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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2020-Q3

from 0
Operator

Hello and welcome to this morning's GVC Holdings quarter 3 update. Can I just remind you that this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I'm now delighted to hand over to Shay Segev, CEO of GVC, who will begin the presentation.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for dialing in today. I'm joined by our group CFO, Rob Wood; and our Director of IR, David Lloyd-Seed. Hopefully, you've already seen our announcement this morning, so I will keep this short, and then we can move on to questions. We have delivered yet another excellent quarter right across the group with total NGR, up 14% in constant currency. This is our 19th quarter of double-digit online growth in a row with market share gains in all our major territories, so quite an achievement with sports returning and shops reopening and more normal trading balance is returning to our business. Let me start by talking about our performance in the U.S., then I will take you through the core business, and we will finish with some words on responsible gambling. In the U.S., BetMGM go from strength-to-strength. It is on track to become market leader as we open in more states and leverage our partnerships, affiliates and leading technology. We are now live in 8 states and expect to be in 11 by the end of this year. Based on the current regulatory outlook for 2021, we anticipate being in at least 20 states by the end of next year. We went live with sports betting in Indiana and West Virginia earlier this year. We were one of the first operators to go live in Colorado. During this quarter, we added iGaming in West Virginia, where we offer the widest range of owned-brand products at launch. It has only been a couple of months since the sports returned, and we are already achieving 15% to 20% market share in these markets. In New Jersey, we have doubled our sport betting market share since the start of the year to just under 10% in August, and we lead the market with 22% in iGaming and 24% in retail sports. In aggregate, we estimate that in the 8 states in which we operate our overall share of sports and iGaming is around 17%. We continue to see real momentum as customers responds to BetMGM investment in marketing, superior customer experience, broader range of products and leading technology. The single app is being deployed this week, and we've added new innovative features such as Easy Parlay and Parlay Generator, which will help drive even greater customer acquisition and engagement. BetMGM has begun to integrate with M life. M life customers can now earn points with BetMGM, and we are seeing positive engagement with M life's top-tier members. BetMGM has also built an integrated experience for Yahoo Fantasy Sports' customers. In Q3, we signed a number of new partnership deals, including becoming the first betting partner of the Tennessee Titans as well as signings with the Denver Broncos, Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Lions and the Las Vegas Raiders. BetMGM is also the official betting partner of the PGA and NASCAR. Finally, BetMGM's new campaign is King of Sportsbooks, led by Jamie Foxx, really differentiates us and will further strengthen the brand in the U.S. All in all, BetMGM is performing even better than we expected and is now on course to deliver net revenues this year between $150 million and $160 million. With growing revenues and higher marketing investment, we anticipate our share of the losses this year to be approximately GBP 60 million. On to our core business. Online NGR was up 28% in constant currency in Q3 and our year-to-date NGR was up 23% in constant currency. Q3 was exceptional as sport tournaments, particularly football, caught up with the seasons and the volumes of wager was up 25% year-on-year. This will likely normalize in Q4 as the sporting schedule returns to normal. Online gaming has continued to be strong, with volumes still up around 20% versus pre-COVID levels. Across our retail estates, customers have clearly liked being back in our shops. We are seeing volumes within 10% of pre-COVID levels. At our interims, I talked about significant opportunity for growth in regulated markets where we do not currently have a presence. I'm delighted that we can announce today that we have agreed to acquire Bet.pt in Portugal. Portugal is a recently regulated market. And Bet.pt was the -- one of the earliest entrants, obtaining its sports betting license in 2016 and a casino license in 2017. The sports and gaming market in Portugal is growing rapidly and is expected to more than double to EUR 450 million by 2023. As one of the leaders in that market, Bet.pt delivered an EBITDA of EUR 6 million on gross gaming revenues of EUR 37 million in 2019. We are paying an initial EUR 50 million with an additional EUR 10 million being subject to certain conditions over the next 2 years. We see an opportunity to more than double this business within the next 24 months through cost and revenue synergies, including rolling out our wide range of games content as well as leveraging our technology and digital marketing skills. This acquisition enable us to become the leading player in yet another exciting market. And this sort of acquisition that GVC has a strong track record of executing well to deliver added value. And so with the continued strong momentum across the group, we can confidently raise our expectation for EBITDA this year by GBP 50 million, so that we now expect EBITDA to be between GBP 770 million to GBP 790 million. The growth and growth opportunity that I have summarized today are there because we have world-leading proprietary technology and data analytics. Our technology enable us to lead demo products portfolio and customer experience. And crucially, it enable us to lead in player protection. It's my belief that a responsible business is a sustainable business. Protecting our customer is, not only the right thing to do, it is the best way of guaranteeing long-term success for our customers, colleagues and shareholders. That is why we announced our proactive player protection during the lockdown. And that is why we continue to invest in and improve our products so that we can identify problem play before it escalates.We should not forget that first and foremost, we are an entertainment business, providing products for customer entertainment. We want people to enjoy our product safety. COVID remained with us, and so we remained cautious in our outlook. But as we have demonstrated, we are able to manage our business through these challenges. We have good momentum in our core business. We are delivering in the U.S. and also entering new markets. We have exciting future ahead, and I would like to share with you some of our plans on the 12th of November. I hope you'll be able to join us. With that, we can move over to questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Michael Mitchell of Davy.

