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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2020-Q3

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O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Good morning and welcome to today's presentation from Betsson. Today, we will be hearing from CEO, Pontus Lindwall; and CFO, Martin Ă–hman. My name is [ Ola Konssen ], and I will be handling the Q&A session after today's presentation. If you have any questions for these two gentlemen, you can ask them in writing here on the site or you can dial in and ask them directly here.First off, Pontus, quite a busy morning for you today.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, it's been a busy morning. We presented the report earlier, and it has been quite an active morning with many interviews and a lot of interest from the market.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Well, I'll hand over back to you, and let's start the presentation.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Okay. Thank you. And all of you, welcome to presentation of Betsson's third quarter 2020. This is the outline for today. We're going to get an overview, some highlights, a little bit about the market dynamics, then Martin will present the financial overview. And I will go over the product and technology update, regulations and sustainability and finally, the strategic drivers and the summary. And after, we will have a Q&A.So the highlights for the quarter. We present an all-time high revenues of close to SEK 1.7 billion, which is a 31% year-on-year increase. The organic revenue growth was 27%; EBIT, SEK 329 million, which is an increase by 55%; and a strong and promising EBIT margin of 20%. We saw an all-time high in Casino revenues with 39% year-on-year growth and a strong growth in the Sportsbook with 12% up compared to the last year.So we also have some strategic highlights. During the quarter, we have acquired 70% of ColBet, which licensed in Colombia. We have migrated Suaposta in Brazil to Betsson platform, and we have rebranded to Betsson. And we have got a license in Croatia, and we look forward to see that market coming up to speed going forward.So market dynamics within the online gaming industry. There's a strong underlying global growth in gambling with accelerating digital transition. And as you can see from this picture, the online part of the gaming market is still quite small. So there's lots of markets to gain over the coming years.Local regulation is comparably slowing down in the future. We can see that locally regulated market has been growing 20% for the past 5 years, and we expect a growth of 8% going forward. So still growth in the regulated market but also growth in locally -- in point of sales regulated markets. And this is an illustration of the same, that the markets are expecting to even out in growth between locally regulated and supply regulated markets.So now I want to hand over to Martin to present the figures in the financial overview.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Thank you, Pontus. You will be back in a few minutes to continue the presentation. But like you said, first, we will hear from Martin and talk about the financials. With today's presentation, I'm guessing we will have a happy Martin today.

