Allwyn Revenue Hits €1.25bn, but Strip Out PrizePicks and Growth Is 5%

Net revenue rose 27% and EBITDA 29% in the second quarter. The company's own underlying figure, excluding the American acquisition and Austrian tax, is a fifth of the headline.

• Allwyn reported Q2 2026 net revenue of €1.25 billion, up 27% year on year, with adjusted EBITDA up 29% to €458 million
• Excluding the PrizePicks acquisition and higher gaming taxes in Austria, the company puts underlying net revenue growth at 5%
• PrizePicks, the American daily fantasy sports operator Allwyn bought for $1.6 billion, contributed more than €200 million in the quarter
• Growth was also attributed to digital channel expansion, sports betting boosted by the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and improved profitability in the United Kingdom following completion of the National Lottery technology transformation
• The group reaffirmed 2026 guidance of mid-to-high 20s percentage net growth and an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 37%, and lottery revenue dipped slightly in the period

The Acquisition Is Doing Most of the Growing

Allwyn's second quarter is a strong set of numbers on the face of it. Net revenue of €1.25 billion is 27% ahead of last year, adjusted EBITDA of €458 million is up 29%, and the margin implied by those figures is comfortably in the range the company has guided to. Guidance for the full year was reaffirmed rather than raised.

The company is candid about the composition. Excluding PrizePicks and the effect of higher gaming taxes in Austria, underlying net revenue growth was 5%. PrizePicks alone contributed more than €200 million in the quarter, which on a €1.25 billion base is a substantial share of the total and the great majority of the increase.

The rest of the improvement came from a mix that is easy to read. Digital channels expanded, sports betting benefited from a World Cup summer, and the United Kingdom became more profitable after the completion of the National Lottery's technology transformation, the long and expensive migration Allwyn committed to when it took the licence. Lottery revenue itself slipped slightly, which is the segment the group is named for.

A 27% Headline and a 5% Underlying Is a Fair Disclosure and an Awkward One

Credit where it is due: Allwyn published the underlying figure rather than leaving analysts to derive it, and a company that discloses the number that undercuts its own headline is behaving well. The awkwardness is what the number says. Five per cent underlying growth, in a quarter containing a World Cup, from a group whose core business is lotteries, is modest. It means the 27% is very largely a function of having bought something, and acquisition-led growth stops flattering the comparison exactly twelve months after it starts. The reaffirmed guidance of mid-to-high 20s growth for the full year is therefore a statement about the anniversary of the PrizePicks deal as much as about trading, and the interesting quarter will be the first one where the acquisition sits in both sides of the comparison.

Buying American Fantasy Was a Prediction Markets Trade in Disguise

PrizePicks is a daily fantasy sports operator, and daily fantasy occupies the same contested space as event contracts: a product that reaches customers in states where sports betting is not licensed, on the argument that it is something other than a wager. That is why the acquisition looks smarter now than the price suggested at the time. Allwyn bought distribution into the American market without buying a sportsbook, at a moment when prediction markets are clearing record volumes on a similar theory. The risk is symmetrical: the legal reasoning that protects fantasy is not identical to the reasoning being tested in the event-contract cases, but the political attention now falling on one is unlikely to leave the other alone, particularly with the MLB players union asking Congress to reach in-game performance contracts.

The UK Result Is the Quiet Vindication

Improved British profitability after finishing the National Lottery technology programme is the line that most justifies the last two years. Allwyn took the licence promising modernisation, absorbed the cost and the criticism of delivering it, and is now showing the margin benefit. That matters commercially and it matters politically, because the company is currently answering questions from MPs about its choice of interim chief executive for the UK business. A licence holder under scrutiny is in a better position when the operational promise it made has visibly landed.

Allwyn bought its growth and said so plainly. The number to watch is the 5%.