M
Michael Mitchell
Gaming and Leisure Analyst

Three, if I could. The first 2 on gaming, please. I wonder, first of all, could you speak about some of the gaming trends you saw through the quarter? Are you seeing activity levels kind of track the state of COVID restrictions in key markets? Or has it been more steady-state than that? Secondly and kind of linked, again, on gaming, if you just give some more detail, if you could, please, around the performance of your various kind of broader gaming products, namely casino, poker, bingo, et cetera? And then thirdly, turning to the U.S. I wonder, could you talk a little bit about your experience in Colorado kind of almost 5 months since launch or 5 months since launch? How did that compare to your experience in New Jersey, the inference being, obviously, that you are obviously earlier to enter the Colorado market than you were in New Jersey?

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Pleased to report a good set of results. Rob, shall you take the first 2 and I take the third?

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Yes. Happy to. Michael, so gaming trends. I mean clearly, there was a slowdown versus Q2 as we were beneficiaries from lockdowns. We were sort of mid-40s Q2 and into mid-20s Q3. That slowdown is continuing. But I have to say we're delighted with how much of the upside we've held on to so far. And I absolutely, as I said at the interim, expect us to be permanent beneficiaries and hold on to a material amount of that upside, and we're still running at sort of 20% ahead of pre-COVID levels across all of gaming, primarily actives-driven. So very pleased with that. But it is still slowing. So looking at product details, in particular, poker is below that average. So that has continued to slow through this summer. On the bingo side, that's still really strong. And I spoke a little bit before about how channel shift has been particularly prevalent in U.K. bingo, and that continues to be the case. So looking ahead to Q4, and I'm not sure we necessarily post the growth number in gaming starting with a 2, but we'd be very confident of hitting double digits and maybe even mid- to high teens on gaming.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Yes, as for Colorado -- yes, I mean, let's remember that Colorado has been launched on the 1st of May. And then as we've been through the COVID period, there haven't been a long period where sports have been available, I mean, probably 2 months. Overall, we are very pleased with our results in Colorado. It's in the range of what we've been discussing, 15% to 20%. We've seen it, at least for July and August, so we expect -- so we're actually getting the target that we put in terms of our market share in Colorado. Good engagement, good sport market and our brands and our product are well received there. So we are quite pleased, probably one of the first markets we've been first-to-market is Colorado, which our intention is to continue to do it for any other new markets in the U.S., like we did in West Virginia with gaming, and we're planning to do with the rest as you're going to see as an example. And so yes, we are very pleased with the trends we've seen. Again, just remember, it's been since May, there has been no sport for some time. So very positive early numbers, and we're optimistic about Colorado.