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I'm really happy. Thanks, [ Ola ]. The good momentum we saw from Q2 remains. And customer activity continued to be very high with growth of 46% in active customer in the third quarter. And now we have around 1 million active customer within Betsson.In Q2, we saw a shift in play behavior from more land-based gambling towards online gambling due to lockdown and restriction, et cetera, following COVID. We expected to see a bit of a shift back in casino activity in the third quarter, but we have not seen any such trends as of yet. In Q3, sporting events returned, and we saw almost same levels as in Q1 in terms of gross turnover.Revenue in the third quarter is now the fourth consecutive quarter where we see revenue growth quarter-over-quarter. Revenue for the third quarter was SEK 1.7 billion, which is all-time high and shows an increase of 31%, 27% organic growth year-over-year. The increase comes from both Casino and Sportsbook, where we also see all-time high in Casino revenue.License revenue from our sustainable B2B business grew from SEK 138 million in Q2 -- sorry, in Q3 2019 to SEK 261 million in Q3 2020 and now corresponds to some 16% of the group total revenue.Looking at revenue by region. We see an increase in all regions, including the Nordic region, where we saw an increase of 13 -- 17% in the third quarter, and this is for the first time in more than a year. Sportsbook is slightly down, whilst Casino revenue increased by some 24%. And it's extra fun to see growth in Sweden again, and this is a lot thanks to the new brand, Jalla Casino.Revenue from Western Europe increased by 23% and now constitutes some 29% of the group's total revenue. And the growth is driven mainly by Casino, while Sportsbook still haven't fully recovered to pre-COVID levels.The CEECA region increased by 40%, where both Sport and Casino contributed to growth. And revenue from the CEECA region is also heavily impacted by FX in the quarter, and the organic growth increased by 72%.Revenue from rest of the world grew by 124% compared to the same period last year, and the growth comes from both Sportsbook and Casino. Revenue from regulated markets increased by 33% in the quarter and constitutes almost 36% of the group's total revenue now.Betsson's current casino offer now includes 5,000 games, of which 4,000 are available on mobile devices. Casino revenue increased by 39% compared to last year and amounts to SEK 1.3 billion, which is all-time high. This is now the fifth consecutive quarter where we see Casino growth. And the continued growth in Q3 shows that Q2 levels were not just onetime effects caused by lockdowns and restrictions, but rather shows the sort of transformation from land-based towards online is here to stay.Gross turnover in Sportsbook was SEK 7.8 billion, which is all-time high and an increase by 27% compared to the same period last year. Sportsbook revenue increased by 12% compared to last year but is still not fully back on Q1 levels. The higher gross turnover is not fully converted into revenue in the same way as last year since Sportsbook margin was 7.0% in this quarter, which is a bit lower than the 8-quarter rolling average margin of 7.3% and as the margin last year was 7.8%.Cost of services provided has increased in the third quarter by SEK 147 million, and this is mainly driven by increased revenue. Gross profit margin is 65%, which is in the -- same as in the third quarter 2019, and gross profit about to SEK 1.086 billion, which is an increase of SEK 255 million compared to the same period last year. Compared to the second quarter, gross margin is up due to a change in product mix, and we now see a more Sportsbook in the revenue mix than in the last quarter.Marketing spend increased by SEK 69 million and now constitutes some 17% of total revenue. And when including affiliate marketing as well, it is 24%.Betsson has managed costs very tight in the past few quarters and will continue that focus going forward. Personnel costs and other operating costs has slightly increased in third quarter compared to the same period last year. But this is all part of the growth plan where Betsson has invested and will continue to invest in developing its technology, broadening the product offering, improving the user experience, scaling up the B2B organization and least but not last, geographical expansion, including M&A.EBIT amounts to SEK 329 million, which is an increase of 55% year-over-year with organic growth of some 90%. EBIT margin is 20%, which is an increase compared to previous quarters and also explained by the revenue growth.Betsson has a high cash conversion ratio and show operating cash flow of SEK 495 million driven by strong operating income and positive contribution from working capital by some SEK 100 million. Impact from working capital is explained by increase in debt to customer following increased revenue, whilst at the same time, have managed to decrease PSP balances compared to the end of last quarter.Cash flow from investing activities mainly constitute investments in our proprietary technology and also the acquisition of 70% of ColBet. Cash flow from financing activities impacted the cash flow negatively by some SEK 400 million in the quarter, where the majority relates to the dividend payout of SEK 394 million in July. Comparing to last year, the dividend payout was done in Q2 and not affecting Q3 figures.Betsson has low leverage. And as of end of September, net debt position of SEK 236 million, net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.2% and an equity ratio of 62%.