Everybody has a plan…
Genius Sports failed to get the Legend messaging right, says CEO
Mark Locke says the ‘ferocious’ share price reaction came as a surprise.
In +More: Betr acquires NFA-registered broker for predictions launch.
Earnings: Better Collective, CIRSA, Gentoo and GiG Software
Puts+Takes: Truist looks at the impact of AI on gaming’s bottom line.
Hard Rock Bet is growing – we know you know! And we want to bring in some more maestros to make beautiful music in our Sportsbook. You need to be among the very best in the industry to be considered for these roles. Are you up to it?
Repair shop
I came across a fallen tree: Three months on from the announcement of the $1.2bn acquisition of Legend, which lopped over a quarter off the company’s market cap, Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke said the “ferocity” of the share price reaction was a surprise.
Speaking to E+M for an upcoming Q1 ‘Earnings Debrief’, Locke said that, as with all M&A announcements, the company had expected a – relatively small – negative reaction.
I felt the earth beneath my feet: But on the day of the announcement, the share price fell 28%, a reaction which Locke claimed was unwarranted.
“Did we expect it to go down a bit? Yes. But the ferocity of the reaction was more of a surprise to me,” he disclosed.
Oh, simple thing, where have you gone: Locke said poor reception of the news was partly due to factors outside the company’s control, adding it was a “bad day for the markets” generally. But he also admitted to some errors, including assuming too much prior knowledge of the Legend business, which itself had deliberately flown under the radar before it was sold.
“Nobody knew what it was,” he pointed out. “You’ve got Genius, which is a complicated business, buying a big business relative to our size, which is also quite complicated.”
“And it’s a business no one’s ever heard of. So, it’s a perfect storm.”
Something to rely on: In place of any equity-market endorsement, Locke said he takes heart from the debt-raise process against the backdrop of a very difficult spring in the debt markets.
“We secured the money with US Bank, Goldman, Deutsche, Citizens and several other banks on incredibly good terms.”
“The banks did the same due diligence work on Legend as we did and came to the same conclusion we did. That is a massive validation.”
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in: A further boost came this week after a note from the analysts at Benchmark gave the share price a 20%-plus boost on the suggestion that Genius Sports is set to benefit from recent developments with prediction markets.
Notably, the analyst is seeing the early signs of engagement between prediction market operators and sports leagues.
As an important official data provider, Genius Sports could be set to benefit given its “entrenched” relationship with leagues.
Talk about it somewhere only we know? Locke remained cautious in his words around prediction markets, saying the NFL and what it says about integrity and insider trading will ultimately set the tone.
“The next stage will probably be increased demand for official sports data for the PM operators – trust is everything and official data is a key part of establishing trust,” he added.
“It won’t be the NFL until they are happy, but we are already seeing that with other sports.”
Moreover, he said the PM operators understand that for their long-term survival, the support of the leagues is vital.
“Ultimately, I believe what they need is for their business to become more regulated,” he argued.
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand: Genius’ commercial engagement with the larger prediction market operators is already underway, however. The Polymarket/Serie A deal flagged by Benchmark – with Genius as the official data and integrity provider – is the visible tip of a wider relationship being built.
“We work with the market makers, who all need good data. We’re already making good money in that market,” Locke said.
“We’re understanding how it’s working, we work with them on the advertising and the tech side. That’s working really nicely.”
“We’ve been careful not to move too fast in what is a complicated environment in the US, and that is an overhang on our stock for sure. But I believe it will start to come, and likely soon.”
Sat by the river and it made me complete: The work of repairing the damage done by the Legend announcement began with the Q1 earnings, which showed revenues up 31% YoY to $188m while adj. EBITDA rose by 21% to $24m.
More importantly, the company gave guidance for pro forma annualized revenues of ~$1bn and adj, EBITDA of $320m-$330m.
Is this the place we used to love? Post-call, Locke said the lessons learned about public life are starting to sink in, adding that “naively” he underestimated the amount of time investors are able to give to understanding the situation with any given stock in their portfolios.
