Evolution AB (publ)

STO:EVO

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Evolution Gaming Group Q1 Report 2021. Today, I'm pleased to present CEO, Martin Carlesund; and CFO, Jacob Kaplan. [Operator Instructions] Speakers, please begin your meeting.

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the presentation of Evolution's Interim Report for the First Quarter of 2021. My name is Martin Carlesund, and I'm the CEO of Evolution. With me, I also have our CFO, Jacob Kaplan. As usual, I will start with some comments on our performance in the quarter. I will then hand over to Jacob for a closer look at our financials, and after, I'll round off our presentation with an outlook of 2021. And then of course, we're happy to take questions. Next slide, please. This year started with a bang, and I want to begin to talk about what we are really doing in Evolution at the moment. That is more important than the actual figures as we are building our future, and Quarter 1 and the end of 2020 has been an intense, with an exceptional high pace of delivery for Evolution. I can assure you that everyone in the company will agree with me on that. It's important for me to explain that to create the figures you are about to see, a lot has to happen. We close NetEnt integration faster than planned, made reorganization, we are about to launch in Michigan. We have started 2 new studio constructions, we are revisiting the road map for both slots as well as live. We are currently expanding in each existing studio. We're acquiring BTG, handling COVID in the total of 42 locations over the world, and have one of the fastest recruitment paces of new employees ever. When I say we work hard, we do. When I say we have high ambitions, we do. When I say that we need to be better every day, we do. Evolution has a great speed forward and is built of a 10,000 plus crew of fantastic talent. I want to thank everyone for the hard work in the end of 2020 and this first quarter. Now let's move to the coming slides and see the effect on numbers and products on all our efforts. Operator, the next slide, please. We continue the momentum from 2020 and have seen a very strong start of 2021. As you have seen from the last slide, there has been a normal extreme activity level from December 2020 and through the first quarter. I'm especially excited about the focus on products and future play experiences, but needless to say, I'm also very happy to be able to state to you that the integration and restructure of NetEnt is done and delivering over expectations. I will soon get back with some figures on that. Let's look at the financials. Revenue in the quarter is EUR 235 million, an increase of 105% compared to Q1 2020. That includes the acquired NetEnt business for a full quarter. Our Live business shows fantastic organic growth of 60% compared to Q1 2020. It's the highest growth rate that we have had in a single quarter since 2015 or even earlier. Slots revenue grew 6% year-on-year if comparing to NetEnt's reported figures of 2020, which is in line with our expectations. EBITDA increase is 150% to EUR 160 million in the quarter, and our EBITDA margin is 67.9% for the same period. Other highlights in the quarter includes the integration of NetEnt. Just 4 months after closing the deal, we have established our new organizational structure and completed our cost synergies target and closed Q1 with a run rate saving of approximate EUR 44 million. This is EUR 40 million higher than the original target, and we are also about 9 months ahead of our earlier communicated timetable. With this we will now close the reporting of synergies. [ Moving forward ], we will, of course, continue to work with our cost efficiency. The rapid completion of cost synergies supported a strong margin in the quarter. It has been exceptional hard work put in by all parts of our organization to achieve this, and we delivered 92% on our 100-day plan, which I'm satisfied with. We also, just 1 week after the end of the quarter, reported about the acquisition of Big Time Gaming. This will be a great addition to Evolution and our aim to become the #1 in online casino. In my opinion, it's the most innovative slot company in the world. It's a great fit with our culture at Evolution, always driving new gaming experience and play satisfaction. We very much look forward to welcoming the Big Time Gaming crew to Evolution. I'll come back to the acquisition on a later slide. All in all, I'm very pleased to be able to present yet another very strong quarter for Evolution. We are definitely well placed for further strengthening our market share and continue to widen the gap to competitors. But as always, we need to work hard and become better every single day. Next slide, please. As I think most of you know by now, bet spots is to be seen as the indicator of the activity in our live network. So this has not changed and only shows the live part of the total EVO network. A positive trend with a strong increase of bet spots that we have seen through 2020 continued and accelerated in the first quarter. The number of bet spots from the end user accounted to EUR 17.2 billion compared to EUR 8.7 billion in the same period last year, which is a growth by 97%. In the quarter, we have invested in additional studio capacity both in North America and in other regions. However, due to the pandemic, several studios continue to operate with somewhat limited capacity. Despite that, we experienced a continued strong increase in volume, quarter-after-quarter, which is -- which have the simple explanation, the attraction of our products. I believe that some of the toughest competition we face to our online casino products are other forms of online entertainment. Increases in our volume is partly because we