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Thank you, Martin. Martin will, of course, stay for the Q&A session. But first, we will invite Pontus back to give us first the trading update and then a few slides about strategy, et cetera.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. I will just mention what Martin said on the cost side, there is cost increase in marketing and staff, but these are good costs. It's -- we're going for -- we're investing in marketing even in tough time to grow the business, and we're investing in staff to ramp up and to go into new territories. So I like that even though I don't like cost in general.Okay. Now let's see. Here we go. Trading update. For the first part of October, revenue is up 45%, which is we are really happy about. This is due to higher-than-normal Sportsbook margin but also a general strong trading in the -- in line with what we have seen in the third quarter. So the performance is driven by both Casino and Sports.Near-term trading, of course, is always hard to predict due to regulatory changes and impact from COVID, which we have not seen the end as of yet.So into some of the investment that I talked about, which are good investments for the future, product and technology update. During the third quarter, we have been working a lot with the new native apps, which are not yet on the market fully but will come to the market soon. And that's really promising. It's a totally new interface that we will see.We are also working on UX improvements for all of our different platforms and products, and we have launched engagement products such as tournament and live leaderboards during the quarter. So this is, of course, something that helps us to grow our revenues that we keep on investing in the product and developing the product in the right direction.On the regulation side, Germany has implemented interim tolerance that's kicked in on the 15th of October. It's early to say what kind of impact it will have on the revenues, but it will not be a positive impact. It's hard to tell how negative it will be. But it deserves to be mentioned in this aspect that Betsson has a very diversified geography mix so that we are not very big in any particular market, and that helps us to keep up the revenues even though we go into some hiccups or shortcomings in certain markets.Netherlands will go into force 1st of March 2021, the new regulation, and we will see how that will impact our revenues there. In the U.K., we have decided to consolidate our business into one brand. And we've been operating on a number of different brands and several platforms, which was not commercially effective, and we hope to be more effective with the new structure that we are working on as of a few days ago.So during -- we are always working with responsible gambling. It's been an important part of our work for many, many years. And we have taken more actions now during the COVID-19 period. So in the third quarter, we had close to 92,000 interactions with customers in this aspect. And it's important to mention here that we can see that the general spend per customer is actually lower now in the third quarter than in the same quarter last year and also compared to the previous quarter, the second quarter. So there is no higher spending per customer in this problematic situation.So some comments on strategic drivers. We have a few operating principles that we deploy in Betsson. First of all, responsible business is very important and putting the player first. We live the Betsson culture and values, and that has helped us a lot in these COVID times that we -- despite the fact that we are spread out and we are working from home to a large extent, we keep the culture strong and we work together.We have a global scope with a local focus. We are spread out globally, but we believe that we carry the Betsson culture with us wherever we can. But at the same time, we understand that we need to adapt to local markets where we operate.We drive our operation in a very professional manner, and we believe a lot in operational excellence, and this creates efficiency in our operation. And this would, of course, not be possible without strong -- all the strong people working with Betsson. And for that reason, we work a lot with -- to become a preferred employer and business partner within this industry to be able to attract and keep the good Betssonites that we have.As a company, I think we have quite a long proven track record of outgrowing this market and the industry. And this market looks very attractive also in the future. We have also a proven track record of profitability and being able to give dividend to the shareholder under all circumstances. So it's nice to see this quarter that we have a 20% EBIT margin, which is very strong.So to summarize. A very strong quarter, mainly driven by a strong increase in number of customers, close to 1 million. We have all-time high revenues and growth across all regions and all products and an EBIT margin, as I said, of 20%, and this is at the same time as we invest a lot in new markets that we will see in the coming quarters.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Thank you, Pontus. That means that we will be opening up for questions and, of course, asking Martin to join us once again. If you have questions, you can ask them here on the site in writing or you can dial in and ask the questions yourself live.With that, I'll hand the word over to our operator, Jodi, to see if we have any caller waiting.

