Inspired Entertainment, Inc. (INSE) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Inspired Entertainment first quarter 2026 conference call. All participants' lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's prepared remarks, we will open the call for a question and answer session. Please note that today's event is being recorded. Before we begin, please refer to the company's forward-looking statements that appear in the first quarter 2026 earning press release and in the accompanying slide presentation, both of which are available in the investors section of the company's website at www.inseinc.com. This also applied to today's conference call. Management will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States security laws. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. For our discussion on these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During today's call, the company will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in today's earnings release and slide presentation, which are both available on the website. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Loren Weill, the company's executive chairman. Mr. Weill, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our first quarter conference call. Once again, we've prepared a slide deck to help focus the conversation, and Brooks and I will be using that for the balance of the program. So beginning with slide three, we continued in the first quarter to see the benefits of steps taken in 2025. As been reported previously, we took two important actions in 2025 to alter the balance of our portfolio. We sold the Holiday Park business, which we've discussed a number of times, and we restructured the pub's business to significantly reduce both capital and labor requirements. Overall, we've reduced company headcount by about a third from over $1,500 to around $950,000 and cut our annualized capital spending from the mid-$40 million to the low $30 million. Adjusting for the one-time impact of the holiday park and pub restructuring, which I'll discuss a little bit more in a moment. Our continuing revenue grew by 15% year-to-year, driven in large part by 38% revenue growth in Interactive. Our Q1 reported EBITDA grew by 29%. Our EBITDA margin expanded by 1,100 basis points. We paid down $13 million in debt, and we bought back close to 400,000 shares. So it was a very busy quarter. Slide four illustrates a little more clearly what's going on with revenue. The actions taken in holiday parks and pub together had the effect of reducing revenue in the first quarter of 2025 by about $10 million from $60 million to $50 million, as illustrated in the slide. And then driven importantly, but by no means exclusively by interactive growth, this continuing revenue of $50 million grew by 15% to a little more than $57 million in the first quarter of 2026. Interactive is certainly the primary growth driver, but as Brooks will discuss in more detail in a minute, our retail business has been performing very well in all its worldwide markets. The sustained interactive growth illustrated in slide 5 has in turn been driven importantly by superior content development, as has the retail business, though obviously to a lesser extent. In the retail business, the markets themselves are growing less quickly and particularly in the UK and Greece, our market share is much higher. In just a moment, Brooks will elaborate on our content strategy, including the bringing on stream of a new studio. But along with the focus on content development, we've been entering new markets, winning new customers, strengthening our accounts management team in order to maximize the benefit of our content. And with that, I'll hand it over to Brooks.

Okay, great. Thanks, Lauren. and moving to slide six and to build on the points you made our core strength and focus is on developing the best content and delivering it wherever it's consumed including retail online or in any number of geographies worldwide one of our key markets is North America which is now over 30 percent of our interactive GGR overall and continuing to grow and as you can see on slide six we continue to climb the ladder in the EILERS U.S. online report, moving up to fourth in the April report from number eight just a year ago. We're continuing to increase our share in both North America and the UK. This is driven not just by content alone, but by a consistent roadmap of high-performing new game releases. We've also enhanced our account management teams to work more closely with our operator partners on securing prime placements and supporting promotional activity for exclusives as a key part of our offering. On slide seven, you can clearly see that we've built a portfolio of high-performing content across the last few years with growth accelerating since January of 2025. We've seen these trends continue into April where we ended the month on a high note with our highest ever single-day total value played. These continuing results validate our strategy, and we're excited to bring an additional studio online in the second half of the year to continue to feed our operator partners with more great content that they've come to count on. Turning to the UK, as of April 1st, the increased tax rate from 21% to 40% came into effect in our interactive business. With just over a month of data, the impact we are seeing tracks exactly with what we had forecast. Importantly, despite the step up, we saw our UK interactive revenue grow in April, driven by our continuing share gains. Our UK GGR in April was more than 40 percent higher than a year ago, offsetting the tax increase and net-net resulting in our revenue growing by more than 10 percent. Where we see others retrenching in the UK market, we see opportunity to continue to grow our share, and we're committed to the resources to leverage this opportunity. Even with the tax headwind, the UK continues to demonstrate strength and resilience of this segment. Moving to slide eight, we're seeing the benefits of both strong content and the rollout of new machines across several key customers and geographies in our retail solutions business, proving that this phenomenon exists beyond interactive. In the U.K., William Hill in particular, but frankly our entire U.K. LBO business, showed positive momentum in the first quarter, and we expect that to continue. We also added two new customers, Jennings Bed and Corbett's, and signed a multi-year contract extension with Patty Power early in the second quarter. In Greece, our win per unit per day increased 11 percent, led by our recently introduced Vauer slant top machine, and we will continue upgrading over the rest of 2026 and into 2027. We believe that this machine refresh will continue to drive growth in the retail solution segment. In North America, we're cautiously optimistic about the expansion into Chicago and see the broader Illinois market as a good opportunity for us over the next 12 to 18 months and combined with our growing footprint across several Canadian provinces, starting to see the beginning of the providing the scale that we really need in North America. So moving to slide nine, as we've talked about over the last year, we've seen stabilization in virtual sports despite the ongoing headwinds in Brazil, which remains a key market for us. Unfortunately, growth we are seeing in other regions is currently being offset by performance in Brazil. However, we see a clear path to growth supported by additional key customers and upcoming product releases, as well as the tailwind from the World Cup. Moving to slide 10, which I think really validates what we've been talking about for some time, that optimizing our portfolio is delivering the outcome we expected, divesting the to lower margin, more capital-intensive and less strategic holiday parks business, along with the restructuring of our pubs estate to be less capital and labor-intensive, has had the exact impact we were expecting. As a result, the shift to higher margin digital businesses combined with improved retail performance is leading to overall growth in EBITDA, margin expansion, and significant improvement in cash flow. And all of this is underpinned by our continued focus on delivering the best content to support this strategy. So I'll turn it back over to Lauren.