have been able to develop total new games that have attracted completely new groups of players. Important to remember. Thank you. Next slide, please. Due to the pandemic and the related restrictions, we operated fewer tables than planned during 2020. The pandemic still limits us in many ways, but we are even so expanding in all locations as fast as we can. As the graph shows, we've passed 10,000 employees at the end of the quarter. We operate for more than 20 countries worldwide and continues to expand in our current locations as well as open up in new. Just a few years ago, it was a big step for us to open a new studio. We will strive to make every new studio the best one ever, but studio expansion is today an integrated part of our operation and not a one-off project. We continue to see very high demand for tables, and we will continue to grow with our customers. Therefore, I expect the number of employees to continue to grow also in the years to come. Much of our success in Evolution is due to the fact that we have managed to recruit the best talent in each market. Also with the acquisition of NetEnt, we have added great talent to Evolution, and we truly want to create a special place to work, a place that is demanding, yes, but also place where you can make a global impact, where you can grow. The people at Evolution today create a playing experience that millions of players all over the world enjoy, the hub of cutting-edge technology where you want to work if you aim to be the best. Next slide, please. With the acquired RNG business, we now have 2 legs to stand on. Our RNG business stands for about 22% of our total revenues in Q1 and Live then for 78%. As I already said, our Live Casino business had the highest growth rate we have ever seen or recorded in the quarter at this 60%. The growth for RNG, as also mentioned, amounted to 6%. The RNG growth is in line with our current expectations. I'm very excited about the new games that we have in lineup for 2021 and also the work with the road map for 2022, both in RNG as well as in Live. We have revisited everything that was on the road map, and we will have very interesting releases coming. As a result of the releases and changes, we will have more releases in Q3 and Q4 than in Q2. And we also faced a tougher comparable figures in Q2 for RNG as the NetEnt business saw a significant bump up in growth, specifically in Q2 2020 as the pandemic hit. We will also enhance our offering on already existing markets where we are focusing on reaching out with our full product portfolio. We'll also, during 2021, release new games to the Live Game show segment as well as new takes on traditional Live games. On top of that, we are very much look forward in adding Big Time Gaming games to the total road map. All in all, this will be, product-wise, a very exciting year for Evolution. Next slide, please. We announced the Big Time Gaming deal earlier this month, as you know. As I stated then, our long-term ambition is to become the world-leading provider of online casino, and with BTG, we add an important piece to achieve that ambition. BTG is one of the most innovative slots creators. BTG brings with them a very strong catalog of great games that players love. [ Take ] titles like Bonanza, Extra Chilli, Monopoly, Megaways having orders all over the world. Simply a great team with great products. In addition, Big Time Gaming are the creators of Megaways Game Mechanic which is featured in many of their own games, but also is licensed to over 200 games from many other providers, including our NetEnt and RedTiger brands. We have followed Big Time Gaming development for a long time and are impressed with what they have achieved and are very excited to join forces and to continue our journey to create the global market leader in online casino. The deal is planned to close during the second quarter. Operator, please, let's go to the next slide. This slide shows the breakdown of our revenue by geographic region, and it's evidence that the demand growth is truly global. We see very good growth in all our geographies. This quarter, we had the acquired business for full quarter, so the year-on-year increase is not comparable to previous quarters. As the year goes on the comparison, quarter-over-quarter will be more relevant, so we will move towards a quarter-by-quarter comparison instead. The Nordics make up for about 7% of the total revenue; NetEnt games are strong in this region and has been an important contributor to the increase compared to 2020. We more than doubled our revenues from the region compared to Q1 2020. U.K. is about 9% of the total revenues in Q1; also here, NetEnt and RedTiger games contributed significantly to the increase compared to Q4, but also Live games have had a good development in the U.K. in the quarter. The rest of Europe is about 44% of total. So together with U.K. and Nordics, about 60% of the revenues come from Europe. As we have seen during the past year, Asia and North America are growing very fast, with the year-on-year growth amounting to 156% and 204%, respectively. We see good potential in both these markets and expect a continued high growth rate going forward, particularly as we are a small actor in Asia and with the recent regulatory movement in the U.S. and the coming Michigan studio. Other, including South America, Africa and remaining part of the world, showed good growth of 67%. Revenues from regulated markets constitutes 40% of revenues; the increase in the share of revenue from regulated markets is partly due to the NetEnt. It's having a greater percent of revenue coming from regulated markets, but also to the growth in the U.S. for Live. I will now pass to Jacob, who will speak more about the financial details. So next slide, please.