Operator

Our first question is from Martin Arnell from DNB Markets.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

My first question is on Germany, if you could help us understand the effect there going forward a little bit more. I guess since you're not commenting on it in the results, you don't expect a significant effect. Or is that a correct interpretation?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

In a way, I think I would say that Germany is a big market as such. It's a big country, so it is a big market. For Betsson, it's not relatively big market. So it will have a negative impact, but it will not be material on the figures.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And in the Netherlands, ahead of the upcoming regulation, when do you expect today in a base case that you can be live onshore in the new Dutch regulation?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I can't answer that question in detail. We've seen that date being pushed forward so many times. So it doesn't really -- there is no reason to put a lot of effort into that date. We are operating today under the circumstances that we are allowed to operate, and we just have to wait and see when we will be operational under the new regime.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And you mentioned expansion quite a lot in the report. What markets are in the pipeline?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We have several markets. We have opened up some of the strategic initiatives, which I mentioned in the presentation. We have mentioned before that we are going to open up in Kenya as well. And then we are investing in a few other markets that we will talk about at a later stage. But Croatia is one, as we mentioned. So it's quite good for us to see that in these challenging times, we are still investing a lot, and we're opening up a new -- a few new markets, which look very promising for the future.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And it seems like plenty markets are ahead of you, but your rest of world numbers went up quite materially in Q3. What are the countries driving that?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

There are several countries in that -- rest of world is a big area, so there are several countries in that region. But Paris stands out as a strong market. We've been there for a long time, and we have really good traction there.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. Great. And on the Nordics, can you comment anything on -- aside from the Jalla initiative, what has helped driving your recovery there in a very weak market?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I think we have managed with the product improvements across the line. All the products has been developed on and they perform a lot better. And on top of that, we have Jalla with a very strong growth and very good traction. So that helps a lot.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

And you expect this was not a onetime. You expect that you are back at growth now in the Nordics.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We don't give any outlooks on that, but surely, the fact that we -- our products has become a lot better and that Jalla shows a really strong traction, that looks very promising at least.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And just final questions on your cost base. Is this sort of a new phase we are seeing where you are sort of forward leaning in a growth investment phase after the back-on-track initiative?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. I think you can say that. It's -- and I want to stress that we haven't really taken on a lot of costs. It's not that we have invested heavily so that we will see hits on the EBIT going forward. But we have gained confidence through the back-on-track program. We have seen that our products are becoming a lot better, our organization is in such a good shape. I have never seen it in a better shape. And that gives us confidence to invest in new markets. So yes, I think we are a little bit more forward leaning than we have been for the past few years.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And just my final question is on the license revenue, B2B Sportsbook initiative. When will you go live with ibet Claymore Group for Europe?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I have no date for that as of now, but we hope that it will not take too much time. So we communicated before that we expected it to happen. It should have happened already, but then there was this interruption by corona where there was no sports, so there's a natural interruption. But we look forward to launch it in not-too-distant future.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

And how should we think about the rollout? Are you discussing with more potential future partners? Or...

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, we are. There's an interest in the market. The market has obviously understood that we have a very competitive sports product, and there's a big interest for the Betsson Sportsbook.

Operator

Our next question is from Oscar Erixon from Carnegie.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

So I'll start by asking a question on the trading update here for October. You mentioned, I mean, first of all, very strong growth, of course, but also mentioned strong Sportsbook margin. It was 6.8% last year in Q4. Can you say something about how much better this year at the start of the quarter?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. It's stronger than the -- if you compare it to last year, it was a little bit below the rolling average in the same quarter, and now it's higher than the rolling average. We don't go into exact details, but it's been -- it has been higher for the first part of October.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Great. So as I presume. Is that sort of not the main driver? It sounds like it's continued strong underlying performance similar to -- in Q2.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, that is the main thing. We are going strongly in all markets and all regions and which has continued from the third quarter into the fourth quarter on a strong path. And then on top of that, we had a strong Sportsbook margin for the first half of October. But that doesn't create all this 46%, of course -- all this 45%.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Understood. Great. And a question on Germany as well. You mentioned it's not a significant part of revenues, but could you shed some more light, if it's 5% or 10% in Q3? I suspect that GiG's B2C business, it was one of their key markets, for example.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. That -- it was one of their markets. We don't go into the exact details. But as I said before, we're really happy that we don't have any particular market which is a very large part of our total revenue. So we are quite protected for smaller changes in specific markets.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Got it. And just a question here. Will you strive to be compliant in order to get the license in the German market? I presume that you will, but just if you could...

