LatAm becomes Betsson’s biggest market in Q2 as it eyes further M&A in the region

Betsson reported on Friday that Latin America had become its biggest market in Q2, accounting for 36% of the operator’s €310.2 million revenue for the period.

With regional revenue growing 32% year-on-year to €112 million, CEO Pontus Lindwall said the market had experienced “strong underlying activity across sports and casino”, driven by all-time-high revenue in Argentina, Peru and Colombia.

Lindwall told iGB it had, for some time, been a company target that LatAm would take over as its largest market.

“We didn’t say from day one that this will be our biggest region in the future, but we tend to invest in markets where we see good traction and good possibilities for profitability, and LatAm is one such market. 

“We see more structural growth to come from LatAm than from, let’s say, Western Europe,” he noted. The region’s €64.2 million revenue accounted for 21% of total group revenue during the quarter, after increasing 8.3% year-on year.

However in the Nordics revenue declined 17% as the operator pulled back on marketing spend across Sweden and Denmark.

“The markets are quite competitive, it’s expensive to acquire new customers and the regulations are quite tight,” Lindwall explained to iGB.

“It’s a problematic situation in many European countries with the unlicensed operators that we compete with.

“When we compare the effectiveness of our money, we prefer to invest in other markets than the Nordics,” he added.

M&A strategy to continue focus on new markets and boosting in-house tech

During the Q2 earnings call Lindwall mentioned a new €75 million credit facility to finance working capital and future M&A.  

“Our strategy is to grow both organically and [through] M&A,” he said. “This gives us some extra room for M&A.

“If you look historically we have done acquisitions which complement some business that we [already] have. And we have acquired full stack businesses in markets where we don’t have a presence. I think that serves our strategy.”

When asked which markets Betsson was eyeing next, Lindwall said he saw “more potential and more possibilities” in LatAm, in countries where the operator is not yet present.

Betsson Q2 in numbers

Despite strong revenue figures during the three-month period, buoyed by the first half of the World Cup tournament, a drop in B2B revenue B2B weighed on the quarter’s profitability.

The segment’s slump was down to lower activity from one of its larger customers, Lindwall said.

Active customers across its B2C business increased by 31.9% during the quarter to 1,825,487. However, customer deposits across both B2C and B2B were down 7% on Q2/25 to €1.38 billion.

Gross profit was down 8% YoY to €177.5 million during the quarter, corresponding to a gross profit margin of 57.2%.

Betsson’s regulated revenues increased by 17% to account for 75.5% of total group revenue.

World Cup enhancements

Lindwall highlighted a sweep of technical and product enhancements made to support the operator through the World Cup, including improving expanding capacity so sites could handle up to five times more traffic than usual. 

He told analysts he was “very satisfied with the performance of the sportsbook from a technical angle”.

“We made a lot of UX enhancements and made it easy for customers to find things to bet on,” he added.

Lindwall also touched on early-stage investment in AI tools to improve Betsson’s operational capabilities. “I believe it’s [early] stage still, but we use AI basically across the board in the operations of the company. So it’s broadly used but I think there is way more to come,” he told iGB.