[Jacob Kaplan, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Martin, and good morning to everyone listening in. We'll now move on to a couple of slides with a closer look at our financial development during the period. I'm on the slide titled Financial Development. As you see in the slide, revenue amounts to EUR 235.8 million in the first quarter; that's made up of EUR 183.7 million related to our Live Casino product and EUR 52.2 million from our RNG games. The acquisition of NetEnt was completed in December of last year. So NetEnt, of course, included for the full quarter for the first time in this quarter. As Martin mentioned earlier, it has been a great start to the year. Our Live Casino business has organic growth of 60% year-on-year in the quarter. We achieved almost 50% growth for the full year 2020, so we did have a very good momentum coming into 2021. The growth on this -- having said that, the growth in this quarter, I would say, is on the high side compared to my own expectations from a few months ago, and it's a combination of many factors. Many of our operators had a good momentum in general, with the Live product attracting increasing number of players. We continuously broaden our product portfolio with new games, and also the pandemic has given a boost to all forms of online entertainment. So many, many factors contribute to the high growth in the quarter. Our RNG business is developing according to our expectations and plans. Comparing to NetEnt's reported numbers, Q1 2020, growth is about 6% in the quarter. In the near term, we do come up a bit against tougher comparable figures as NetEnt had a clear spike in volumes in the second quarter of 2020, but as Martin mentioned, we believe that we have a very strong lineup of new titles, especially during the second half of 2021. But I have low expectations on RNG growth in percentage terms in the second quarter. EBITDA for the quarter amounts to EUR 160.1 million and an EBITDA margin of 67.9% in the quarter. The good revenue development also affects the margin positively, of course. Also, we have been able to complete our planned cost synergies ahead of plan. I'll come back to cost synergies on the next slide. So our guidance for full year 2021 was that we would reach the fourth quarter of 2020 level for EBITDA margin for the full year 2021, which, as you can see in the slide, would mean 65% for full year 2021. We're only a few months into the year now, so we will not revise that statement. And as I'm always thinking of, many things can still go wrong. But with a good start of the year -- to the year and the completed cost synergies, it's fair to say that there is some upside to that guidance from a few months ago. So it's, for sure, a good start to the year when it comes to margin. Also worth reminding in the context of margins is that our first priority is the top line growth. Should we get a chance to expand more to capture more revenue, we will prioritize that, even if it means a hit on the margin in the short term. So that's -- that statement's still valid. Okay, operator, let's go to the next slide, please. So a few more words about cost synergies. Our original statement when announcing the after finance was that we would achieve EUR 30 million in annual cost synergies compared to the Q1 '20 cost base, which was the latest reported figures at the time of announcement. That's what's shown to the left in the slide, a total of EUR 78.4 million for the combined group, whereof EUR 27.4 million was reported by NetEnt and the remainder was the Evolution cost base at the time. The synergies included about EUR 50 million of previously announced savings by NetEnt in connection with the acquisition of RedTiger earlier in 2019. So when reporting the Q4 figures in February, we increased the target to an annual run rate of EUR 40 million, and that level has now been achieved, even a bit above that, as the EUR 10.9 million reduction in the quarter is a run rate close to EUR 44 million annual run rate. During the year, we have, of course, also had increases not related to the acquisition as our Live business has expanded. We've added tables, new studios and so on. And the EUR 8.2 million increase in that part of the business can be compared to the organic increase between the first quarter '19 and the first quarter '20 for Evolution, which was about EUR 7.6 million, so a relatively normal increase if we look historically. Altogether, that brings us to the reported operating expenses, excluding depreciation, this quarter of EUR 75.7 million. So as Martin mentioned, we will definitely not stop our efforts for cost efficiency when it comes to the integrated business, but we will not track synergies separately. It will be part of our normal operations. All right, operator, let's go to the next slide, please. So this shows our P&L in a bit more detail, and just walking through the table from the top, we see Live revenue almost EUR 184 million, as mentioned, and that's comparable to the EUR 150 million we reported in the first quarter of 2020, so 60% increase. RNG revenue amounts to EUR 52 million and when we compare our