Light & Wonder, Inc. (LNW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Light & Wonder Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Rohan Gallagher, EVP of Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone, to our second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Matt Wilson, our President and CEO; and Oliver Chow, our CFO. During today's call, we will discuss our second quarter results and operating performance, where we will refer to our earnings presentation. This will be then followed by a question-and-answer session. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our future operations, strategy and financial results. These statements may involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed during the call. For information regarding these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our earnings materials relating to this call posted in the Investors section of our website and our filings with the SEC and lodgments with the ASX. We will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Further information regarding these non-GAAP measures, including a description of each non-GAAP measure and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and earnings presentation located in the Investors section of our website. Now with that, I will now turn the call over to Matt to discuss the second quarter results and operational highlights. Thank you, Matt.

Thanks, Rohan. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The story of the second quarter is one we've told consistently over the past several quarters. We have a diversified high-margin portfolio supported by evergreen franchises that continue to perform. Land-based demand remains resilient and game performance stayed strong across the portfolio. Let's turn to our key highlights on Slide 3. The results reflect our continued focus on recurring revenue, the enhanced profitability we've driven across the business and the strength of our cash flow generation. We delivered another quarter of strong financial performance. Consolidated AEBITDA came in at $383 million, up 9% year-over-year. Adjusted NPATA grew even faster, up 16% to $156 million. On the bottom line, EPSa was $1.99, a 26% increase year-over-year, outpacing both revenue and consolidated AEBITDA growth. I'll also note that our adjusted free cash flow conversion of 41% was up 1,100 basis points from a year ago. That's a meaningful improvement and speaks to the underlying cash-generative nature of our business. Importantly, we're focused on reducing our net debt leverage ratio to below 3x during the first half of 2027 with the intention of moving towards an investment-grade leverage profile, underpinned by our attractive high cash flow business and focus on debt paydown. Moving on to Slide 4. We continue to grow our recurring revenue, which increased 6% year-over-year to $580 million and now represents around 70% of quarterly consolidated revenue. Recurring revenues provide stability and predictability around the quality of our earnings. This was reinforced by growth in gaming operations, where we added over 900 units to our total North American installed base sequentially and double-digit growth from our iGaming segment. Our focus on high-quality earnings naturally enhances profitability, demonstrated by meaningful double-digit growth in net income, adjusted NPATA and amplified by our buyback program, further boosting related per share metrics. Consolidated AEBITDA grew with margin expansion across all business segments. Given our visibility to year-end, I have a high degree of confidence in achieving our targeted mid- to high single-digit consolidated EBITDA growth outlook for 2026. Our cash-generative business model, combined with our ongoing cash enhancement initiatives delivered meaningful cash flow growth in the quarter with adjusted free cash flow up 50% over the prior year period. Oliver will provide more color on this performance later on the call. During the quarter, we returned $134 million of capital to shareholders through share buybacks. Despite this level of buyback activity, we remain within our targeted leverage range. Our focus is now to rapidly delever our balance sheet through the remainder of this year with the intention to move towards an investment-grade level leverage profile, as I mentioned at the opening. Our progression on recurring revenue is by design, as you see here on Slide 5. Consolidated revenue has grown from $2.9 billion in 2022 to $3.3 billion in 2025. What I want to highlight is the mix shift within that growth as recurring revenue becoming a larger piece of the pie from 63% of total revenue in 2022 to 67% in 2025. Looking at the first half of this year specifically, it represented 71% of the total revenue or approximately $1.2 billion. Our continued focus on building recurring revenue streams is aimed at improving the quality of our overall revenue base, expanding margins and increasing the predictability of our earnings, all of which further strengthens our free cash flow profile going forward. Now let's turn to our consolidated and segment