Better Collective's North America Margin Leaps From 5% to 26%

The 9% revenue line is not the story. An affiliate that barely made money in its most important growth market a year ago now runs a 26% margin there, and it has named prediction markets as one of the three things that got it there.

• Better Collective reported second-quarter revenue of 89 million euros, organic growth of 9%, in regulatory release 78/2026 published on Friday 21 August
• EBITDA before special items rose 20% to 27 million euros, lifting the margin two percentage points to 30%
• The North American EBITDA margin before special items went from 5% in the second quarter of last year to 26% this year, which the company attributed to revenue share income, talent-led media and prediction markets
• Cash flow from operations before special items rose 59% to 30 million euros, a cash conversion of 111%
• The 2026 FIFA World Cup delivered the expected tailwind, with new depositing customers up 24% and the value of deposits reaching an all-time high, and full-year guidance was maintained

The Margin Moved Five Times Further Than the Revenue

Better Collective, the Danish affiliate group listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, reported second-quarter revenue of 89 million euros on Friday, organic growth of 9% against the same quarter last year.

EBITDA before special items grew considerably faster, up 20% to 27 million euros, taking the group margin up two percentage points to 30%. Cash generation moved further still: cash flow from operations before special items rose 59% to 30 million euros, a cash conversion of 111%.

The number the company led with, though, was regional. In North America, the EBITDA margin before special items went from 5% in the second quarter of 2025 to 26% in the second quarter of 2026. Better Collective attributed the shift to three things: revenue share income, talent-led media, and prediction markets.

"Q2 was a strong quarter for Better Collective, with organic revenue growth of 9% translating into 20% growth in EBITDA before special items to 27 mEUR," said Jesper Søgaard, co-founder and co-chief executive. "We are particularly encouraged by the progress in North America, where growth was driven by revenue share income, talent-led media and prediction markets, while the EBITDA margin before special items improved significantly from 5% to 26%."

The 2026 World Cup contributed as expected, with new depositing customers up 24% and the value of deposits at an all-time high. Full-year guidance was maintained: organic revenue growth of 7% to 12%, EBITDA growth of 8% to 18%, an annual share buyback of 40 million euros, and net debt to EBITDA below three times.

A Five-Point Margin Is a Business That Does Not Work Yet

It is worth sitting with what a 5% EBITDA margin meant a year ago. On any normal reading, an affiliate business running at that level in its most important growth market is not a business so much as a customer acquisition programme being paid for out of somewhere else. The step to 26% in twelve months is not incremental improvement; it is the point at which North America starts contributing to the group rather than consuming it. That is the single most consequential fact in this release, and it is why the 9% revenue line is the wrong number to lead on. Revenue tells you how much media the group sold. The margin tells you whether selling it was worth doing.

Revenue Share Is the Half of the Mix That Makes the Margin Durable

Of the three drivers named, revenue share matters most for whether this holds. An affiliate paid on cost-per-acquisition books a fixed sum when a player signs up and then has to find another one; an affiliate on revenue share books a proportion of what that player loses for as long as they keep playing. The first is a treadmill with a marketing budget attached, the second compounds. American operators resisted revenue share for years, because paying a percentage of gross gaming revenue in perpetuity is expensive when you are trying to reach profitability yourself. That they are now conceding it, at scale, says the acquisition market has tightened enough that affiliates have pricing power they did not have in 2022. It also means Better Collective's North American margin should be less volatile from here, because a larger share of it is recurring rather than won again every quarter.

Prediction Markets Named as a Revenue Driver Is the Line to Watch

The third driver is the one with implications beyond this company. Prediction markets appearing in a listed affiliate's results as a named contributor to regional margin is a different thing from prediction markets appearing in a regulatory filing or a court judgment, which is where they have mostly appeared to date. It means the affiliate infrastructure that sends traffic to sportsbooks has started sending it to event contracts too, and being paid for it. As iGaming Times reported this week, combined volume across Kalshi and Polymarket reached a record 50.6 billion dollars in July. An affiliate channel monetising that volume is how a parallel market becomes an adjacent one. It also quietly exposes Better Collective to the unresolved American question of whether event contracts on sport are wagers, because an affiliate is paid by whoever is still trading.

The World Cup Makes This Quarter Unrepeatable

Set against all of that, the tailwind needs discounting. New depositing customers up 24% and record deposit value are World Cup numbers, and the tournament ran from 11 June to the final on 19 July, which places almost all of it inside this quarter. The margin story is structural and the volume story is not, and separating them is what the third quarter will do. Guidance being maintained rather than raised, after a quarter with a global tournament in it, is the more informative signal about how the company reads its own second half.

Better Collective sold 9% more this quarter. What changed is that it finally makes money on the continent it has spent five years buying into.