Playtech CEO H1 exclusive, ‘strong momentum’ for the rest of 2025

Key points:

– Playtech has released its full H1 2025 financial results

– Revenues and Adjusted EBITDA subject to year-on-year declines, with net cash balance significantly increased

– The company has cited significant live casino growth, as well as positive figures from the US market

– Gambling Insider spoke exclusively to CEO Mor Weizer about the results

Playtech has reported its official financial results for the first half of 2025, highlighting a 10% year-on-year drop in revenue to €387m ($452.5m).

Nevertheless, strong growth across the Americas – particularly within the live casino vertical – has seen CEO Mor Weizer cite “strong momentum” for the rest of 2025, as part of an exclusive interview with Gambling Insider this morning.

Playtech H1 2025 at a glance…

It has been a busy first half of the year for Playtech, who recently announced the return of €1.8bn to shareholders following its €2.3bn Snaitech sale to Flutter, as well as launching in its fourth US state in West Virginia earlier this summer.

Speaking to Gambling Insider, CEO Mor Weizer re-emphasises that the company’s Adjusted EBITDA total for H1 2025 of €91.6m, although subject to a 16% drop year-on-year, remains “fully aligned” with the previously adjusted expectations that were released as part of the operator’s August trading statement. Elsewhere, adjusted post-tax profits also fell by 12% in comparison to results from the year prior. Adjusted investment income, however, rose by some 171.8% year-on-year, settling at €19.8m during this year’s first half.

Indeed, over this year’s first half Playtech has also managed to significantly improve its net cash position, as cited by Weizer, in large part to strong strategic partnerships and excellent growth across the Americas, with the company now reporting a net cash balance of €77.1m – up from a loss of €225.5m during H1 2024.

By region, the operator experienced a healthy 64% upswing in North America revenue to €21.8m, with Latin America revenue falling 32% year-on-year to €87.7m, alongside B2B revenues, which also dropped 9%, settling at €347.6m.

Now, in the wake of these results, Playtech has revealed that it is on track to exceed its FY Adjusted EBITDA expectations for the 2025 annual period, citing solid underlying B2B growth alongside plans to increase investment in the US and Brazilian markets.

Good to know: H1 2025 also saw Playtech enter into a revised agreement with Caliente Interactive, with the operator now possessing a 30.8% equity holding of the business

Elsewhere, the operator has already made a busy start to the second half of the calendar year, announcing last month a partnership extension with MGM Resorts, with the pair launching an industry first interactive game show – Family Feud live – to be streamed live from MGM Grand’s Las Vegas casino floor.

Speaking exclusively to Gambling Insider, Playtech CEO Mor Weizer provided the following comments…

Thank you for joining us this morning, Mor, what can you tell us about your reaction to these latest business results?

We have had a strong first half of the year, delivering an adjusted EBITDA of almost €92 million in line with our upgraded guidance. These results reflect our revised strategic agreement with Caliente Interactive, which we were pleased to complete in March and set us up for continued success in the future. Importantly, excluding the impact of the new agreement, adjusted EBITDA grew 5%, which is a clear sign of resilience and momentum across our business. Strategically, we are now fully focused on B2B and we see significant opportunities ahead. Moreover, in the US and Canada, we delivered revenues that are up 64%, we entered our fourth iGaming state in West Virginia with some of the largest and leading operators in the market, and we are investing further to capitalise on the strong demand for our products and services.

Latin America remains a key region for us, but the transition to a regulated market in Brazil is a real game changer and, we believe, our strong local partnerships there leave us well positioned for growth. We are also investing in a new live casino studio in São Paulo, and, on the subject of live casino, I will mention that segment revenue grew by 9% in H1 and we saw growth of more than 300% growth in the US for the vertical.

I’m also especially proud of our expanded relationship with MGM Resorts

This strong momentum will continue into H2, and we now expect that the EBITDA for the year will be slightly ahead of expectations, as we reaffirm our medium-term ambition of €250m to €300m in this area.

Regarding the US market, how do you reflect on your progress during the first half of the year – and how will these results influence your strategy going forward?

As you know, we just extended into West Virginia, which is a state within which we see a lot of upsides. We’ve got some fantastic partners and we’re planning for new content including a lot of new live casino games, as we see continuous and strong demand in this area. We extended in the first half of 2025 with DraftKings into three iGaming states. Now we are extending into our fourth state with the West Virginia launch. Elsewhere, we are also expanding into new states with additional customers such as Delaware North – with whom we just launched our online support system in Arkansas. We are now licensed in 12 states overall, and we would like to increase the number of states that we are representing.

Our games are ranked amongst the top 25 games each and every month across the US

Alongside that, we work together with more than 10 operators in Canada, specifically in Ontario, where we have a great partnership with NorthStar. We are certainly also fully committed to Canada.

When we spoke in Q1, you named Brazil as your largest live casino market. How have you found your initial phase in the newly regulated space?

I will say that since the Brazilian market was regulated in January, there has been a big impact on the market because they introduced some of the strictest regulations worldwide, more so than in the US. Subsequently, the new onboarding process, which was difficult, has had an impact that is not just specific to Playtech. Some operators saw a negative impact of 20%. Some other operators saw a negative impact of 70%. The good news about Brazil is that the levels of GGR we saw in August 2025 are very similar to what we saw before the regulation, which shows that the market is picking up.

Estimates suggest the market is currently at a $6bn revenue level, while industry analysts suggest that we should expect $17bn market level or a level of activity by 2030, which is almost tripling the market, and we feel that we are extremely well positioned. Specifically on live, we are in the process of building a studio in São Paulo. We are increasing the workforce. We will have 100 people in Brazil by the end of the year. We have the right partnerships that continue to see accelerated growth. We are fully committed to providing them with best solutions and we are very excited about the prospects for Playtech in Brazil going forward.

Overall, we are very excited about the future

Overall, what can we expect to see from Playtech for the rest of 2025 and beyond?

We expect to see growth in the Americas altogether, but we expect to see a lot more growth specifically in the US, Brazil, Mexico and in certain parts of Europe, where we have strong partnerships in various countries. We are also looking to penetrate new markets, and we only just established ourselves, for example, in the Philippines – where we intend to launch in 2026. On that, the plan is to secure the two largest operators in the Philippine market, operating under the local licence, so fully regulated, as an initial phase. Elsewhere, we expect to sign an agreement with a company that we believe will become one of the largest operators in Brazil. Coming into H2 as we are now, we expect that there will be a lot of opportunities for us. We are very excited about the future.