After 13 years with the organisation, CFO and Deputy CEO Rob Wood is due to leave the Entain Board as of 6 March. During his final media duties with the operator, however, he looks back on his tenure with pride, speaking exclusively to Global Gaming Insider about Entain's full-year financial results for 2025.
How do you look back on your time with Entain?
It's been an amazing period of growth. As I mentioned during the presentation earlier, my first presentation was seven years ago – when the company was half the size of today and many multiples less during my time at Gala Coral. We were in three countries – now we're in over 30. It's been an amazing period, I've enjoyed it and now the business is in such good shape – it's really good time to hand over to Michael Snape, who is sure to keep the growth going.
In your results presentation, a chart showing segmental net gaming revenue outlines the UK & Ireland as generating 23% of all NGR, the US 21%, Australia 8%, Italy 7% and Brazil 5%. How might this chart change come April and the rise to 40% remote gaming duty in the UK?
We've guided that we think online revenue will grow 5-7%, which will be fairly uniform across our segment. We don't know exactly how things will materialise in the UK – but we do know the UK is an opportunity for us. We are very profitable there. Most operators will really struggle in this new environment and we should gain share. We think we'll continue growing at a 5-7% rate – which is consistent across our international segments. So our pie chart should actually look exactly the same.
I spoke to Soo Kim at ICE and he had a similar outlook with Bally's. Are we, then, looking at a few key players growing and others in this market falling behind?
If you look at our taxes now – they represent over 80% of profit before tax – so we're used to this. Very few operators have the scale to make it worthwhile to operate under those kind of conditions. The larger operators will seize the opportunity and continue to invest. There's a long tail that will have to pull back, in areas like customer generosity. They will remain profitable at first but their business will gradually shrink.
In our organisation, we can value that player based on their activity in the first 24 hours, seven days, 28 days... we know it in almost real time
We've discussed the usual suspects before, Brazil and the US (we just spoke about the UK). But do you see continued growth in New Zealand and Georgia, which now represent 3% each of total GGR and both saw double-digit growth rates for 2025?
In Georgia, we've averaged high single digits in the seven years since we've entered the market, having entered in 2018. There is no reason to think the growth can't continue, although it will moderate in the fullest of time.
New Zealand is an opportunity for outsized growth – we think that is a £600m ($799.4m) a year market, and we'll have a cross-sell benefit that nobody else will have with sports betting and iGaming.
A final market I wanted to ask you about is Spain. That also represents 3% of Entain's 2025 NGR but saw 35% year-on-year growth. What were the specific reasons for this growth and what are your expectations moving forward?
Spain is a market that went through advertising restrictions five years ago – so it became a little deprioritised from a group perspective. Yet, in Bwin, we have a brand with such huge value. Everybody remembers Ronaldo with Bwin on his top. So when marketing restrictions were relaxed, we put in a new management team and they've done a fabulous job in Spain. We call it reawakening the Bwin brand.
It is unlikely to grow around the 30% mark every year but we do see outsized growth for the foreseeable future. Twelve months from now, I can very much see Spain becoming even more important for us.
It can be difficult to gauge ROI on marketing campaigns and sponsorships but, from your answer there, is it fair to say marketing and advertising is still as a powerful tool as ever for gambling?
In Spain, we had a 36% increase in first-time depositors during our Bwin brand campaign, which is a good indication of the ROI on marketing. Today, you can measure the return on TV campaigns and sponsorships far more accurately than you used to.
But, with paid media, which is all digital (where social media is a good example) you know exactly where your customer has come from and the cost to acquire them. In our organisation, we can value that player based on their activity in the first 24 hours, seven days, 28 days... we know it in almost real time. So we know where to deploy paid media, thanks to the digitalisation of marketing.
Entain CEO Stella David recently wrote to Premier League CEO Richard Masters about a 'black market' derby