results on Slide 6. Consolidated revenue for the second quarter was $828 million, up 2% year-over-year, driven by growth in gaming and iGaming, which more than offset softness in SciPlay. Consolidated AEBITDA grew with consolidated AEBITDA margin expanding 200 basis points to 46%. This growth was broad-based across the organization, reflecting favorable product mix and importantly, disciplined cost management within the business segments. For the first half of the year, consolidated revenue was over $1.6 billion, up 2% and consolidated AEBITDA grew 7% to $710 million, with consolidated AEBITDA margin expansion of 200 basis points to 44%. As previously mentioned, we expect the shape of earnings for the rest of 2026 to trend in line with prior years, weighted towards the second half with each quarter stepping up sequentially from the last, which is typical for a scaling recurring revenue business. Our disciplined focus on profitability is underpinned by a streamlined and complementary business, enabling efficiency across the organization. This enables us to self-fund growth, scale the business, optimize cost structures and therefore, enhance returns. Importantly, we've optimized our operational foundation, setting us up nicely for growth in the second half of the year with a solidified product road map. Moving on to gaming on Slide 8, where we continue to grow the recurring revenue base. These results again reflect the quality and diversity of our portfolio, fueling another quarter of growth with revenue up 5% to $554 million and EBITDA growing 10% to $307 million. Our EBITDA margin increased 200 basis points year-over-year to 55% on recurring revenue expansion and favorable product mix. Gaming operations grew 18% year-over-year, up to $247 million, driven by continued expansion of our North American premium installed base, increased average daily revenue per unit as well as contributions from Grover. I'd like to provide a bit more color behind some of the sale numbers in gaming this quarter. As we know, operator CapEx timing, product launch timelines and seasonality can impact quarterly numbers from time to time. The 4% decline in gaming machine sales is largely on timing of sales, which is expected to be deferred into the second half of the year weighted towards the fourth quarter. We expect this will be further supported with the introduction of new games and cabinets at upcoming trade shows to extend the global game sales momentum we've built over the years. On the same note regarding timing of sales, gaming systems were down 16% year-over-year, driven by elevated hardware sales to international customers in the prior year. Table products increased 13% on strong utility sales in North America, and our progressive tables operations grew year-over-year in the quarter. It's worth noting that our underlying gaming business remains fundamentally strong with year-over-year increases across the recurring revenue lines of gaming operations, systems and tables. Together, the collection of these businesses makes us unique, driving commercial advantages as the sole one-stop shop provider of gaming solutions. Shifting to our gaming KPIs on Slide 9. Our North American installed base of 48,639 units grew 5% year-over-year, inclusive of 12,550 Grover units. Notably, our premium gaming operations segment delivered a 24th consecutive quarter of installed base growth, adding over 650 units sequentially and 2,500 year-over-year. Excluding Grover, Premium now represents 58% of our total North American installed base. Including Grover, average daily revenue per unit grew 6% over the prior year, approaching $49 across the portfolio, reflective of strong player engagement and game performance across North America. As we continue to integrate R&D across the portfolio past the 1-year anniversary of the Grover acquisition, our internal evaluation on game performance and revenue economics will be focused on the entire fleet regardless of the vertical. For the remainder of 2026, we expect daily average revenue per unit in North America to grow year-over-year, tracking in line with CPI to reflect the broader economic environment. We will continue to build on our proprietary and licensed games to bring to the market with Ultimate Fire Link, Rampage, Monsters, Dancing Drums and Huff N' Puff franchises all performing above expectations and focus on longevity of these games providing further revenue upside. Game sales remained solid with approximately 8,800 new units shipped globally this quarter. As previously mentioned, the timing of request for proposal or RFP-based adjacencies, new and expansion units, cadence of product launch and operator CapEx can significantly impact sales each quarter. In contrast, Australian share rebounded back to above 20% in the quarter off the back of the COSMIC DUAL cabinet launch late in the quarter. The average selling price of our global units continues to validate the strong pricing power and new cabinets command, reaching nearly $19,000 per unit in the quarter. Looking ahead, we expect game sales to accelerate into the second half of the