Inspired Entertainment Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Adjusted for disposals, continuing revenue rose ~15% YoY with Interactive up 38%, reported EBITDA +29% and margin expansion of ~1,100 bps; the company also repaid $13M of debt, repurchased ~400k shares and generated strong free cash flow.
  • Positive Sentiment: Portfolio actions (sale of holiday parks and pub restructuring) cut headcount ~33% and reduced annualized capex to the low $30M, shifting the mix to higher‑margin digital businesses and improving cash flow conversion and leverage.
  • Positive Sentiment: Interactive momentum continues — North America now >30% of Interactive GGR, the company moved to #4 in the Eilers U.S. report, plans a new studio online in H2 and will use AI to accelerate game releases and secure prime placements.
  • Negative Sentiment: A UK iGaming tax increase (21%→40% effective Apr 1) is a material headwind; management says April revenue grew >10% after offsetting share gains, but the higher tax rate remains a risk to future UK profitability.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Virtual sports growth has been slower than hoped (Brazil weakness offsetting other regions); management now targets mid‑to‑high single‑digit long‑term penetration but cites catalysts — World Cup, Playtech partnership (H2 into 2027) and lottery opportunities — that could revive growth.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Inspired Entertainment Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Inspired Entertainment first quarter 2026 conference call. All participants' lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers re-prepared remarks, we will open the call for a question-and-answer session. Please note that today's event is being recorded. Before we begin, please refer to the company's forward-looking statements that appear in the first quarter 2026 earnings press release and in the accompanying slide presentation, both of which are available in the Investors section of the company's website at www.inseinc.com. This also applied to today's conference call. Management will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States securities laws. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements.

Operator

For a discussion on these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During today's call, the company will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in today's earnings release and slide presentation, which are both available on the website. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Lorne Weil, the company's Executive Chairman. Mr. Weil, please go ahead.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our first quarter conference call. Once again, we've prepared a slide deck to help focus the conversation, and Brooks and I will be using that for the balance of the program. Beginning with slide three, we continued in the first quarter to see the benefits of steps taken in 2025. As been reported previously, we took two important actions in 2025 to alter the balance of our portfolio. We sold the holiday park business, which we've discussed a number of times, and we restructured the pub's business to significantly reduce both capital and labor requirements. Overall, we've reduced company headcount by about a third from over 1,500 to around 950 and cut our annualized capital spending from the mid $40 million to the low $30 million.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Adjusting for the one-time impact of the holiday park and pub restructuring, which I'll discuss a little bit more in a moment, our continuing revenue grew by 15% year-to-year, driven in large part by 38% revenue growth in Interactive. Our Q1 reported EBITDA grew by 29%. Our EBITDA margin expanded by 1,100 basis points. We paid down $13 million in debt, and we bought back close to 400,000 shares. It was a very busy quarter. Slide four illustrates a little more clearly what's going on with revenue. The actions taken in holiday parks and pub together had the effect of reducing revenue in the first quarter of 2025 by about $10 million from $60 million-$50 million, as illustrated in the slide.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Driven importantly, but by no means exclusively by Interactive growth, this continuing revenue of $50 million, excuse me, grew by 15% to a little more than $57 million in the first quarter of 2026. Interactive is certainly the primary growth driver, but as Brooks will discuss in more detail in a minute, our retail business has been performing very well in all its worldwide markets. The sustained Interactive growth illustrated in slide five has in turn been driven importantly by superior content development, as has the retail business, though obviously to a lesser extent. In the retail business, the markets themselves are growing less quickly, and particularly in the U.K. and Greece, our market share is much higher. In just a moment, Brooks will elaborate on our content strategy, including the bringing on stream of a new studio.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Along with the focus on content development, we've been entering new markets, winning new customers, strengthening our accounts management team in order to maximize the benefit of our content. With that, I'll hand it over to Brooks.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Okay, great. Thanks, Lorne. Moving to slide six and to build on the points you made. Our core strength and focus is on developing the best content and delivering it wherever it's consumed, including retail, online, or in any number of geographies worldwide. One of our key markets is North America, which is now over 30% of our Interactive GGR overall and continuing to grow. As you can see on slide six, we continue to climb the ladder in the Eilers U.S. online report, moving up to fourth in the April report from number eight just a year ago. We're continuing to increase our share in both North America and the U.K. This isn't driven not just by content alone, but by a consistent roadmap of high-performing new game releases.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

