Tilman Fertitta among those eyeing bids, says report.
Fluffer Entertainment: Flutter misses, sees softness, investors take fright.
In +More: Kalshi goes institutional with ex-Standard Chartered hire.
Earnings: Penn, Churchill Downs, Better Collective, Cirsa, Codere Online.
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A Palace coup
Beware the ideas of (almost) March: Caesars Entertainment could be the subject of a bidding battle, with Tilman Fertitta among those considering an approach to the Las Vegas and regional casino giant.
According to a report in the FT, various sources have told the paper that Caesars is exploring a sale after receiving unsolicited approaches.
Among other options, the company could also be the subject of an MBO.
The news sent the shares up 19% as the report emerged late on Thursday.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars: The Caesars share price has been languishing for much of the past year as the prospects for Las Vegas worsened due to visitation and spending worries, particularly among the lower-end customer cohorts.
The surge left the company with a market cap of just over $5bn.
But despite yesterday’s uplift, the shares are still down over 25% on a one-year view.
Why does it always reign on me? Caesars’ poor share price performance
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your cash: Caesars Entertainment has a checkered history. At one point, post-the Great Financial Crash, Caesars was one of the most highly indebted companies in the world when private equity groups Apollo and TPG bought it in 2008.
It was subsequently brought to the brink of bankruptcy before being bought by Eldorado Resorts in June 2019 for $18bn in cash and shares.
Caesars’ current debt levels are around $11.9bn, as of the Q4 2025 earnings.
The FT said the company declined to comment on the rumors.
Cry havoc: Speculation has also surrounded the future of the digital business, with analysts previously suggesting the possibility of a spin out from the parent company in order to realize the value of a unit that produced $236m of EBITDA in FY25.
CEO Tom Reeg told the analysts earlier this month that Caesars would “do what maximizes value to shareholders over the long term.”
But he questioned the appetite of the wider market for such a move.
“This doesn’t seem like a market that screams you should come and offer some equity of any kind,” Reeg said at the time.
Let slip the dogs of war: When asked on the analysts call accompanying the company’s earnings earlier this month, Reeg said that when it came to any potential M&A, and particularly any asset sales, Caesars was “always open for business.”
“If there’s interest in any of our assets, we’re happy to talk about them,” he said.
But he noted the analysts “shouldn’t expect to see us running a process on an asset anytime soon.”
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more: The billionaire Tilman Fertitta – a cousin to the Fertittas who are the majority shareholders at Red Rock Resorts – is the owner of the hospitality giant Landry’s, which includes the Golden Nugget B&M casinos business.
He is currently the US ambassador to Italy, appointed by President Trump.
Fertitta is also the largest shareholder in Wynn Resorts, having built up a 12% stake on valuation grounds in the past couple of years.
Last year, he paused plans to build a Las Vegas Strip casino due to the conflict of interests with the ambassadorship.
Icahn do: Activist investor Carl Icahn is also an investor at Caesars, with a stake of just under 5%.
We are the underlings: Wynn Resorts shares enjoyed some of the glow from the speculation late yesterday, spiking 5% at one point before settling on a 2.5% uplift. MGM Resorts also enjoyed a boost, surging nearly 6%.
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Fluffer Entertainment
I’m losing my edge: Flutter reported Q4 revenue of $4.74bn that was up 25% YoY and adj. EBITDA of $832m that similarly rose 27%. But both metrics missed consensus by 5% and 8% respectively, which set the stage for an even larger shock on forward guidance.
The miss was US-driven with sportsbook handle growing at just 3%. Margins ran at approximately 19% across the full season, with several weeks exceeding 30%, triggering a recycling effect that suppressed customer wagering activity.
Fault to a generous: CEO Peter Jackson was candid about the execution failure: “We did not deploy our generosity efficiently in Q4,” he admitted.
“Particularly when you think about the very long sequence of very high margins, we were not efficient and effective. We should have been deploying more generosity at those points.”
Bag of nerves: But the after-hours share price action – down 7.5% – showed investors were also unnerved by the FY26 guidance, which at $2.97bn of EBITDA at midpoint was some 17% below consensus and with the US 27% below where analysts had expected it to fall.
The company said it is absorbing a $275m-$300m EBITDA investment in FanDuel Predicts, $70m in Brazil expansion, and a $235m post-mitigation hit from UK gaming tax increases.
And what do you do? “We are an ‘and’ company,” said CFO Rob Coldrake. “We’ll ensure our capital allocation decisions are balanced by the opportunities to invest for growth, but also to optimize for leverage over time.”
Flutter Entertainment Earnings Extra
A swing and a miss: See today’s Earnings Extra edition to be sent later this morning (PRO subscribers only).
+More
Play it, Sam: Boyd Gaming has agreed to sell the Sam’s Town Hotel & Casino in Shreveport, Louisiana, to Bally’s Corporation for an undisclosed sum. The property is located adjacent to Bally’s existing Shreveport casino and the transaction is expected to close in Q3, subject to regulatory approvals.