Thanks, Brooks. Just to refocus a little on the numbers, slide 11 is once again a snapshot of where we were at the end of the first quarter. Year-to-year growth in EBITDA was 29%. Digital accounted for about 60% of our EBITDA and our leverage had declined to three times. More importantly, slide 12 analyzes what happened with cash. We generated about $16 million in free cash flow, which we used to both repurchase stock and repay debt obviously this won't occur every quarter because every other quarter we have a semi-annual cash interest payment to make but over the course of a year with cash generation being fairly steady an annual cash interest in the mid 30s and declining as we deleverage our leverage free cash flow conversion as a percent of EBITDA is comfortably in the 20s and hopefully growing cash flow conversion and other key metrics are summarized in the targets on slide 13 as we move through this year we're projecting the underlying trends we've been seeing will continue we expect to see steady sequential growth in EBITDA from q1 onward now that most of the seasonality has been removed with the holiday park sale and in parallel we're targeting strong cash low conversion and declining leverage driven by both the pay down of debt and growing EBITDA. In terms of asset allocation, we will look to continue to both debt repayment and share repurchase. And with that, we'll open the program up to questions.

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

Hey, guys. Thank you for all the really helpful color so far. Just a couple from me. I think we've heard from some competitors about macro and geopolitical issues impacting the top line and perhaps the cost environment.

But just, I think I asked this last quarter, but wanted to see if had any updated thoughts there you could share no um i i think we're probably aligned with pretty much everyone else and that's something that we're watching very closely um we're you know we're not seeing the impact of it thus far but we're obviously mindful of it um and i think the first quarter is kind of positively reinforcing that but you know as we all know you kind of kind of to have to keep your head on a swivel about this stuff.

Got it, okay. And then, I think the ramp of Interact has been fairly impressive over the past few years, but the virtual business is one where I think years ago, we maybe had higher expectations and maybe just wanted to kind of get your thoughts.

I think before we saw some of the near-term challenges, we were thinking kind of like a mid-teens percentage of osb handle was a decent long-term target for uh for virtuals but curious if uh you have any updated thoughts about the longer term uh opportunity here thank you yeah i think it's an interesting question i think um i would say that we're probably a little frustrated at the growth that we would have expected um from virtual sports just to to put it in a little bit of context at least as it relates to North America you know obviously online sports betting is in 39 states and right now we're technically only allowed to go in a couple states so obviously one of the things that we would hope is to add both additional states but also additional operators look I think we have some product initiatives that are coming out that will help we obviously expect to get some tailwind from the World Cup, you know, that might have been aggressive to think that it was going to be a mid-teens percentage as a part of online sports betting. It's probably more like maybe mid to high single digits is probably the right number to think about.

I think there's another issue that I think is very important, Barry, too, which is that the opportunity for virtual sports is certainly in North America is not limited to basically a companionship with with online sports betting and and that is in the lottery space without going into a lot of detail right now I I can tell you that we're seeing some very interesting developments with some of the most important lotteries in North America regarding the opportunity for virtual sports there. And I think definitely as we move through this year, we'll see a couple of very meaningful developments that I think will be a tipping point for the virtual sports.

Awesome. Thank you very much.

Your next question is coming from the line of Ryan Sigel from Craig, Helium Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. This is Will on for Ryan. Thanks for taking our questions. first wanted to ask on the guide you reiterated adjusted EBITDA but increased the margin so it implies that revenue a little bit lower than you expected curious what's the main factor going into that is it mostly uk i gaming taxes virtuals or is it something else entirely thanks um i think it's i guess how i would characterize it is just a slight tweak we're seeing the the margins continue to increase.

And obviously, you've done the math on the revenue, but I think it's just a guide. But we certainly feel very confident, and that's why we've upped the EBITDA margin targets. But I don't see this as a big fundamental shift at it by any stretch of the imagination.

That's fair. And then just a quick follow-up. Wanted to ask sort of on the interactive expansion, you ended up launching in South Africa Fanatics in West Virginia. Curious what the future expansion opportunities look like and how much more you think you have to run. Thanks, guys.