Operator

Our next question is from Simon Davies of Deutsche Bank.

S
Simon John Davies
Head of UK Midcap & Online Gaming Research

Firstly, just on the U.S., you're talking about a big ramp-up in terms of the number of states you launched into next year. Can you talk a bit about the marketing spend that's going to go behind those state launches and give any feel for likely joint venture losses in 2021? Secondly, a very sensible-looking bolt-on acquisition in Portugal. What's the pipeline looking in terms of potential M&A? And finally, with regulation coming in, in Germany, what percentage of online revenues going forward are going to be from a fully regulated markets?

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Rob, do you want to take the U.S. ramp-up in Germany? And I will take the M&A.

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Sure. So in the U.S., we're certainly spending more on marketing than was envisaged last time we updated, which was specifically early July. And that's fundamentally because sports have returned more quickly and more fully than we anticipated at the start of this summer. That's one of the main reasons why NGR is up as well. So sports coming back soon, but actually outperformed versus expectations as well. It doesn't mean that losses are higher in 2020 as a result. I suspect we'll spend somewhere in the region of $150 million on marketing in 2020. And in 2021, as you alluded to, with the states ramping up. Inevitably, that marketing number will be higher, and you'd have to assume that the loss will be higher as well. And we'll give further details on that in due course. On M&A pipeline, were you going to take that one, Shay, and also regulated mix?

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Yes. So on M&A -- yes, I mean, the deal we announced today with Portugal fits very well to our strategy. This is clearly the type of deals, which we see has a strong, proven track record. It also fits very well to our strategy to focus on regulated markets. I mean Portugal is a lucrative market, which has still a growth in front of it. And with our assets, technology, brands, marketing, expertise, we think we create further value. In terms of pipeline, yes, I mean, again, we mentioned in our interim results that we had quite exciting pipeline ahead of us this year through the pandemic. We had to park a lot of it. And I'm pleased we can announce the Portugal today, and this is type of deal. I mean we're looking into other things, bolt-on. I mean we mentioned bolt-on, but this will be type of deals we're looking at, at this point of time, enter new markets and new audiences as well. In Germany...

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

In terms of regulated mix, the -- we're at around 96% now across the whole business, which obviously, for a global operator, that must be one of the highest numbers out there. So 96% regulated or regulating revenues.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Gavin Kelleher of Goodbody.

G
Gavin Kelleher
Investment Analyst

Just 3 for me, please. Just on the U.S., the single app launch that you say is happening this week, is that happening across all 8 states? Is it pretty quickly happening across all 8 states? And just on Yahoo!, you noted that DFS, you started to push players through that and an integration. Can you give any sort of -- I know it's very early days, but any sort of insights on the success of that? And then I have 2 other questions on online and retail, but maybe start off with the U.S.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Yes. Okay. So let me take the 2 -- these 2 questions. U.S., yes, we're rolling out this week. We're starting to roll out the single app. And I would assume it will take the next probably 2 to 3 weeks to roll it out, and this will be all states. And Nevada probably will be in November. And just because the all regulatory certification process take a bit longer, but pretty much from tech perspective, everything is ready. And somewhere in November, you will have the BetMGM customers being able to download a single app while they're visiting Nevada or New Jersey or Colorado or Indiana or Western Virginia and using the same app when they are in other states as well. So this is a great progress, and again, showing the strength of our technology. In terms of Yahoo!, again, it's early stages, as you mentioned. Again, I suspect that Yahoo! is going to be a journey. I mean again, the relation and the motivation, both in terms of Verizon group, who own Yahoo! and BetMGM, is very well. We work very closely with the Yahoo! team. And we expect to having even more integrated journeys, which I think I mentioned it in the past, between Yahoo! and BetMGM apps, I mean, something that we work together, which hopefully we'll share some information about it soon. And we are quite optimistic about the potential of the cross-sell from Yahoo! Sports and DFS, et cetera. So I think this, again, it's a journey. It's progressing well, but I think it's too early to talk about numbers.