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. We will apply for license and we will strive to be compliant to apply for license when that happens.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Understood. And what measures do you think are the most damaging and that you hope will not be sort of a fixed feature when the future market is regulated?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

In general, you can say that all kind of restrictions on the offering or the customer experience as such is damaging the market. So we hope that the market will be big enough to be operationally and profitably -- despite the fact that there are some limits in depositing and some game limitations as well.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Yes. Understood. And final question for me. Just a question on ColBet here. I mean the number of employees increased by 150 sequentially. How much -- is ColBet included in this? Or is it a purely organic employee increase?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

This is a mix of different areas. It's from acquisitions we have done. It's from people that we have employed within -- especially within technology where we put a lot of efforts to keep on improving the product. We're building up the organization for the B2B business in the Sportsbook. So it's a lot of initiatives for future growth that builds up to these employees going up.

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

We should mention the Kenyan market as well. That is getting on, too.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, the Kenyan market, which we will open up in the fourth quarter, we have employed the staff there and we have a local office. So it adds up.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Got it. And actually, one last question for me then. How do you view competition in the B2B sports market? I mean it has seen some sort of consolidation or acquisitions by operators in recent years. Has it changed for the better, do you think? Or how do you view it going forward?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

The competition is quite hard, and there are some good providers out there. But if you compare it to the casino games market, there are less providers, and we find our product very competitive. So we think we will have a nice slot in that competitive market.

Operator

Our last phone question for the time being is from Hjalmar Ahlberg from Kepler Cheuvreux.

H
Hjalmar Ahlberg
Equity Research Analyst

Yes. Maybe a question on the Sportsbook in Western Europe. You mentioned that it has been declining a bit, partly COVID-19 driven. Did you see this growth coming back here or see it in order of only tough competition in this market for Sportsbook?

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

I would say that the regions where we operate in Western Europe, the casino side for our offer is stronger. So we expect, of course, sporting to come back, but time will tell what happens there.

H
Hjalmar Ahlberg
Equity Research Analyst

Yes. Okay. And then a question on GiG acquisition. You have now have it for more than a quarter or almost all quarters. Do you see any -- have you started to investigate synergies there? Or what's the next step for that?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I can take that one. Yes, the GiG acquisition has turned out well. I'm happy to say that we have been able to kind of onboard the organization during these problematic times. And now this part of GiG is a part of Betsson. So -- and we are happy with the development. It's according to plan. So yes, we're proud of that, and it adds up to the good momentum that we have.

H
Hjalmar Ahlberg
Equity Research Analyst

Got it. And maybe just the last question, on the marketing increase. I mean you have talked about this, that you aim to grow in all markets. But I think specific -- increasingly, I can see you're doing a lot more Nordic maybe, but anything else you can add there?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I don't think there are any markets that stands out really. And the growth in marketing investment doesn't stand out either. So it's -- I would say it's just that we keep on investing, we keep on growing, and it's spread across all regions.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Do we have any more questions from the operator, Jodi?

Operator

No sir, no questions on the phone now.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Okay. Thank you very much. We have quite a few questions coming in from the question here on the home page. So let's dive into it. Let's start with the first one.And does Betsson intend on bringing back the Dutch brands, Kroon Casino and Oranje Casino, once the regulated Dutch market opens up in 2021?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We have not decided which brands to go for on the Dutch market. The regulations are not yet set in stone, so we don't know what it will look like. We will decide when we have more knowledge about that market.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Okay. And also a question here. Could you tell us about -- tell us a bit about your acquisition on secure gaming that you made in Q2? What's your plan going forward?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

The plan going forward is to operate those B2C brands as we do today. And it's a nice operation. And they contribute to revenues and EBIT according to plan. So no further plans for that. We go into a few markets like Croatia with one of those brands. So we will keep on expanding, and they are now a part of the Betsson family of brands. So we're going to continue like that.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Another question is about Colombia. When will ColBet be transferred to the Betsson platform? Could you give also some further elaboration on the development in South America?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Maybe I should ask -- we are lucky today to have Jesper here from the operations, and he knows more of those details. And if you are tired of the 2 of us, welcome.