Yeah, sure. I think we've talked about this a number of times. And Lorne may want to add to my commentary because I know he talks about it a lot. is look, we're going into the regulated markets where we think it makes sense expanding in markets like West Virginia and South Africa. But I think what we feel over the longer term is there's going to be a large opportunity for expansion of iGaming in North America, particularly with everything that's happening in terms of the states not getting the kind of support from the federal government that they've gotten in the past, and we think that there's going to be an opportunity for more and more states. Obviously, there was a whole big thing about this in D.C. recently. Virginia has talked about it. So I think it's an underappreciate. No one knows what the timing of that is going to be, but we feel like there's going to be, you know, more states that will come on board. And frankly, if that were the case, you know, that really takes no more for us from an infrastructure or cost standpoint to deliver these additional states other than you know a little bit of bandwidth cost so we see that we don't know when but we see that as a huge opportunity to be transformative for us thanks brooks my pleasure your next question is coming from the line of chad banan of mcquarrie please go ahead good morning thanks for taking my question um brooks and lauren i wanted to stick

on interactive, just given the, you know, how important this is and the growth that you highlighted here in the first quarter, just thinking about the new studio, new game launches and how AI can build upon that. Could you help us think about, you know, maybe some of the tried and true games that have done well. And then with this new studio, will that all be incremental and how we use AI to just get games quicker to market for your partners? Thanks.

Yeah, no, thanks, Chad. That's a great question. And I think the reality is, yeah, I think the single biggest thing from the interactive side that we've been talking about for a while, and I think, you know, we've talked about this. We've looked long and hard for potential acquisitions in the space as a tuck-in to add more capacity and didn't find anything that made sense for us and finally decided that we were going to build the studio ourselves, and that's, you know, well down the path, and we'll start producing games in the second half of the year. And on your comment on AI, yeah, I mean, for sure, the utilization of AI across the business, but certainly in the game development side of things, accelerates the ability for us to deliver games faster, which is something that I think is going to be important for us as we go forward. So, you know, adding capacity, adding kind of different types and styles of games to, you know, broaden our portfolio and getting more games out faster through utilizing AI is clearly a big strategy of ours.

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

I think what we've consciously tried to do here is to build at the right pace for us. We obviously mentioned in the release we've got, you know, multiple Canadian provinces that are now kind of ordering machines on a yearly basis, and that's very important for us. Illinois, and in particular Chicago, assuming everything goes as expected, you know, we'll start in the fourth quarter and then, you know, we'll be a bigger part of next year. And I think we mentioned on a prior call that we had done, or at least in a press release, that, you know, we've developed, in concert with Gaming Arts, a game that will go on their Class III cabinet. So we think that should be a proof point, hopefully, for us that our content will work, you know, in Class III. And then, obviously, that opens up, you know, a number of opportunities across Class III and Class II. And then specifically on the distributed question that you had, we kind of have to take it on a market-by-market basis. So, you know, each one has its own nuances. You know, Montana, Nevada, Louisiana, each have their own kind of unique attributes. So we went with what we thought was the best and most likely place for success first. but we certainly are looking at not only the, you know, the North American market for distributed gaming, but frankly distributed gaming on a worldwide basis. Thanks, Brooks. Appreciate it. No problem, Chad.

Operator.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably a mixed bag. I think the results from BetMGM in Ontario have been very good, probably not quite as good as we'd hoped so far in New Jersey, but we're working with BetMGM in particular about where we're positioned on the site and some promotional stuff. So I think it's a little early. I think maybe it's four to six weeks that we've been out with them. So, you know, it doesn't happen overnight, but we certainly feel very bullish and we're having some conversations, you know, with some of the other big sports betting operators, I think, that are looking to broaden their portfolio. And to just add on to Lauren's comment, you know, we do think both on an online basis and importantly in a retail basis that, you know, virtual sports or monitor gaming, as they call it in the lottery industry, is a very big opportunity for us that's underappreciated. So we would expect, you know, over the next kind of six to 12 to 18 months, having some pretty meaningful contribution coming from that as well. So even though the virtual sports business is relatively flat, there's, you know, there's a number of opportunities that we see that we think can get that business back to growing.

Thanks for that. Last question for me, just on the interactive side, mainly on the hybrid dealer pipeline. If I remember correctly, I think Jack Kings and BetFriend were expected soon to be signed. I'm wondering, like, where that stands and how the rest of the funnel is shaping up.

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

Great. Thanks. That was all for me. Thanks for taking my questions. You're welcome. Thanks.

There's no other questions in queue at this time, and that concludes our Q&A session.

I will now turn the conference back over to Lauren wheel for closing remarks please go ahead thank you very much operator and again thanks everyone for joining the call this morning I think you can tell we're feeling very positive about where the business is the one issue that had been a concern had been this issue of the UK tax but at least so far in the second quarter we've been able to more than offset the impact of the tax by our growth in gaming revenue in the UK so the business is really in very good shape we're buying back stock the leverage is coming down the margins are going up all the things that have been our objectives for a while so hopefully this will continue through the second quarter and we'll look forward to reporting in three months. Thank you.

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