity and the right types of deals is the right, really the right strategy to sort of go through this challenging period, which will eventually end.
Nice. Thank you. The, I guess the next question on your U.S. expansion, it seems obviously some puts and takes here, I think, coming into a new market, especially one that's expanding so fast. Just curious, I guess, any incremental early learnings after being in the market now in the U.S. and how you think about your current resources. I think you mentioned maybe in your prepared remarks that, you know, maybe you'd continue sort of M&A and increasing your internal development. I guess just broadly speaking, curious what you're seeing in the market, what you're learning and how that's maybe reshaped some of your thoughts on the U.S. Then also just curious, if you think there's any further regulatory relief.
It seems like online casinos is obviously behind sports betting in the U.S. in terms of opening new states. I think there's more of an effort here recently to sort of open new states. Curious your thinking there and the opportunity you see. Thanks, Yaniv.
Sure. On the first part, there's a lot to unpack. I'll try to sort of summarize it. I think what we've learned since we ventured into the market is, and I've been, you know, involved in the U.S. market for a decade now, is that two things or a few things prevail here. One is the investment, the resource investment you need to be prepared to put in and really lean into it. It's not just another market. The prize is big, but so is the investment. In some cases it's just a different type of DNA. I think the two acquisitions made with Spin Games and Wild Streak Gaming has proven themselves with game changers. Going into the market directly would've probably been either prohibitive or extremely challenging at our current structure.
Those acquisitions really provided us with the shortcuts that we were looking for because it's mostly around both distribution and your ability to work with the American deployment and regulatory compliance mechanisms, which are very different from Europe or the rest of the world. Very business prone, but they're very detail-oriented. This one thing is that's exactly what we're currently focused on and making sure that we streamline our global European, India and U.S. delivery machine, tuned towards the U.S. market and the U.S. operators who are different organs. These are different companies than the ones operating elsewhere. It is a unique market in that regard. That's one takeaway that it is almost setting up a whole new operation leveraging some of our global capabilities. The second part is on the regulation development in the U.S.
Naturally, a casino is very different than sport. We have 30 sports states, but only 6 gaming states. On one side it is more politically charged, and requires a lot of consensus and bipartisan support. On the other side, you just see a small group of states making such a material impact and creating such an enormous TAM. I think that we don't need to get to 30 states. We only need to get a couple more across the line to do 2 things. One is significantly increase the TAM, which is already big. You know, working off a low base, we don't need additional states, but any other states added will be a net to our addressable market and help us really increase that gearing effect.
Deploy the content, as I mentioned, into additional states is marginal. It's not dramatic. The second point is once a state adds casino to its existing sport product, I think that will serve as an important precedent because the 2-8, the 6 states that have regulated gaming alongside sports betting have done it pretty much the same time. Once the game or once, sorry, a state demonstrates its ability to pass casino on top of sport, I think that will write sort of the blueprint for other states to do that. I think that will accelerate this, I believe it's 2024 play onwards.
Once we do that, and putting aside the larger states, the top three states, anything in New York, Illinois or any of the larger states nationally will move the needle for everyone and for us as well. That tide should lift all ships.
Thank you, guys.
Thanks, Mike.
Your next question is from the line of David McFadgen with Cormark Securities. Your line is open.
Well, thank you. I was wondering if you could give us an update on the German market. Have you seen much of an improvement in that market? Are you banking on much of an improvement in your 23 guidance from Germany?
Hi there. In short, we were encouraged to see that the German local federal government has relaunched its regulatory regime. They now have a new body issuing licenses, which was a bottleneck in the past, really slowed down the development of the market. Having said that, the one thing that still remains challenging is the actual tax framework there, which is very high. It's actually on a betting wagering basis, which is prohibitively expensive. Without significant change in that, I think that that market will be challenged to really go back to what it used to be. Having said that, we are hearing increased conversations about addressing that in several contexts. That's why we mentioned it. We're encouraged. We haven't included that in our 2023 guidance. We're assuming that that development will take more time.
We've mentioned it because to us it will be a pure upside of the platform and mostly the content that we have developed and integrated into it with some of our local partners in our proprietary portfolio. We know how to operate in that market from a consumer perspective, adjusting it towards any regulation should be relatively straightforward. Again, now that they're issuing licenses, the tax framework is probably the next order of business, and I hope they will go forward and make it a more, call it business-oriented, market as opposed to a restrictive one. That's our baseline assumption.