J
Jesper Svensson
CEO of Betsson's operational Subsidiaries

Hello. So in Colombia, we are still reviewing when we will change the technology there. But we have a strong belief in this market. It's a fast-growing market, and it's a locally regulated market in Latin America. So the ambition is there, and it's still to be determined when we do the technology choices.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Maybe you could stay for the next question as well because Betsson just signed a sponsor with AC Milan and the team of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Can you talk about this -- how this fits into your marketing strategy? How does this work? And how does it fit?

J
Jesper Svensson
CEO of Betsson's operational Subsidiaries

It fits really well. I mean, in Italy, we have very solid traction. And it's a way for us to get out our brand name. We have created a news portal, a sports news portal, called StarCasino.Sport, and that's the one that we are pushing through those channels.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Okay, perfect. Thank you. And we will move on to the next question here, which is, what can we expect from the African market or more specifically, the Kenyan market for the coming years? Who wants to answer?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I can answer that one. First of all, you can expect a launch from us in the Kenyan market. And we know several things. It's a huge interest of sports over there, and it's a very young and dynamic composition of people living there. So we have great expectations for that market.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Another question here is, how do you see the use of affiliation going forward, becoming a bigger or smaller share of your advertising budget?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We have no ambition to go in either direction. Affiliates is an important and good part of our customer acquisition strategy, and we will continue to work with affiliates as we have done for many, many, many years.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Also, you mentioned GiG recently, but could you elaborate a bit on the long-term plans for risk and GiG, thinking long term?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. We're going to operate the brands that we have acquired long term. Apart from that, we are on a platform agreement with GiG that we have communicated in the press release about that acquisition. And apart from that, there are no further plans in relation to GiG as such.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

This one interesting, very specific question. Has Betsson considered to spin off the Sportsbook to a separate entity to create shareholder value?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

That's premature. I can see why the question pops up. And that is something that could be discussed in the long-term future. But for the time being, we just want to keep on developing the product and explore the potential in selling that product to B2B customers and partners.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Let's continue. There's quite a lot more questions to go through. So let's continue. Can you give us an update on the U.S. market? When can we expect you to be live in Colorado? And what can we expect on the cost side for 2021?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We will be live, I guess, during the next year. It will impact the cost side of the company a bit. But the way we are going into the U.S. will not be -- have material investments. So there is no need to be afraid of big negative EBIT impact.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. It's popping up questions so fast, and I'm going to have this scroll through them here.On the Netherlands, the potential database reset on preregistered Dutch customers, how likely would you say that this goes through? And how would that impact you?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We don't think it's very likely that it goes through. If it still would go through, it would have, of course, a negative impact. But I have a hard time to see that -- it should be legally compliant to put that decision into force.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

The question is specific about Kenya. When will it be time to launch? Will it be in time for the Kenyan Premier League start on the 20th of November?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

That's a very detailed question. We will launch in the fourth quarter. I can't give an exact date for that.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

That is fair.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

But I'm very curious, too, on that one.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

I understand. Is it too early to ask how the Betsson is being welcomed in the U.S.?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, that's too early to answer. But surely, we believe that we will be welcomed as -- we will not be exactly the same as all the other operators. They are not the same either. But we think we will stick out in some aspects, and that will be good for us. So we look forward to that.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

And then we have a question about Germany. Were you in compliance with the tolerance regime on October 15 as required, for example, shutting down roulette and blackjack and such? If not, what have you left to do?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

There was a lot of different changes that we had to implement in a very short time span, and we managed to implement all of the material changes. So yes.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Okay. Perfect. Now I believe we have another caller on the line waiting to ask a question. Is that correct, Jodi?