year-on-year growth in RNG during 2021, it will be against the reported NetEnt figures during 2020. So what you see on this slide is not the pro forma where we include NetEnt for 2020, just to be clear on that, but you see that in the slide. Total revenue, moving down, is EUR 235.8 million, increase of EUR 120 million compared to the same period previous year. Moving down to expenses. Also here, the comparison to 2020 of course includes the acquired NetEnt business in this quarter, but not in the January to March 2020 period. As we have stated earlier, our intention was always to integrate the 2 companies, so while we do report revenue by product line, we will not attempt to separate the cost base into Live and RNG. So that will be one -- just one segment. Okay. Going to the expense lines there. Personnel expenses amount to EUR 48.8 million. That's an increase of EUR 10.2 million compared to the same period last year. Includes increasing staff, both in operations, as we're continuously adding tables, and also in our engineering and also administrative functions. Both include additional staff from NetEnt now included for the full quarter. Depreciations amounted to EUR 18.5 million, that includes EUR 8.9 million in amortization of intangibles related to the NetEnt acquisition. Next slide, other operating expenses include items such as consumable equipment, communication costs, consultants, royalty fees; the line amounts to EUR 26.9 million in the first quarter. So summing all that up, total operating expenses of EUR 94.2 million and operating profit sums up to EUR 140.7 million. Tax is at EUR 8.7 million in the quarter. It's a tax rate of 6.2%. And all this equals a profit for the 3-month period of EUR 132 million, and that equals earnings per share of EUR 0.60 per share for the first quarter on a fully diluted basis, and that's an increase of 100% compared to first quarter of 2020. For the rolling 12-month period EUR 1.83 per share. All right, let's go to the next slide. Before I hand back to Martin, a look at cash flow and financial position. So starting to the left in the slide, the chart shows development of capital expenditure. The gray part of the bars represents investment in tangible assets, this is our studio construction mainly, it's just under EUR 7 million at EUR 6.9 million in the quarter. As we stated earlier, we maintain a very high pace in our expansion of both current studios and also new studios. For the remainder of 2021, I expect at least this level of investment in studios, possibly increasing some during the year. The blue part of the bar is investment in intangible asset and it's related to development of new games and features to the platform. It totaled EUR 6.2 million in the quarter. This is up from previous quarters, looking at 2020, but of course, now also includes the NetEnt development of new games. Total CapEx for the full year 2020 was around EUR 37 million; for Q1 '21, the total is EUR 13 million, as you see in the slide, and we will increase some during the year. So our estimated CapEx for the full year 2021 in total is approximately EUR 60 million right now. In the middle of the slide, moving on to the next chart, we show operating cash flow. Cash conversion at a good level, nearly 80%. And to the far right on the slide, and look at the balance sheet, no major changes since year-end. The dividend for 2020 of EUR 145 million will be paid today, actually. So that should be in progress as we speak. All right. I'll stop there, hand back to you, Martin, for some closing words, and we'll take questions after that. Martin?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. So operator, the next slide, last slide, outlook for 2021. Thank you, Jacob. I'm very pleased to conclude a very strong quarter. Looking ahead, I feel very excited about the new games that we have in lineup for 2021. At the end of the second quarter, we will release the first game coming up out of the cross-functional collaboration between Live and RNG [ provide ], and it's the Gonzo's Treasure Hunt. We look forward to that. In addition to product development, we continue to invest for the future in form of new studios. As stated, we will, during the second quarter, open our new Michigan studio. And we -- as we already see very good development of our RNG games in Michigan, adding Live will be very exciting. We've entered the year with a good momentum, and equipped with the extended product portfolio and talent following the completion of the NetEnt acquisition and the coming completion of BTG, I look forward with enthusiasm to the rest of the year. We'll continue to push boundaries and create the best games with the highest player entertainment value for the future. We need to inspire our current as well as future players by new fantastic games, as simple as that. Evolution's core is based on shared desire to win and to collectively constantly push ourselves to the next level. As paranoid as ever, we always want to do better and increase the gap to competition. With that, I want to thank you for taking your time to listen. And now let's move to questions. So the last slide, please.