Read across
A red card: The UK government has announced a consultation exercise on plans to ban unlicensed gambling operators from sponsoring British sports teams. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy said it was “not right that unlicensed gambling operators can sponsor some of our biggest football clubs, raising their profile and potentially drawing fans towards sites that don’t meet our regulatory standards.” From Tuesday’s Compliance+More.
Getting your retaliation in first: Kalshi has sued Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Attorney General Derek Brown in federal court, asking a judge to block the Beehive State from bringing an anti-gambling enforcement case against its event contracts. From yesterday’s C+M.
+More careers
Kalshi has hired former Standard Chartered executive Andy Ross as head of institutional business, marking a further push to expand beyond retail users into institutional finance. Ross, who previously held senior roles at London Stock Exchange Group and Morgan Stanley, will join in March following gardening leave. The appointment follows Kalshi’s recent partnership with Tradeweb and signals growing efforts to position prediction markets as a tradable asset class for institutional investors and professional market participants.
Fanatics is investing over $50m to expand its Manhattan office, which is expected to create 300 new jobs. There are currently around 650 Fanatics employees based in New York. Raketech has appointed Victoria Darmanin as interim CFO.
CEO – Stockholm
Head of Acquisition – Remote
General Manager – Spain – Ceuta
E+M PRO
Better Collective
Now where were we: Better Collective’s strategic narrative pivots firmly to growth. CEO Jesper Søgaard framed 2026 as marking “a return to growth” after two years of external headwinds.
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra edition (PRO subscribers only).
Penn Entertainment
Modesty permits: Penn Entertainment is now defined by two converging narratives: a steady retail casino business navigating weather and competitive headwinds and an interactive segment that shorn of the ESPN Bet pretensions is showing tangible, but limited, progress toward profitability.
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra edition (PRO subs only).
Churchill Downs
Giddy up: Churchill Downs enters 2026 with strong momentum heading into the 152nd Kentucky Derby, with management guiding to $15m-$20m of incremental Derby EBITDA, supported by a new NBC broadcast deal, expanded race days and ticket sales pacing well.
See today’s Earnings Extra edition to be sent later this morning (PRO subs only).
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Earnings in brief
CIRSA
Enigma variation: CEO Antonio Hostench took the opportunity of the Q4 numbers to put forward CIRSA as being likely to feature in some M&A action sooner rather than later, hinting that the company was looking at two “good opportunities” in one of its existing European markets.
Ruling out Eastern Europe, he said CIRSA was looking in “traditional Western Europe” markets. Enigmatically, he added these would be territories “north of France.”
CIRSA delivered €2.34bn in revenue, up 8.8%, and €754m in adj. EBITDA, a 7.8% increase, beating guidance. The company set out a target of €800m-€820m in EBITDA for 2026.
Operationally, online stole the show with the division now representing 23% of group revenue, up meaningfully YoY.
On prediction markets, the tone shifted from dismissive to pragmatically inclusive. CIRSA will add prediction functionality in Spain, though management stressed this is content enrichment not a strategic pivot.
Chair Joaquim Agut captured the operating philosophy concisely: “We say what we do, and we do what we say.”
Codere Online
A little local difficulty: Two of Codere Online’s largest competitors in Mexico were shut down due to what CEO Aviv Sher described as “regulatory problems, but it’s more political problems internally.”
Neither has returned, meaning a potentially significant shift in competitive dynamics for Codere Online’s key growth market.
Sher also dismissed fears of the recent surge in Cartel violence having an impact on the business.
Quiet riot: Chair Moshe Edree added: “From what we hear from our guys in Mexico, it’s not as big as it sounds in the news. I mean, it’s not like huge riots.”
The management team also struck a relaxed tone over the Mexico excise tax hike from 30% to 50%, with Sher saying the EBITDA impact is “not as big as we thought” and most of it can be mitigated.
On the product side, Codere quietly launched poker in Mexico and is preparing a soft launch of bingo.
For FY25, NGR came in at €224m and adj. EBITDA more than doubled to €13.8m.
Guidance for 2026 is for NGR at €235m-€245m and EBITDA at €15-€20m.
VICI Properties
Capital letters: Q4 revenue rose 3.8% YoY to $1bn with AFFO per share increasing to $0.60. FY25 revenue grew 4.1% to $4bn, while AFFO per share reached $2.38. The gaming REIT announced over $2.1bn in capital commitments during 2025 at an 8.9% initial yield and issued 2026 AFFO guidance, highlighting continued portfolio expansion and investment deployment.
Venture capital firm Yolo Investments manages in excess of €500m in capital across 100 exciting fintech, gaming and blockchain companies. The Yolo Investments’ Gaming fund, regulated by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, has taken positions in fast-growth suppliers and operators, including Dabble and Enteractive. Yolo Investments (yolo.io) wants to hear from readers of this newsletter. Get in touch with your pitch, or for a chat about innovative products which can plug into our investment ecosystem.
Upcoming earnings
Mar 2: DraftKings virtual investor day
Mar 3; Lottomatica, Sportradar, Accel Entertainment
Mar 5: Entain, Banijay, Full House Resorts
Mar 12: Gambling.com
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