We've also enhanced our account management teams to work more closely with our operator partners on securing prime placements and supporting promotional activity for exclusives as a key part of our offering. On slide seven, you can clearly see that we've built a portfolio of high-performing content across the last few years. With growth accelerating since January of 2025. We've seen these trends continue into April, where we ended the month on a high note with our highest ever single day total value played. These continuing results validate our strategy, and we're excited to bring an additional studio online in the second half of the year to continue to feed our operator partners with more great content that they've come to count on. Turning to the U.K., as of April 1st, the increased tax rate from 21%-40% came into effect in our Interactive business.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

With just over a month of data, the impact we are seeing tracks exactly with what we had forecast. Importantly, despite the step up, we saw our U.K. Interactive revenue grow in April, driven by our continuing share gains. Our U.K. GGR in April was more than 40% higher than a year ago, offsetting the tax increase and net-net resulting in our revenue growing by more than 10%. Where we see others retrenching in the U.K. market, we see opportunity to continue to grow our share, and we're committed to the resources to leverage this opportunity. Even with the tax headwind, the U.K. continues to demonstrate strength and resilience of this segment. Moving to slide eight.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

We're seeing the benefits of both strong content and the rollout of new machines across several key customers and geographies in our retail solutions business, proving that this phenomenon exists beyond Interactive. In the U.K., William Hill in particular, but frankly our entire U.K. LBO business, showed positive momentum in the first quarter, and we expect that to continue. We also added two new customers, Jenningsbet and Corbetts, and signed a multiyear contract extension with Paddy Power early in the second quarter. In Greece, our win per unit per day increased 11%, led by our recently introduced Valor Slant Top machine, and we will continue upgrading over the rest of 2026 and into 2027. We believe that this machine refresh will continue to drive growth in the retail solutions segment.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

In North America, we're cautiously optimistic about the expansion into Chicago and see the broader Illinois market as a good opportunity for us over the next 12-18 months. Combined with our growing footprint across several Canadian provinces, starting to see the beginning of the providing the scale that we really need in North America. Moving to slide nine. As we've talked about over the last year, we've seen stabilization in virtual sports despite the ongoing headwinds in Brazil, which remains a key market for us. Unfortunately, growth we are seeing in other regions is currently being offset by performance in Brazil. However, we see a clear path to growth supported by additional key customers and upcoming product releases, as well as the tailwind from the World Cup.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Moving to slide 10, which I think really validates what we've been talking about for some time, that optimizing our portfolio is delivering the outcome we expected. Divesting the lower margin, more capital-intensive.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Sorry about that.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Lorne, keep your phone off.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