G
Gavin Kelleher
Investment Analyst

Okay. And just -- and moving to online. On marketing and online, obviously, revenue was well ahead of expectations in Q3. How does marketing panned out in online in the period in absolute terms and then as a percentage of net revenue for H2? Can you give any sort of guidance on that?

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

I would just say, I mean we're seeing only halfway through the second half. We gave guidance at the interims that we expect to spend 22% to 23% in H2, which is more than we would normally spend in the second half of the year. And that guidance remains really, and so I would stick with those kind of figures. Yes. NGR has been ahead of expectations in Q3, for sure. So there's probably more pressure on the upside to that range, but I would stick there for now.

G
Gavin Kelleher
Investment Analyst

Perfect. And just finally, on UK Retail. Given you're within 10% of pre-COVID levels, just given the state of the UK high street and how weak it is at the moment and all of what we're seeing, and you noticed SSBTs. Is there anything else on the retail performance that you can kind of point out that would show us -- that would show the reason behind it being so resilient at the moment?

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Sure. Shall I take that, Shay? So -- I mean the first thing I'd point to, and I know I talked about it a little bit at the interims, is this concept of passing trade versus regulars. And we're absolutely sure that footfall on UK high street is still some 20-plus percent of where it would have been pre-COVID. And therefore, we are still suffering a little bit from lost passing trade. But in the main, our regulars are back. And in our sector, you make more on the contribution from your regulars than passing trade and therefore, we're better than the high street averages and into minus 10%. The only other bit of flavor I could give, one is that the last remaining material restrictions were Scottish machines, and that was lifted in August, and that has helped us. So we're not really -- and people still have to wear masks and there are still some distancing requirements, but nothing that's materially impacting the UK Retail estate any more. And we did touch on SSBTs in the commentary, but they do remain strong. We -- by the end of this year or early next, we'll have 10,000 fresh cabinets into the estate. We continue to invest. And the strategic relevance of that business remains exactly as it was. So yes, strong performance from SSBTs, partly through density, but partly on a like-for-like basis as well.

Operator

We'll now take a question from Stuart Gordon of Berenberg.

S
Stuart John Gordon

Just a couple from me. Firstly, if we start thinking about 2021, it's -- obviously, it will be very difficult to think about comparables using 2020 given the year that we're having. If we'd sort of take a step back and look at where you were in 2019, are you still very confident in the trajectory of online that it's going to drive a sort of double-digit CAGR over the period 2019 to 2021? And secondly, with the U.S. and obviously, you're getting into states that open up much quicker now. Would you say that you're very confident that you will not see your market share fall below the 15% to 20% target range in the U.S. as these new states open?

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Okay. Rob, you take the first one. I'll take the second one.

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Sure. Yes. Stuart, so are we confident on 10% CAGR over '20 and '21? Yes. We've obviously posted years of double-digit growth in the online environment, and we would continue to have expected to do that even absent COVID. Now in the new world that we are, that there are some opposing pressures like German tolerance policy. That will take revenue back 3% or 4% next year. But on the plus side, online has been a beneficiary of the pandemic in our sector and many others. And therefore, that's a nice counterbalance. But we're still somewhat cautious on the outlook from a sort of macro perspective. We're very aware that job retention schemes are still alive in many of our territories. But to answer your question, specifically, yes, I think we can still be double digits over the 2 years.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

And as for the U.S., yes, we are very comfortable with the target we put ourselves, 15% to 20%. We mentioned today that on aggregated, on the current state we operate, we are now on 17%. And again, the confidence coming from the fact that, as we mentioned in the past, there was a lot of investment we made in our infrastructure and the product and the tech, in building the team, knowledge, I think this is now all starting to pay back. You're starting to see our numbers getting better and better. And as we launch to states like Colorado, West Virginia, Indiana and more to come, and we're also gaining market share in New Jersey. And let's remember that there is quite a lot of assets for us still to monetize like the M life program, which we really believe that this can be a real, strong competitive advantage for us for the long-term of technology. Again, we announced today about some innovative and the single app that we're doing, then there's quite an exciting pipeline, the Yahoo!.So again, if you put everything to the mix and with GVC track record and knowledge that BetMGM has, the tech, the M life, our market access, et cetera, I think we are very comfortable to target the 15% to 20%.