Operator

It is, sir. It's from the line of Erik Moberg from ABG.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

First one, on the Nordics, could you elaborate a bit on the drivers behind this segment? We're getting a good understanding in regards to Sweden due to the tax numbers, but yet, it still appears to be quite a significant uptick in growth sequentially. What regions are driving this? Is it primarily driven by...

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

He disappeared. But he was about to say, is it primarily driven by Sweden, I guess. And Sweden did a strong uptick. But I think other countries -- Denmark was not bad. So I think we were strong in general in the Nordics.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Would you say that Norway was the country that you saw most of an uptick from sequentially?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I wouldn't say so.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

So Norway is pretty much unchanged from previously. Or have you seen any improvements there?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We don't comment on specific markets like that. We can just conclude that we have seen a strong change in trends in Sweden, and that helps a lot for the Nordic markets because before, we had to struggle with that going downwards all the time. Now it points upwards, and it helps the general trend for the Nordics.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. And in regard to Western Europe, could you perhaps elaborate in regard to the underlying drivers? There was quite a drop there sequentially, almost 12% drop Q-on-Q. Is this due to less focus on the U.K. market? Or are there any other markets that's been declining Q-on-Q?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I would say that -- and I've said before that, of course, we have a challenging time in the Netherlands because we can't do any customer acquisition there. So that's not contributing to growth. Apart from that, if I should highlight something on the growth side, it's Italy is going really strong. But it was a small step-down sequentially from the last quarter even in Italy.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. So -- okay. Got it. Got it. And just in terms of the trading update, if we sort of normalize the Sportsbook margins, could you perhaps elaborate a bit how growth had accelerated into Q4? What is fair to assume? Is it up to what, say, 30%? Or -- yes.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I can't comment on that figure. I can just say that the third quarter was a strong quarter with strong growth, and we continued out of the third quarter into the fourth quarter in a similar pace.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Fair enough. And in regard to Turkey, could you perhaps elaborate a bit on the market dynamics there if you compare the market now versus 1 year ago?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, I'm not -- I don't think the market as such has changed a lot. We have keep on developing the product, and the Sportsbook becomes more and more competitive and more and more popular in the market. So we see very strong traction on -- in the Sportsbook -- in all the markets where we have a strong Sportsbook presence.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Thank you. Any more questions from the call in, Jodi?

Operator

No sir, no further questions.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Thank you. Then I will ask a question from the questionnaire here. One of the U.K. licenses you had was under investigation. Why were you under investigation? Or was it a GiG brand under investigation?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

It was not a GiG brand. It was one of our own brands, and we were under investigation because the authority decided to investigate us. And that's normal procedures. I think most of the operators in U.K. has been or are under investigation. That happens from time to time. It's a part of life if you are licensed there.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

We have one more question about the Netherlands here saying that there's a report out that Betsson can only go live in the Netherlands on the 31st of June in 2022. Is 2022, indeed, the year Betsson expected to enter the market?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

I can't comment on that. The only thing I can say is that, that date has been moved back and forth, mainly forth, many times, and it remains to be seen when we can go live in Netherlands.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. That was the last question from the audience. I want to wrap up with a question for all of you, actually. If you all have to mention one thing each that the viewers would take from today's presentation, what would that be? Starting with you, Pontus.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. I start by saying that I'm so happy that we have such a diversified geographic portfolio. We are strong in so many markets and especially happy today when I see growth in all those regions and in -- because that creates security for the future.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. And what's your takeaway, Martin?

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

I agree with Pontus. That's really encouraging to see that. But I also think it's extra fun to see that we grow in the Nordics again and especially in Sweden with -- that Jalla is performing so well.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Anything to add?

J
Jesper Svensson
CEO of Betsson's operational Subsidiaries

Yes, I think we have shown, again, resilience. And also, I'm particularly happy with the strong active numbers of customers and how that is growing. That is promising for the future.

O
Olle Qvarnström;Finwire Media;Founder

Perfect. Well, that was my last question also, which means it concludes today's presentation. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you again next time.