I will.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Divesting the lower margin, more capital-intensive and less strategic holiday parks business, along with the restructuring of our pubs estate to be less capital and labor-intensive, has had the exact impact we were expecting. As a result, the shift to higher margin digital businesses, combined with improved retail performance, is leading to overall growth in EBITDA, margin expansion and significant improvement in cash flow. All of this is underpinned by our continued focus on delivering the best content to support this strategy. I'll turn it back over to Lorne.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Thanks, Brooks. Just to refocus a little on the numbers. Slide 11 is once again a snapshot of where we were at the end of the first quarter. Year-over-year growth in EBITDA was 29%. Digital accounted for about 60% of our EBITDA, and our leverage had declined to 3x. More importantly, slide 12 analyzes what happened with cash. We generated about $60 million in free cash flow, which we used to both repurchase stock and repay debt. Obviously, this won't occur every quarter because every other quarter we have a semi-annual cash interest payment to make. Over the course of a year, with cash generation being fairly steady and annual cash interest in the mid-30s and declining as we deleverage, our leverage-free cash flow conversion as a percent of EBITDA is comfortably in the 20s and hopefully growing.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Cash flow conversion and other key metrics are summarized in the targets on Slide 13. As we move through this year, we're projecting the underlying trends we've been seeing will continue. We expect to see steady sequential growth in EBITDA from Q1 onward now that most of the seasonality has been removed with the holiday park sale. In parallel, we're targeting strong cash flow conversion and declining leverage driven by both the paydown of debt and growing EBITDA. In terms of asset allocation, we will look to continue to both debt repayment and share repurchase. With that, we'll open the program up to questions.

Operator

To remind everyone, in order to ask question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question is coming from the line of Barry Jonas of Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Barry Jonas
Barry Jonas
Analyst at Truist Securities

Hey, guys. Thank you for all the really helpful color so far. Just a couple from me. I think we've heard from some competitors about macro and geopolitical issues impacting the top line and perhaps the cost environment, just I think I asked this last quarter, wanted to see if you had any updated thoughts there you could share.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

No. I think we're probably aligned with pretty much everyone else, and it's something that we're watching very closely. We're, you know, we're not seeing the impact of it thus far, but we're obviously mindful of it. I think the first quarter is kinda positively reinforcing that. You know, as we all know, you kinda have to keep your head on a swivel about this stuff.

Barry Jonas
Barry Jonas
Analyst at Truist Securities

Got it. Okay. Then, you know, I think the ramp of Interactive's been fairly impressive over the past few years. You know, the Virtual business is one where I think years ago we maybe had higher expectations and maybe just wanted to kind of get your thoughts. I think before we saw some of the near-term challenges, we were thinking kind of like a mid-teens percentage of OSB handle was a decent long-term target for Virtuals. Curious if you have any updated thoughts about the longer-term opportunity here? Thank you.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah, I think it's an interesting question. I think, I would say that we're probably a little frustrated at the growth that we would have expected from Virtual Sports. Just to put it in a little bit of context, at least as it relates to North America, you know, obviously, online sports betting is in 39 states, and right now, we're technically only allowed to go in a couple of states. Obviously one of the things that we would hope is to add both additional states, but also additional operators. Look, I think we have some product initiatives that are coming out that will help. We obviously expect to get some tailwind from the World Cup.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

You know, that might have been aggressive to think that it was gonna be a mid-teens percentage as a part of online sports betting. It's probably more like maybe mid to high single digits is probably the right number to think about.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

I think there's another issue, that I think is very important, Barry, too, which is that the opportunity for Virtual Sports is, certainly in North America, is not limited.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

to basically a companionship with online sports betting. That is in the lottery space. Without going into a lot of detail right now, I can tell you that we're seeing some very interesting developments with some of the most important lotteries in North America regarding the opportunity for Virtual Sports there. I think definitely as we move through this year, we'll see a couple of very meaningful developments that I think will be a tipping point for the Virtual Sports.

Barry Jonas
Barry Jonas
Analyst at Truist Securities

Awesome. All right. Thank you very much.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Sure. Thanks, Barry.

Operator

Your next question is coming from the line of Ryan Sigdahl from Craig-Hallum Capital. Please go ahead.

Will Yager
Will Yager
Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital

Hey, good morning. This is Will Yager on for Ryan Sigdahl. Thanks for taking our questions. First wanted to ask on the guide, you reiterated adjusted EBITDA, but increased the margin, so it implies that revenue a little bit lower than you expected. Curious what's the main factor going into that? Is it mostly U.K. iGaming taxes, virtuals, or is it something else entirely? Thanks.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

I think it's, I guess how I would characterize it is just a slight tweak. We're seeing the margins continue to increase. Obviously you've done the math on the revenue, but I think that's, it's just a guide. We certainly feel very confident. That's why we've, you know, upped the EBITDA margin targets. I, I don't see this as a big fundamental shift in it by any stretch of the imagination.