Operator

A question now from James Rowland Clark of Barclays.

J
James Rowland Clark
Research Analyst

Just a few questions, please. Around your [ geographies, of course, obviously, a very impressive number you called out being over 6% in the quarter ]. Can you just give a little bit of color on a few other regions, particularly the U.K. [ or LATAM ] for the third quarter between sports and gaming? And whether you faced any slightly lower stake as a result of not being on the old [ Stratford ] platform? And then on the U.S., you say you're leveraging a [ panel of ] customers more recently. Can you just talk about the behavior of those customers when they -- when you cross-sell them between sports and gaming, perhaps even expected ARPU on those customers? And then just one more in the U.S. You're, obviously, growing very nicely in terms of market share in new states you're going into. How would you split that between M life customers, DFS customers cross-sold and any other customers you've acquired not through those 2 channels?

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Okay. Rob will take the first one. I'll take the second one.

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Sure. So the question was around Q3 online NGR growth. Yes, Australia, standout performer. The last few weeks in Australia have cooled off a little bit. So I wouldn't necessarily expect that -- those kind of numbers going into Q4, although obviously Australia is heading into its busiest period. October is always a massive month with the spring carnivals and it's got to the major sporting finals as well. So still confident in Australia's performance. Other standout performers: Italy, high-30s; Brazil, 60s; U.K. was in the 20s. So really, I guess the main message is nowhere underperformed. It's fairly consistent strength across both sports and gaming, pretty much all around the world. The call out and sports, we have not really emphasized it yet, so I'll do it now, is that we did have an unusual program over the summer from a year-on-year perspective. I know everybody gets that. But it is worth stressing it because if you look at September numbers, for example, pretty much every territory was -- in terms of year-on-year growth was lower than July and August. So in other words, the exit rate for the quarter is lower. And the only exception to that was Brazil, and that's really just because of the later starting of the football league there. So hopefully, that gives you some more color on the Q3 numbers. Oh, you also have [ Stratford checker ] as well. Let me take that one. Sorry, Shay. The simple answer is no. We have not seen any impact from that. And hence, comfortable with the decision that the team in Gibraltar made.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

As for the M life, I mean we mentioned in the past -- I mean again, I mentioned it just earlier. It's -- I'd say it's one of the strong assets that BetMGM have access to M life and with 34 million customers registered on this program, with few millions of high-value customers as well on the top tier. We are on a journey to access these customers and the journey that we're looking at is to make BetMGM fully integrated with M life. So basically, when a customer becomes an M life customer, by definition, is a BetMGM customer and vice versa, so it becomes one single program. This is a journey. We see positive early signs. And I will hope that later this year, we can share more KPIs about it, which we tend do -- we tend to do. We don't want to do it too early because we want to be very correct and make sure that we're sharing information that we feel very comfortable and very confident about that. I would just add as well in terms of M life, beside the fact that it's 34 million customers on this database, it's also an active database, meaning every year, more and more customers joining to the M life program through the MGM Resorts. And again, it's something which is, not only a competitive advantage now, but will continue to become content -- a competitive advantage for the future as well. So it's quite important. In terms of what we see now, I mean, what we can now -- the thing I can share, and I think we mentioned it before, is that we know that M life customers, while playing on BetMGM, has a higher value than other customers. So it's much more loyal, higher-value customers. We have this experience -- similar experience also from our U.K. business, with the Coral and Ladbrokes shops. So this is something which is quite positive. Clearly, their CPAs are much lower as well, which is making it quite appealing. And in terms of mix, you asked about the mix, again, it's a bit too early to discuss mix. But I think we're seeing early positive signs, and I will hope we'll be able to share more details about it later this year.