year, weighted towards the fourth quarter, with third quarter game sales to trend between 8,500 and 9,000 units globally, driven by our COSMIC DUAL screen and lightweight solar cabinet launches, underpinned by new games such as Fiesta Caliente and core franchises such as BIG HOT FLAMING POTS, Lion Link and Piggy Bankin Break In that are consistently featured on the Eilers chart. Moving on to Grover, where our business is extending our recurring revenue model into an adjacent underpenetrated and well-structured market. You can see on Slide 10 that Grover continues to scale on product launch, new market entry and integration initiatives. Revenue was $45 million in the quarter. We now have more than 12,550 units installed, up 14% year-over-year with 277 units added in the second quarter and over 1,500 units added since we closed the deal. Our existing markets have expanded at the same consistent rates since we've owned the business. Most importantly, we continue to focus on winning game performance, service and improving unit economics in our newest market, Indiana, so we can build the business sustainably the same way we do in our other markets. Our content thesis is starting to prove out. Tank Blast featuring Light & Wonder Game Math launched in Indiana and is our highest first 14-day performer in the state. Eureka Treasure Train has continued its strong early performance as we plan for this game to ramp across two more states. We have an accelerating cadence of Light & Wonder hardware and content in the second half, planning for at least 30 current game titles to be launched across the six jurisdictions we are live in. Additionally, we are looking to debut our Kascada K43 cabinets in Kentucky and Ohio towards the end of the year. Integration remains on track and highly synergistic with Maryland and Minnesota as active priorities and additional markets under assessment. The growth runway here is long. We will continue to invest in a disciplined manner to expand the business and drive ongoing success. We are delivering on our strategy to scale high-quality recurring revenue and provided a chart here on Slide 11 to give you a visual on how the North American installed base has trended over the years. So far in 2026, we continue to see solid progress outside of the regulatory conversion impacting the non-premium units of our fleet at Resorts World in New York. Our premium installed base is growing at the fastest in comparison to the other segments of the fleet and has enabled us to sustainably scale our revenue per day. We are making strategic and deliberate investments targeting continued growth in our North American premium and Grover installed base, maximizing economics and greenfield opportunities. We expect overall momentum to continue, underpinned by our high-performing cabinets and franchises. Turning to SciPlay on Slide 12. Broader industry softness impacted social casino operators' performance across the board. Revenue and user metrics were negatively impacted with revenue coming in at $182 million this quarter, a 9% decline compared to the prior year. Our monetization strategy remains focused on prioritizing high-value players with average monthly revenue per paying user up 4% year-over-year, approaching $134. Importantly, direct-to-consumer or DTC revenue reached a record $53 million, up 51% year-over-year and now represents 29% of SciPlay's revenue, up from 18% a year ago. Every point of DTC mix is structurally accretive in margin, and there's still runway from here. Our EBITDA for the quarter was $72 million, down 3% on lower revenue flow-through, partially offset by continued margin enhancement initiatives. This includes scaling of DTC, cost base optimization and prudent user acquisition or UA spend as reflected in the 300 basis point EBITDA margin uplift year-over-year to a record 40%. We experienced an incredible period of growth in SciPlay from 2023 to early 2025, following the divestiture of our lottery and sports betting businesses, as you can see here on Slide 13. During the same time frame, the rise of sweepstakes prompted a change in our game economy and UA strategy to invest and monetize as cost per installs increased. This pivot led to an unintentional shift in performance to which we've implemented a multistep process to get back on track. We are encouraged that player acquisition, engagement and monetization are all slowly moving back into balance as game economy continues to improve. It's worth noting that the irrational marketing spend from competitors we are seeing outside of the social casino industry has disconnected cost per install from return, making UA investment less attractive, which we constantly weigh against competing growth priorities. Encouragingly, the legal actions against sweep stake operators across a handful of states gives us comfort that there will be opportunities to increase UA spend. Monetization is a gradual process and takes longer than expected. While the game economy is being optimized for sustainable growth, we are prudent in ensuring our flywheel is being carefully considered as