[Operator]

9[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ed Young from Morgan Stanley.

[Edward Young, Equity Analyst]

Obviously, a very strong quarter. So I sort of think that speaks for itself in some regards. I'd like to ask 3 slightly longer-term questions, if that's okay. So on the first one, the NetEnt road map. Can you talk a little bit more about the changes there? It seems like a relatively recent decision. So what have you discovered in the last 4 to 5 month [indiscernible] in the business that required a sort of change in direction? And would it be fair to describe that change as quality over quantity?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

We aim to do the best slots in the market. We have that aim, that ambition. And looking at the slots, I think that there are a number of things that we can do better with NetEnt. There's been some limitations and maybe a little bit more look into the volume rather than the quality. And now we're changing that a little bit and adding the right things to make the best slots. We often talk about like, okay, we want to make -- when we release a slot it should look like, okay, this can be top 5 in the world 2021. And that's sort of where we're aiming. Are we going to do -- are we going to succeed with that, of course, not every time, but we have that ambition. So the changes are in line with that.

[Edward Young, Equity Analyst]

Okay. And then second of all, I'll start the question by acknowledging, it's very clear in your comments, the acquisition of BTG appears to be about innovation above everything else. But having said that, do you believe there is any kind of tension between your ambition to become the biggest and best online casino supplier and operators' wish not to be beholden '21 supply, i.e., would you consider acquiring more slots companies? Or would at some point there be dis-synergies from doing that? And if there would, how should we think about M&A targets as you continue to grow your cash pile?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

That's actually more than one question, I would say. The first -- and this is like [ sensible ] to say, but I want us to be the best company in the world. And that is not an arrogant statement. It's done with great -- I want to be humble saying that, but I cannot understand why we can't be that. And it's ambition, it's a vision. That's where we're going. Included in that is that we want to work with our operators. We want to expand the market and do good things. So I want our operators to see us as a partner doing good things and having a good relation with them. So we don't -- that is important. That's a little bit a comment to the size and the power that we have and so on. So that's the answer to that. To buy BTG is about the innovative power and the team and the great people that work there and what they have created. And we were picky, we looked at BTG for a long time, and I would even -- also [ humbles ] to say that we know them a little bit by now and we were picky when we chose them. So that is the way we look at mergers and acquisitions and what we are doing. We're scanning the market, but right now the focus is to take care of what we have and [ see ] that that works out well.

[Edward Young, Equity Analyst]

Understood. And my final one, just obviously, you talk regularly about the importance of extending the gap to competition. If I look at some of your competitors, they're not just sort of copying themes or concepts. Some of their games look like the studios in the next room to yours, some of the interfaces are copied almost exactly. So in terms of defending IP, what are you doing and what can you do to ensure that the innovation you're doing gets the best return and the gap to competition is maximized?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Stealing is never good. We've stated that before. But the true answer to that is that we want to develop. We want to be innovative. We want to move the boundaries further, and we want to be part of digitalizing the online casino market. And I think that we need to get the industry to understand that that is a common goal that we have together, and taking and copying from each other is not pushing that boundary. We need to be innovative, everyone in each part. So I would rather look at it in that perspective than in lawsuits and other.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Martin Arnell from DNB Markets.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

I will start up with a question on the organic growth acceleration here. You've been at 50% for a while, and now you're up at 60%. I mean, what's changed here? Just in order to try to understand the higher rate in Q1.

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

We continue to see the global demand, as we've talked about. And that comes out in Q1 in a very good quarter, and we see everything moving in that direction. We grow in all markets. We're expanding in all studios at the moment. And it all comes down to that. It's rather a lot of things happening at the same time than to single out one single thing.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

Okay. Any -- are there any regions or market that you want to single out as especially important of the acceleration in the growth?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

I wouldn't do that. I would say that Europe is growing to 2020 very good. Asia and North America has grown fantastically well. We also then see -- we're now engaging a little bit more focus in South America and Africa. And that's early, early days, but also interesting, yes.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

And Martin, when you look into the start of the new quarter, Q2, I mean would you say you had a good start and that this level is sustainable, or are you more expecting coming back to 50% level?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

It's too early to state anything about Q2. And I think that we should say that 60% growth on the size we are is a very, very good quarter in Q1.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

Okay. And the upcoming reopenings in many of your markets. How would you expect that to impact your growth? I understand the comments on RNG, it was boosted in Q2 last year, but I'm thinking mainly on the Live side.