Okay, thank you. Just on the Netherlands, can you give us an update on your performance in that market? I know in the past, your market share was about 30%. I was just wondering if you'd give us an update on that statistic and just how things are going in the Netherlands.
Well, yeah. I mean, we don't have any formal data yet or recent formal data around it, but we're assuming we're about the same, about the same market share, give or take. The point, we've had great success with our partners there. We've launched two more operators. Those launches, as Ronen has indicated in his presentation, were better than we expected. They were quickly ramping up even during the World Cup, which is typically a sports-led, sports-led event. They were able to acquire and grow inside that market. The market is growing, albeit a more moderate pace naturally since its inception, as you expect.
There right now we're very focused in working with our partners to make sure that we, you know, keep adjusting and improving the platform also from a competitive and more importantly from a compliance perspective. You know, the local regulators has a high bar, and we aim to keep on meeting it. Some of the changes that they're making, we're keeping abreast with. That's one of our major focus areas. You know, having the experience in other regulated markets, we know that this isn't there's never a steady state. It's very much a moving target, and we're very focused on that. So far, we're very happy with the performance in that market. We're looking to fortify our market position there with increasing our existing partners and potentially adding new ones.
Okay. Just lastly, you talked about the content rollout in the U.S. being accelerated in the latter half of the year. I'm just wondering, does that have the potential to potentially raise guidance as you bring out more and more titles that are back half weighted?
Well, we've taken into consideration our plan. Naturally, if we are able to roll out. The one thing that, you know, accelerating rollout will naturally have a positive effect, but more importantly, we're trying to work off some working assumptions, around the games performance. What could change, potentially change guidance is if some of the games, produce, or perform better than what we expected. There's no real way of knowing it, before you launch a game like most consumer-facing products. I would say that, alongside our production and deployment capability, the games, stickiness and performance have the potential of, moving guidance, in that regard. That's something that we will naturally monitor and keep, you know, you guys and investors updated as we make progress through the second and third quarter.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thanks.
Your next question is from the line of Jack Vander Aarde with the Maxim Group. Your line is open.
Okay, great. Good morning, guys. Congrats on the strong 2022 finish and a strong 2023 outlook. I want to just point out maybe in the fourth quarter, the number of unique players using Bragg's games and content, excluding Wild Streak and Spin, that increased by 51% to 2.8 million it looks like in the fourth quarter.
Mm-hmm.
Clearly robust growth in players, especially considering the macro. Can you just remind me of what this actually includes and what's driving this kind of robust player growth? Because it seems like the fourth quarter particularly stood out relative to the rest of the year. Thanks.
Well, the unique players is also a function of marketing activity around the brands that we power. As we mentioned, some of the market activities were around the World Cup, so that created a surge not just in sports activity, but also in gaming activity, depending on the country that you were in. Naturally, when we have large presence in places like the Netherlands and some of the U.K. and Western Europe, some of them have teams in the tournament, so a lot of the marketing was done around it, and I have to say very cleverly, sort of adjacent to the sports event before and after them. A lot of this also stems from a higher penetration on mobile. This was naturally the highest mobile penetration in World Cup history.
People were actually able to. In some cases, play through a game using their mobile devices. Overall, what you're seeing is mostly a effect of a seasonally atypical fourth quarter supercharged with increased marketing activity that resulted in increased unique players over the platform, both new players and existing players.
Excellent. Got you. Maybe just one more follow-up for me. just looking at the overall headcount, it looks like that's also scaled significantly since last year with, you know, over 400 employees, contractors, subcontractors. just how are you thinking about headcount in 2023, and is that baked into your Adjusted EBITDA guide? Thanks.
Yeah, sure. Of course, it's baked into our guidance. We, you know, we made a push. As I mentioned, we have an opportunity, and we wanted to put more resources behind our, you know, both product development but also content development. That's the main result behind it. As you can see, this is also a function of the overall activity. A company that runs or drives more than EUR 5 billion, you know, in bets and over almost $18 billion in processed funds and so forth, that's also projects and requires the more manpower around it, both from a development and a competitiveness perspective, and especially in a regulated environment. Again, the Netherlands, just to give context, the company was heavily reliant on the dotcom market back in 2021.