Will Yager
Will Yager
Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital

That's fair. Just a quick follow-up. I wanted to ask sort of on the Interactive expansion, you ended up launching in South Africa Fanatics in West Virginia. I am curious what the future expansion, you know, opportunities look like and how much more you think you have to run. Thanks, guys.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah. Sure. I think, you know, we've talked about this, you know, a number of times, and Lorne may wanna add to my commentary because I know he talks about it a lot, is, look, we're going into the regulated markets where we think it makes sense expanding in markets like West Virginia and South Africa. I think what we feel over the longer term is there's gonna be a large opportunity for expansion of iGaming in North America, particularly with everything that's happening in terms of, you know, the states not getting the kind of support from the federal government that they've gotten in the past, and we think that there's gonna be an opportunity for more and more states. Obviously, there was a whole big thing about this in D.C. recently. Virginia has talked about it.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

I think it's an underappreciated. No one knows what the timing of that is gonna be, but we feel like there's going to be, you know, more states that will come on board. Frankly, if that were the case, you know, that really takes no more for us from an infrastructure or cost standpoint to deliver these additional states other than, you know, a little bit of bandwidth cost. We don't know when, but we see that as a huge opportunity to be transformative for us.

Will Yager
Will Yager
Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital

Thanks, Brooks.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

My pleasure.

Operator

Your next question is coming from the line of Chad Beynon of Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Chad Beynon
Chad Beynon
Analyst at Macquarie

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Brooks and Lorne, I wanted to stick on Interactive, just given the, you know, how important this is and the growth that you highlighted here in the first quarter. Just thinking about the new studio, new game launches and how AI can build upon that, could you help us think about, you know, maybe some of the tried and true games that have done well? Then with this new studio, will that all be incremental in how we use AI to just get games quicker to market for your partners? Thanks.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah, no, thanks, Chad. That's a great question. I think the reality is, yeah, I think the single biggest thing from the Interactive side that we've been talking about for a while, I think, you know, we've talked about this. We've looked long and hard for potential acquisitions in the space as a tuck-in to add more capacity and didn't find anything that made sense for us, and finally decided that we were gonna build the studio ourselves, and that's, you know, well down the path, and we'll start producing games in the 2nd half of the year.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

On your comment on AI, yeah, I mean, for sure, the utilization of AI across the business, but certainly in the game development side of things accelerates the ability for us to deliver games faster, which is something that, you know, I think is gonna be important for us as we go forward. You know, adding capacity, adding kind of different types and styles of games to, you know, broaden our portfolio and getting more games out faster through utilizing AI is clearly a big strategy of ours.

Chad Beynon
Chad Beynon
Analyst at Macquarie

Okay. Great. Thanks. On the retail business, focusing on units in North America, I know there were a few bills to grow the distributed gaming markets in a few states that didn't get across the end line. You mentioned Chicago, which I think is coming in the fourth quarter. Where else can you go in the U.S.? Are you looking to get licensed in other markets? I know Louisiana, Georgia, Nebraska, et cetera, have similar types of markets that are growing on a same-store basis. Just wanting to know if you could help us on the TAM in that market. Thanks.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah. I think what we've, you know, what we've consciously tried to do, here is to build, you know, at the right pace for us. We obviously mentioned in the release we've got, you know, multiple Canadian provinces that are now kind of ordering machines on a yearly basis, and that's very important for us. Illinois and, in particular Chicago, assuming everything goes as expected, you know, we'll start in the fourth quarter and then, you know, we'll be a bigger part of next year. I think we mentioned on a prior call that we had done, or at least in a press release, that, you know, that we've developed, in concert with Gaming Arts, a game that will go on their Class III cabinet.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

We think that should be a proof point hopefully for us that our content will work, you know, in Class III. Obviously that opens up, you know, a number of opportunities across Class III and Class II. Specifically on the distributed question that you had, we kind of have to take it on a market-by-market basis. Each one has its own nuances. You know, Montana, Nevada, Louisiana each have their own kind of unique attributes. We went with what we thought was the best and most likely place for success first. We certainly are looking at not only the, you know, the North American market for distributed gaming, but frankly distributed gaming on a worldwide basis.