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

We're working hard with the expansion right now, to say the least, and to see that we get back. I mean we lost time with the pandemic, but then the activity level increased, and the statement is still valid that we made in 2020, that, okay, activity level increased, we hampered the operative capabilities in Evolution, and it came out neutral or a little bit positive. So of course, going back in the other direction, we expect the same.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

Yes. And on capacity utilization in the studios for the dedicated tables. Where are you now compared with Q1 last year before the pandemic?

[Jacob Kaplan, Chief Financial Officer]

I would say we're, as we said already in Q4, we're back with the same number of tables then as we have pre pandemic, and then we've increased some from that. So I would say compared to prepandemic, we're -- it's more or less back, I would say, even a little bit expanded ahead of that. So we're kind of -- you can say we're in that regard, we're not so much comparing to prepandemic anymore. It's more kind of from how we take it from here.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

And at the same time, you've increased your studios' capacity during this period, right?

[Jacob Kaplan, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, for sure. I mean, added studios as well. So yes, absolutely.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

And just on the margin discussion for the full year, you mentioned that it's only a few months into the year, so you didn't want to revise that statement. And you said that there are still many things that still can go wrong. What could these be in your world?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

It's hard to paint a picture of what's going wrong, but anything can happen. As we've stated now, we see an upside on the earlier guidance. That's where we are right now.

[Jacob Kaplan, Chief Financial Officer]

I -- just to add to that, I mean when we have a very good quarter on revenue, that also comes through on margin. So if that's a little bit exceptional, I would say that that also brings margin up. So I wouldn't -- yes, of course it looks, compared to where we were a couple of months ago when we sort of when we had 65% idea for the year, I mean, there is an upside to that, even though we haven't stated a number.

[Martin Arnell, Analyst]

Okay. And final question I have is on your U.S. expansion, can you comment a little bit on how is it going in New Jersey and Pennsylvania with the upgrade of the product? And also Michigan, how is the construction going? When do you expect launch there? And finally, how about your preparations for new states?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

It's a [ bit deep ], that we're doing fine in U.S. We're expanding in all studios and we expect go live in Michigan during Q2.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Oscar Erixon from Carnegie.

[Oscar Erixon, Financial Analyst]

A lot of questions have been asked already, but a few for me. First of all, starting with NetEnt. Could you discuss a little bit NetEnt's market share in Michigan compared to Pennsylvania and New Jersey? Also, how do you see Slots and Live competition developing in the U.S. ahead. It would also be interesting to hear your take on BTG's U.S. expansion.

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

The market share for NetEnt in all of the states is very good. I don't have the figures exactly what market share. They are actually public -- I don't have them in front of me so I can't comment on it right now, but it's a very good market share for all. And of course we're strengthening our position with the BTG acquisition in U.S., having one of the stronger games portfolios there as well. Going forward in U.S., I mean it's an open market, and you need to deliver the best games to attract the players. And we believe we have that. So we have a good market outlook for RNG slots in U.S. and have a big market share in each state operating right now.

[Oscar Erixon, Financial Analyst]

Got it. And regarding the further sort of state-by-state rollout in the U.S., anything new to share there? Any new markets that you see potentially in over the next 1 to 2 years opening up?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

It's always a big guessing game from everyone because no one really knows, but the states that are sort of in the in the discussion now would be Indiana, Illinois and Connecticut. And then I would say that they are running a little bit side-by-side sometimes and things are happening. And right now, Connecticut is the front-runner, and someone would expect that would regulate somewhere 2021 or 2022. But there, my guess in total is as good as anyone else.

[Oscar Erixon, Financial Analyst]

Understood. And then a question on the margin side, I suppose. You went through the synergies from NetEnt, which seems to be already ahead of the EUR 40 million pace, but you see further potential there in coming quarters, and where Q1, was that the full run rate? Or have you done stuff in the quarter as well?

[Jacob Kaplan, Chief Financial Officer]

I can answer that. I mean we've -- as I said, we've completed -- the planned synergy initiatives are completed. Then, of course, as in any business, we continuously look to do things more efficiently and improve and find better. So that -- we will continue to strive for that, and there is things going on. But in terms of synergies, we're kind of closing that project as of now.