“The business combination adds a layer of complexity to the public equity story we have been telling for five years now, particularly given Legend was relatively unknown to public market investors,” he said.
“Ultimately, we think this will be a ‘show-me story’ as we execute and deliver financial results that will force investors to pay attention – but certainly in the first few months post-acquisition, we have seen investor time horizons shorten against the backdrop of a hyper-volatile market.”
Soft2Bet Evaluates Alberta Market Entry to Strengthen Canadian Footprint
Soft2Bet has announced its intention to enter the Alberta iGaming market, pending regulatory approval. Leveraging success from its Ontario brand, ToonieBet, the company eyes a market projected to exceed $700 million at maturity. Soft2Bet is currently preparing for technical requirements under the iGaming Alberta Act, overseen by the AiGC and AGLC.
“We are committed to delivering localized, engaging experiences that reflect the unique preferences of each market,” said David Yatom Hay, General Counsel, Soft2Bet.
+More
Betr has acquired NFA-registered broker Ascent Capital Management to accelerate the launch of prediction markets within its super app. The deal gives Betr Commodity Futures Trading Commission introducing broker registration, enabling it to offer event contracts powered by Polymarket later this year.
Kalshi is testing margin trading functionality for its cryptocurrency futures products in a practice environment ahead of a broader rollout to users. The move follows Kalshi subsidiary Kinetic Markets securing a futures commission merchant license from the National Futures Association. Any expansion of margin trading to event contract markets would still require approval from the CFTC.
Sportradar is facing a securities class action lawsuit following allegations from short sellers Muddy Waters and Callisto Research that the company derived significant revenue from illegal gambling operators. The claims triggered a 22% share price drop in April. The lawsuit covers investors who purchased shares between November 2024 and April 2026.
Read across
Smother knows best: A consumer survey the UK Gambling Commission commissioned, then declined to publish for three years, has resurfaced as the central exhibit in a growing case that Britain’s affordability check regime is driving gamblers offshore. From Tuesday’s Compliance+More.
No hiding place: A Senate subcommittee on Wednesday scrutinized the growth of sports betting and sports integrity, but senators spent most of the hearing on prediction markets, questioning whether they are, in fact, just sportsbooks. From Thursday’s C+M.
+More careers
The big move: Flutter Entertainment has appointed Ignazio di Lauro as an advisor to the group’s global sportsbook and trading team. Di Lauro was previously with Sisal and Flutter’s Southern Europe and Africa arm for a combined 16 years.
Inspired Entertainment has announced that James Richardson has stepped down from his role as CFO with immediate effect. The board has promoted Craig Wilson, Inspired’s VP of finance and accounting, to the role, and the company said Richardson would remain available to assist with the transition for a period of three months.
Commercial Legal Counsel – Limassol
Country Manager – Sweden – Malta
VP of CRM – Limassol
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Better Collective
X marks the spot: The gaming affiliate provider expanded its Playbook partnership with X to a global exclusive arrangement and announced a rollout of prediction market content targeting US users, positioning itself for what could become a meaningful new revenue category.
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra edition (PRO subs only).
Earnings
CIRSA: Revenues for Q1 rose 8% YoY to €623m with EBITDA up 8.5% to €194m. Adj. net profit jumped 33% to €70m, driven by EBITDA gains and €60m+ in financing cost savings following the 2025 IPO and refinancing.
Retail remained the cash engine, with the Spanish slots division delivering its fifth consecutive quarter above 50% EBITDA margin.
Online turnover grew 32%, though margins compressed to ~15% due to Peru’s gaming tax. LatAm revenues surged 15.8% ex-FX.
Leverage stands at 2.6x pro forma, supporting an accelerated M&A pipeline, including a potential sizable transaction beyond bolt-ons, with Western Europe now under consideration.
“There might be opportunities both in the online channel as well as in the retail channel,” said CEO Antonio Hostench.
“Of course, the priority for us would be to start investing in profitable business in the online segment.”
The company is tracking toward the high end of 2026 guidance, with Q2 trends mirroring Q1.