It's a completely different business now, both from a global but also from a practice perspective. That, in that regard, it affects both the investment and margin. Going forward, as I mentioned, into the second part of the year and into next year, we are looking to start harvesting the results of that investment. The fact that we're able to do that while maintaining growth and profitability, so top and bottom line, is a remarkable achievement, I have to say. Most companies at this point, they would have to sacrifice one or the other. We're able to do both. We just wanna use this momentum and the background, the growth trajectory to make sure that we put that to good use and a good return.
Right now, our main capital is human capital, and I expect that beyond this year, there will be more of a steady state or incremental growth as we go into new markets rather than this development push that we're trying to cater. We're basically shortening time frames instead of sort of stretching them out further into the future. We'd like to do that sooner rather than later.
Okay, great. I appreciate the color. That's it for me.
All right. Thanks, Jack.
Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the 1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Gianluca Tucci with Haywood Securities. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, guys, and congrats on a strong quarter. You mentioned that current trading is off to a strong start. I'm just wondering, do you expect normal seasonality this year, or given your state launch plans for 2023, this year might look a bit different?
Well, by now, I don't really know how to define normality over the last 2 or 3 years. I mean, this year, hopefully we're getting back to a more seasonal or let's call it foreseeable calendar with no major sport events in Europe or globally. Also, you know, the post-COVID effect is sort of subsiding back into a calendar. Yeah, I mean, I expect this now to be more driven by the business agenda rather than external events. Yeah, I mean, it's the only X factor here has been, you know, travel seasonality has been quite high over the past 2 years. People have been traveling a lot, so we have seen some of that effect.
On the flip side was a higher mobile penetration on gaming product, which traditionally was lower than sport. That compensated for some of that. I mean, this calendar, I think we're looking at something that resembles more of what we used to see up to 2019 than 2022 and 2021.
Okay, perfect. Thanks, Yaniv. On the proprietary content side, it's hanging around 10% of revenue. Like, when do you see that in the low to mid-teens? Is that also a back half of the year story?
Yeah. I mean, we're looking to ramp up the deployment, and that should follow suit as soon as, you know, we get that or soon after. Content, listen, content at the end of the day, and again, I'm stressing the fact that we're transforming, we're transitioning the company into that position. Other companies takes years to build a portfolio and a gaming brand and distribution presence. We're trying to leverage our existing capabilities, or we are leveraging our existing capabilities and distribution to short-circuit that. Content is always a persistence game. Once we get more and more content out there with more of our operators, that will take an effect and expand those. That's a mathematical sort of blueprint. We're not inventing anything new here.
The only thing that we're doing is leveraging it and as opposed to establishing this separately, which, you know, required a much different and bigger effort on existing both capital and resources. That base would expand if, I mean, if we need to further invest into it and then have it ramp up quicker into next year, that may be the best decision. Generally speaking, that is the direction of travel we're very, very focused on.
Okay, thanks. Just lastly from my end here, I think you mentioned that you expect to be free cash flow positive, so that's great. How can we think about CapEx investments for this year?
Ronen, you wanna take that?
Yeah, sure. Good morning, Gianluca. How are you doing? From a free cash perspective, from a CapEx perspective, let me just give you some kind of how it actually was involved. In 2021, we invested EUR 2.9 million. This year, it was EUR 6.7 million. When I'm mentioning CapEx, I'm talking about the software development cost is actually taking our team and allocating-
Right.
the costs, which is creating of new content. We're projecting from 2023, around EUR 10 million-11 million of software development costs in our balance sheet, which is quite prudent. We're keeping the same ratios. We know what we invest in. We know we have a limited of maintenance, all about launching new customers, building games, which is the most highly investment part of this particular year in the last 2022 and definitely in 2023. That's roughly, as Yaniv mentioned before, we're ramping our human resources and majority of the CapEx, I'd say 90%-95% of the CapEx is predominantly our software development cost. All the rest is IP and trademarks protection and investment in those particular items. That's in certification, of course, of games.
When you're launching on those particular markets, if it's the U.S. market specifically, in European, slightly different, you are certifying games, that's also part of your CapEx. The lion's share, as I mentioned, majority of it's our development team, which is all built in-house and by consultants that are fully dedicated and exclusive to us.
Excellent color. Thank you, guys. Again, congrats on a strong Q4.
Thanks, Gianluca.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back to Mr. Yaniv Spielberg.
Thank you, everyone, for joining our call this morning, and thanks to all the Braggers for their hard work and a very successful year. We're extremely happy with the year that passed and even more excited about the year ahead. We look forward to hosting all of you guys on our next call. For the time being, have a great day.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.