[Operator]

The next question from Marlon Varnik from Pareto Securities.

[Marlon Varnik, Research Analyst]

First of all, I mean, well done for the Q1 figures here. First, an ops performance question. Kind of 3 questions. One, if you can just comment briefly, the Germany market performance in the quarter, the live craps U.S. launch and maybe also on the Asian growth drivers in the quarter. So Germany, live craps U.S. as well as Asia?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Germany is we don't have any further information. And of course, everything is sort of going down there for the time being. So that's the comment. And we will get back as soon as we know a little bit more on what will happen with the revenues and others, so we -- as everyone else took a hit or whatever you call it for that. Asia continues to grow. We're still a small player, market is big, as you know. We continue to see great potential in that market. What was the middle question?

[Marlon Varnik, Research Analyst]

Craps launch in U.S.

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Working on that, that's a regulatory aspect. And we don't have any date for that yet for the craps.

[Marlon Varnik, Research Analyst]

All right. And a question also on Big Time Gaming. I mean, I understand you will continue to provide comparators, Megaways and Megaclusters mechanics. Will there be any change in BTG's business strategy here? And what's the reason to continue to provide and not have it in-house as a competitive advantage.

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

No. We won't change the business strategy when it comes to Megaways. It will continuously be provided to other slots as well. So we will be a provider to other slots companies on the backbone of that. And we think that is a good business model, and it will work.

[Marlon Varnik, Research Analyst]

And what's the BTG growth drivers you see for next 1 to 2 years? I mean, for example, how broadly used is the Megaclusters compared to Megaways?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

I wouldn't go into the potential in Megaclusters compared to Megaways, but Megaclusters is also a good game mechanics, of course, and we hope to do even more like that. Of course, we see a potential to take BTG into our network, which is bigger than the current distribution channels that BTG have alone.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Kiranjot Grewal from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

[Kiranjot Kaur Grewal, Associate and Analyst]

Just a couple of questions from me. You spoke about the EBITDA margin target and you're likely to see upside from the earlier guidance. Are you also considering BTG when you've mentioned that? Or is that another bolt-on to that figure?

[Jacob Kaplan, Chief Financial Officer]

No, it doesn't consider BTG. I mean, the deal has not closed yet, so we'll wait for that to close until we kind of incorporate that in our discussions. So that's where -- as we are today.

[Kiranjot Kaur Grewal, Associate and Analyst]

Okay. Perfect. The other one is around new studios. Could you maybe talk a little bit more about the new studios to come? Are you targeting any specific regions through those studios? I know in the past you've said maybe the Asian focus studio, and I know you're building out in other regions as well. So is there any sort of [ skew ] for that in terms of what you'll be offering? In terms of the U.S., this is the last question, we've often talked about how Blackjack is the most popular game in the U.S. Are you seeing any sort of successful cross-selling to your other games that are more scalable and what's the sort of trajectory for more Game Show games being rolled out in the U.S.?

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. As I stated, we are building 2 more studios right now. We're expanding in actually every studio we have. So we are on our route to increase supply, to see that we can fulfill the demand that we see. I stated earlier during the call that we're expanding in one -- building one studio in Europe and building one studio in North America. And to be clear on that is that the studio in North America is to supply current demand and it's not a new state. It's supplying to the demand that we see. It's a constant struggle right now. COVID is still here, it's still difficult to both recruit and manage. Health for our employees, of course, goes first. There's social distancing and a lot of things. So we need to see to that we can demand. On top of that, of course, we're also seeing we build a network of studios where we can have redundancy and be more resilient to other situations like the ones that we have right now with COVID, learning from that. So that is also -- was important to see. When it comes to more products in U.S., we're constantly working with the regulators, that's a new area for them. So it's a bit of a -- it's always a bit of a -- not a challenge, it's more like a bit of work to get it done, and we're on to that so that we can launch all the products we want to launch in U.S. I hope to be able to tell soon when we're launching what, but that's a constant work that we do.

[Operator]

There appear to be no further questions. I will turn the conference back to you.

[Martin Carlesund, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. Thank you very much for listening and taking your time, and see you in the quarter. Bye.

[Jacob Kaplan, Chief Financial Officer]

Bye-bye.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.