The comparison problem
No two gambling companies report the same way. One reports GGR, another NGR after tax; one counts quarterly actives, another monthly (Betsson counts customers who played in the past three months, Flutter reports average monthly players); one adjusts out share-based payments, another does not; one reports in dollars with US state launches distorting every comparison, another in euros despite a Stockholm listing, as Betsson does. Comparing them is possible, and it takes work. This lesson sets out how, and then how to read the sector's results as a whole.
Rebuilding to a common basis
The steps, in order:
1. Revenue on one definition. Rebuild every company to NGR before gaming tax: GGR less bonuses. Where a company nets gaming tax off its revenue line, add the tax back from the notes; many put it in cost of sales instead, as Flutter's annual report on Form 10-K and Betsson (under cost of services provided, as betting duties) do, so their revenue is already before tax. Where a company reports GGR, deduct the bonus cost (disclosed or estimated from the GGR-to-NGR bridge). This is the basis on which operators' scale is comparable.
2. Margin on one definition. Adjusted EBITDA is the common headline, but the adjustments differ. Decide a house policy (accept acquisition costs and impairments as non-recurring; reject recurring "exceptionals" and treat share-based payments as a cost) and apply it to every company. Report the margin on the NGR basis from step one.
3. Cash conversion. Free cash flow divided by adjusted EBITDA (your version), over a trailing year to remove timing. The metric that exposes companies whose adjustments are real cash.
4. Customers. Convert to a common period where the disclosures allow it; where they do not, never set a three-month count against an average of monthly counts, because a count of everyone who played in three months is always at least as large as any single month's. Compare revenue per active rather than actives alone.
5. Growth on one basis. Constant-currency organic growth, with acquisitions removed for the first year after completion.
6. Leverage. Net debt excluding customer balances, divided by your adjusted EBITDA.
With those six on a common basis, a table of ten operators becomes a comparison; without them it is a list of press releases.
Operator versus supplier
Do not compare an operator's margin with a supplier's; they are different businesses in different layers, and the supplier's higher margin is structural. Compare operators with operators (margin, acquisition cost, cash conversion, leverage, regulated share) and suppliers with suppliers (growth, margin trend, concentration, regulated share, cash conversion). Compare across the layers only on growth and on the direction of travel, which lesson four's point about reading them together covers.
Valuation, briefly
Enterprise value divided by adjusted EBITDA is the working multiple. As a rule of thumb rather than a law, suppliers tend to trade at a premium to operators; growth companies at a premium to mature ones; companies with grey-market revenue at a discount; companies facing a regulatory event at a discount that narrows when the event lands. The iGT 25 index page shows the market values daily, and the M&A course covers valuation in the deal context. For the results reader the point is simpler: the market reacts to results against expectations, not against the prior year, so the share price move on the day says whether the company beat or missed what analysts expected, which is a different question from whether it did well.
Reading the sector
When the quarter's results are in, the sector has said something, and it is readable across the announcements:
Where growth is. Sum the regional revenue tables of the suppliers and the market tables of the operators. Growth in the US casino states, in Brazil, in a newly regulated European market shows up in both. Flat regions show up too.
What the product mix is doing. Casino versus sports, live versus RNG, in-play and parlays versus pre-match, across operators and suppliers together.
What regulation is costing. Tax rises land in cost of sales: Britain raised Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40% from 1 April 2026, and Betsson's second-quarter 2026 report gave a higher share of locally regulated revenue and the higher gaming taxes that follow as a key explanation for its lower profitability; advertising restrictions land in marketing efficiency; affordability checks land in actives and revenue per active. Companies in the same market report the same effects, and the pattern across them separates the market effect from the company effect.
What acquisition costs are doing. Marketing as a share of revenue and per first-time depositor, across operators in the same market, says whether the market is getting more expensive.
Who is winning. Share by market where regulators publish operator-level data, as some US states do (New Jersey's monthly release lists internet gaming win operator by operator); relative growth against the market total where they publish only aggregates, as iGaming Ontario does, with figures by product but not by operator.
What the suppliers are signalling. Their regulated-market share, their new certifications and their regional growth are the operators' next year.
The results calendar
Companies report on schedules the reader can plan around: US companies in the weeks after quarter end, with large accelerated and accelerated filers' quarterly report on Form 10-Q due within 40 days and other registrants' within 45; UK and many European companies with half-year and full-year reports plus trading updates, an issuer admitted to trading on a UK regulated market having to publish its half-year report within three months and its annual report within four months of the period end; Nordic companies quarterly, because Nasdaq Stockholm requires Swedish issuers to publish interim reports every quarter, within two months, and often much faster: Betsson published its second-quarter 2026 report on 17 July. The largest operators and suppliers report first and set the sector's tone; the smaller ones report later and are read against it. The markets page and the corporate desk track the calendar.
The reader's checklist
For any gambling company's results:
- Tables first, then the segment note, then the narrative.
- Revenue definition, active definition, adjustment policy, comparison period.
- Customers: growing or not, new or retained.
- Revenue quality: hold, product mix, market mix, regulated share, currency.
- Marketing: absolute, share of revenue, per new customer, against guidance.
- Tax and cost of sales as shares of revenue.
- Adjusted EBITDA, the reconciliation, and what recurs.
- Free cash flow against adjusted EBITDA.
- Customer balances separated from the company's cash; net debt and leverage; covenants and maturities.
- Goodwill, impairments, provisions, contingent liabilities, related parties.
- Regulatory disclosures against the prior period.
- Guidance against the last guidance, and the assumptions.
- The analysts' questions.
- What the company did not say.
A reader who does this for a few quarters across a dozen companies knows the industry better than most people in it, because the results are where the story and the numbers meet, and the numbers are where the industry actually is.