Chad Beynon
Chad Beynon
Analyst at Macquarie

Thanks, Brooks. Appreciate it.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

No problem, Chad.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

At this time, there are no further questions.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Operator?

Operator

At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question is coming from the line of B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Hi, this is [Matthew] on for Josh Nichols from B. Riley. I guess just on the Virtual Sports side, I was wondering how should we think about the Playtech deal alongside the World Cup? Is the timing going to allow you guys to have content live on Playtech's network ahead of the tournament or maybe during it? Is that more of like a second half 2027 revenue driver?

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah, I'd say it's more of a second half. You know, we think this is a great opportunity for us, to, you know, to get our product into the Playtech network. I think our first customer should go live here shortly. I would say it's much more of a second half, and going into 2027, opportunity for us.

Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Got it. Thanks. Also, I guess, in terms of, like, BetMGM Sportsbook tab integration in New Jersey, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's been live for a couple of months now. I'm wondering, like, is there any early reads that you see there on player engagement and how that can possibly lead to future operators signing with you guys?

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah. I mean, I think, it's probably a mixed bag. I think, the results from BetMGM in Ontario have been very good. Probably not quite as good as we'd hoped so far in New Jersey, but we're working with BetMGM, in particular, about where we're positioned on the, on the site and some promotional stuff. I think it's a little early. I think maybe it's four-six weeks that we've been out with them. You know, it doesn't happen overnight, but we certainly feel very bullish, and we're having some conversations, you know, with some of the other big sports betting operators, I think, that are looking to broaden their portfolio.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

To just add on to Lorne's comment, we do think, both on an online basis and importantly in a retail basis, that virtual sports or monitor gaming, as they call it in the lottery industry, is a very big opportunity for us that's underappreciated. We would expect, over the next 6-12-18 months, having some pretty meaningful contribution coming from that as well. Even though the virtual sports business is relatively flat, there's a number of opportunities that we see that we think can get that business back to growing.

Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Thanks for that. Last question for me, just on the Interactive side. Mainly on the Hybrid Dealer pipeline, if I remember correctly, I think Jackpot King and Betfred were expected soon to be signed. I'm wondering, like, where that stands and how the rest of the funnel is shaping up.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

Yeah, you're right about both of those. I would have expected that we would have them live at this point, but it's probably gonna be June for that. We'll start. As we talked about before, this is the, you know, the games that have the combination with our slot content that has done very well. The Wolf It Up! game is the first one that will go out. We'll be rolling it out to a number of customers starting in June. You know, when we have our next call in August, I guess we'll be able to talk about that in a little bit more detail.

Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Great. Thanks. That was all for me. Thanks for taking my questions.

Brooks Pierce
Brooks Pierce
President and CEO at Inspired Entertainment

You're welcome. Thanks.

Operator

There's no other questions in queue at this time, and that concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Lorne Weil for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Lorne Weil
Lorne Weil
Executive Chairman at Inspired Entertainment

Thank you very much, operator. Again, thanks everyone for joining the call this morning. I think you can tell we're feeling very positive about where the business is. The one issue that had been a concern had been this issue of the U.K. tax, but at least so far in the second quarter, we've been able to more than offset the impact of the tax by our growth in gaming revenue in the U.K. The business is really in very good shape. We're buying back stock, the leverage is coming down, the margins are going up, all the things that have been our objectives for a while. Hopefully this will continue through the second quarter, and we'll look forward to reporting in three months. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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