Operator

Now a question from Ed Young of Morgan Stanley.

E
Edward Young
Equity Analyst

Most might have been asked, but 2, if I could, please. First of all, can you just give a little more color on the acquisition? You mentioned it's a very fast-growing market. But can you give anything else about the brand, the operations, the positioning that has in terms of what GVC can do with it that attracted you to the asset and how we should think about how that translates to other assets you might look at? And then the second one, on the U.S. side, I mean, very impressive market share numbers you've talked about there. If I look at the Indiana numbers, they're a little bit below that 15% to 20% range, but they've been accelerating for months now. So to what extent does that reflect the continued market share growth there? And to take the other side of the coin, I guess, it means that your market share in Colorado and West Virginia must be probably higher than that average. So is there anything to read out -- read into the dynamics of market shares there?

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Yes. Okay. I would take this both. In terms of the acquisition, yes, Bet.pt, it's an operator in Portugal. It's relatively a small team, built quite attractive small business, a team based in Lisbon in Portugal. It fits very well to our strategy, regulated markets, digital, growing. And we have potential, as I said, to more than double this business. I mean I think we can even triple this business over the next 2 to 3 years. And this will be in the mix of using the GVC marketing assets as well as our technology, game content, and it fits very well, I mean, again, financially and strategically. You take a business which makes GBP 6 million EBITDA, so overall consideration, as we mentioned, GBP 60 million, if we make it around triple 8s, you make it from 10x to 3x pretty much, and this is pretty much our intention. We did it very well with other acquisitions as well. It's also a very interesting market because the market itself is growing. So it's also fit very well to our overall digital strategy of double-digit growth. Regulated. So it ticked all the boxes. It makes sense for us, and we're looking forward to do more of this. And the team itself, we feel that culturally will fit very well with us as well. In terms of U.S., Indiana, yes. I mean you're right. I mean we were very pleased with our market share, both in Colorado and West Virginia. And we have, yes, in Colorado -- again, it's too early to talk about numbers because it's been only like a few months since the market has launched in May, but we see more than 15% market share in Colorado, which is very encouraging for us, and we see a good trend there as well. Our brands and our product is well received there, and we see further potential with Virginia as well. We were the -- one of the first ones to launch in August, the iGaming in West Virginia. And we have a superior product in iGaming with more game content, leveraging our proprietary games, and we see good engagement. And in West Virginia in iGaming, we even see more than 30% market share on West Virginia iGaming, which fits very well to our gaming position with BetMGM. And yes, exciting, and we're looking forward to continue replicating this success, and I'm sure that Indiana will come up as well.

Operator

Our next question is from Nick Roope from Barings.

N
Nick Roope
Associate Director

Apologies, my line cut out right when you were talking about Germany. So apologies if you answered this. Could you -- from your announcements a couple of weeks ago, could you just roughly quantify what the [ EBITDAR ] impact in Germany was as a percentage of that business?

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Should I take that, Shay? So -- I mean just to be super clear, we don't measure [ EBITDAR ] on a territory basis because of all the shared technology and operating costs. But if I think about it on a contribution basis, then the loss equates to around 30% to 35%.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll now take a question from the line of Richard Stuber of Numis.

R
Richard Paul Stuber
Analyst

Just a sort of high-level question. I was wondering what your sort of views are in terms of the potential ramifications the -- post the U.S. election, whether you think that will lead to potentially more states opening up or the -- a slowdown and whether you think sort of the iGaming market is going to be even bigger than it is at the moment.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

To be honest, I didn't give it much thought. But I think the U.S. regulatory train -- I mean it's moving to one direction. I think it's clear. I mean you see the pipeline for next year. Whether it has the potential to accelerate even further, yes, I think so. And yes, it's very likely. But other than that, I don't have any strong view of the election, wide impact or not impact accelerating that. But in general, we see quite a lot of states moving to the right direction.