Earnings in brief
Gentoo Media: Q1 revenue of €24m was down 5% YoY, which the company blamed on softer sports margins in February and a continued focus on higher-value, more profitable revenue streams. EBITDA before special items rose 19% to €10.5m, which Gentoo said underscored its progress on the strategic transformation toward a leaner, more profitable operating model.
GiG Software: Q1 revenue of €9m was marginally below the prior-year period while the operating loss widened to €5m from €4.4m. Adj. EBITDA halved to €0.2m. The company said a €3m revolving credit facility was agreed in May 2026 to support working capital.
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Connections
The big deal: Kambi has expanded its presence in the Americas through a new multiyear online sportsbook partnership with Canadian Bank Note Company (CBN). Under the agreement, the formerly lottery-focused CBN will deploy Kambi’s turnkey sportsbook solution across its Let’s Bet and Apostemos brands in South and Central America and the Caribbean.
Spreadex Sports has announced an expansion of its long-standing partnership with UK and Scottish horseracing, increasing its starting stalls sponsorship from 20 to 22 racecourses for the 2026 summer flat season.
Kaizen Gaming’s Betano brand has become an official supporter of the 2026 FIFA World Cup across Europe and South America, expanding recent sponsorship activity and fan engagement initiatives. Flutter Entertainment’s Tombola has become the exclusive online bingo partner of Monopoly under a licensing agreement with Hasbro.
Hacksaw Gaming’s titles are now available on the Swiss Casino platform. Octoplay’s games are now available on Betsson’s StarCasinò platform in Italy. QTech Games has agreed a distribution agreement with LuckyStreak for the latter’s live casino content.
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Puts+Takes
All upside: The greater deployment of AI processes could unlock up to 30% in incremental EBITDA for both land-based casinos and their online brethren, according to Clayton Peister from the Differential Labs consultancy.
The estimate comes from a discussion Peister had with the gaming team at Truist, who noted that most early initiatives haven’t yet hit their stride because operators have focused “largely on technical wiring rather than vision.”
Mind your language: Peister drew a clear line between traditional machine learning, which tends to be predictive (such as lifecycle marketing, next-trip spend, promotional elasticity) and LLMs, which are generative and provide hyper-personalization, sentiment analysis and scripting.
Casino adoption of ML has historically lagged other industries, but LLMs are now “democratizing access.”
Crucially, Peister argued legacy ML rollouts failed because they “[forced] line teams to change,” whereas LLMs invert the problem by adapting to existing processes.
The combination, he said, brings “the 10-20% EBITDA uplift within reach.”
Leverage: The Truist note said that five ML levers are doing the heavy lifting: clever real-time marketing, patron-level strategy, proactive risk management, reinvestment discipline and asset optimization.
Peister cited an Asian casino using ML to identify each player’s loss inflection point, smart-table data to spot it in real time, and an LLM to push a personalized offer in the moment.
With 20%+ of US revenues sunk into typically inefficient monthly free-play, the prize from smarter play-based offers is sizable.
Get smart: The constraint isn’t ambition but plumbing. Casino management systems are “frequently static and highly regulated,” pushing operators to build ecosystems around the core.
Macau’s prohibition on cloud-based APIs makes things harder still, favoring large-caps with internal data science muscle over mid-caps.
But Asian operators have a two-year head start, helped by smart-table data that has turned table games into an “ecommerce-style dataset.”
The US story is more opex-flavored for now, such as MGM’s digital concierge, which has cut check-in times by 77% as part of a $150m cost program.
But cloud access should let US operators scale faster once they engage.
Slots, evolved: Peister called the legacy slot dev model “backwards” – math first, theme later. AI flips that toward concept-led design and personalized volatility (same RTP, tailored RNG).
Smaller studios stand to benefit most from quicker iteration.
Upcoming earnings
May 26: Kambi Earnings Debrief
May 28: Better Collective Earnings Debrief
Jun 2: High Roller Earnings Debrief
Jun 4: Allwyn
Jun 5: Meridian Earnings Debrief
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