Operator

A question now from Alberto Truccolo from Tikehau Capital.

A
Alberto Truccolo;Tikehau Capital;Analyst

I have a follow-up question on the regulation in Germany. So more than the restrictions that you mentioned in your latest update, do you think it is possible there will be further restrictions by 2021? Or this should be pretty much it?

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Should I take that, Shay?

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Yes.

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

So I hope -- I would say on the gaming side, that you'd like to think that it's potential upside from the numbers that we put out rather than any further downside. I say that for 2 reasons: one, because there is discussion around potentially the ability to raise deposit limits based on certain criteria; and secondly, as it stands, there, we've had to turn off all casino table games, but the expectation is that when the new interest rate treaty comes in, that we'll be able to, in some states, at least, partner with local operators or find ways to reenter that market. So on the gaming side, you would think it's -- there's more upside than downside to come. On the sports side, of course, we're still in this -- in the middle of this process of issuing sports betting licenses. And whilst the tolerance policy did include some small restrictions on sports, it was nothing material, but there is the potential that at some point, there are staking restrictions associated with sports. So on the sports side, I would say there's more downward pressure. But on the gaming side, I'd say, more upward pressure.

Operator

Our next question is from Monique Pollard of Citi.

M
Monique Pollard
Director

Just 3 questions from me, if I could. First one was just if you could give an update, if there is one on your current thoughts, on whether to return the furlough money to the government given retail trading seems to have been strong since everything reopened and, obviously, plus the acquisition announced in Portugal. Second, on the U.S., obviously, with the combined sports and gaming market share is now at 17% in your state, are you able to give a breakdown of that in terms of sports market share and gaming market share? And then finally, Australia, obviously, really strong results there, but you also mentioned that you're taking share in that market. I'd just be interested if you could give a little bit of color who you're taking share from.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Okay. Monique, so I take the first 2, and Rob, okay, you take the third. Yes. So in terms of furlough money, I mean, clearly, the government presented a scheme, which helped us to preserve 14,000 retail employees in our group and make sure they are fully paid during this period. And it's something that clearly, we discuss internally and when we'll have time to update on that, we will be updating. At this point of time, we don't have anything else to say on furlough. And in terms of U.S. market share, yes, I mean, again, New Jersey numbers, I think, are public. I mean we are now on 22% market share on iGaming in New Jersey and almost 10% on sports. On Colorado -- Indiana, again, it's public as well. In terms of Colorado, it's between 15% to 20% market share. Sports, again, it depends on [ the outlook ]. I think, again, August was a good, strong month for us. West Virginia, we see good progress as well. I mean, iGaming, I mentioned it. iGaming is more than 30% market share for us in West Virginia. And sports, again, is around 15% as well. So again, overall, very pleased with our progress in the U.S. Rob, do you want to take Australia?

R
Rob M. Wood
CFO & Director

Yes, sure. So it's been interesting to see across H1, both our sales in Flutter have posted very similar levels of growth, market-leading, for sure, specifically where is that outperformance versus the market coming from. One of the biggest underperforming, you'd say, is Tab. And therefore, we do think we continue to take share from that business, that online business. It'd be interesting to see what happens in the second half of the year following the collapse of the 2 Flutter brands. A little bit too early to say whether or how to quantify the upside that we might see from that. I think it was 8th of September that BetEasy was -- stopped taking bets. So a bit too early, but perhaps that gives us an advantage in the second half of the year. But I think, yes, the -- Tab is definitely the underperformer relative to ourselves and Flutter through the first half of the year certainly.

Operator

So that concludes Q&A on today's call. I'd like to hand the call back to Shay for any closing comments.

S
Shay Segev
CEO & Director

Okay. Thank you, everybody, for joining this morning. And I hope to have you as well on our call on 12th of November. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. You may now disconnect your lines.

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