acquisition, engagement, retention and monetization reaches an equilibrium. We are confident in our portfolio with strong affinity tied to our land-based game franchises, reflected in gameplay. SciPlay continues to be an integral part of the business as a complementary channel, not only for AB testing, but also for franchise exposure to a broader audience. Moving to iGaming on Slide 14. We achieved another quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth in both revenue and EBITDA, driven by continued momentum in North America. This is underpinned by our first-party content proliferation and the expansion of our partner network. Revenue grew 14% year-over-year to $92 million, and our EBITDA grew 18% year-over-year to $33 million, with margin expansion of around 100 basis points to 36% on strong flow-through of first-party content performance and operational efficiencies. The scale of our network and content offering continues to provide first-party and third-party growth. In fact, we saw the sixth and 15th consecutive quarter of 1PP and 3PP GGR growth across our OGS content aggregation network, respectively. Our 1PP content was particularly strong, taking 8 of the top 10 games with the Huff N' Puff and Pirots franchises as key standouts. In fact, Eilers new U.S. online game ranking has two Huff N' Puff franchise games in the top 5 with Huff N' Even More Puff Grand taking the top spot on the chart. Looking ahead, we anticipate year-over-year growth rates to moderate in the second half of the year due to the previously mentioned U.K. tax increases, which took effect during the quarter and stronger comparables in the prior year. We expect this to be partially offset by the continued performance and launch of our 1PP proprietary games. This next page on Slide 15 highlights our global presence and our deep content library, which serves these markets. Across the Americas, the Huff N' Puff family continues to drive market share gains in the U.S. and Canada, and we expect the same from our Ultimate Fire Link franchise. We also went live in Alberta on July 1, where we believe our content should resonate with players as it does in Ontario. In the U.K., Rainbow Riches and Huff N' Puff are leading the pack. Additionally, ELK's Pirots franchise continues to build with Pirots 5 launched across the network in July. We're also ramping in newer markets with South Africa growing off the back of our ELK Games being launched this last quarter. Newer markets such as Brazil and the Philippines remain early stage where we continue to assess and deploy the right content in what are highly competitive markets. Importantly, we are committed to investing in the content engine with Galeforce, our new first-party studio in Bulgaria. We've also bolstered our studio capabilities by expanding Kimura, which spans Montreal and Bangalore. iGaming is executing well with proprietary content that is deployed globally and compounds across an expanding footprint. We remain confident in our iGaming road map and growth trajectory, supported by our decades of experience and mature platform. With that, I'll turn it over to Oliver to go through the financial highlights for the quarter. Oliver.

Thanks, Matt. This quarter reflects the team's commitment to enhancing profitability and cash flow through the quality of our earnings. As you can see on Slide 17, consolidated revenue grew 2% year-over-year to $828 million, driven by double-digit year-over-year revenue growth across gaming operations and iGaming, both highly cash-generative recurring revenue streams. Net income for the quarter was $120 million, a 26% increase from the prior year period, driven by margin expansion across all three business segments on strong operational performance and ongoing efficiencies. Net income per share rose 38% to $1.53 compared to $1.11 in the prior year. This reflects the 26% net income growth and buyback benefits. Consolidated AEBITDA for the quarter was $383 million compared to $352 million in the prior year period. This 9% increase was driven by modest revenue growth, favorable product mix shifts and ongoing operational efficiencies that led to consolidated AEBITDA margin expansion of 200 basis points year-over-year to 46%. Our adjusted NPATA for the quarter grew 16% year-over-year, up to $156 million, benefiting from modest revenue growth and expanded segment AEBITDA margins across all businesses, partially offset by higher interest expense related to Grover and buybacks as well as depreciation and amortization expense. Adjusted NPATA per share grew 26% to $1.99, reflective of strong underlying earnings growth and our share repurchases in the quarter. On Slide 18, we've provided a couple of bridges to show you how profitability trended year-over-year. The $31 million consolidated AEBITDA increase was led by gaming, delivering a $27 million year-over-year increase driven by revenue growth and favorable product mix, supported by operational efficiencies and Grover's contribution. SciPlay EBITDA was a $2 million year-over-year decrease, primarily reflective of industry softness and a lower player base. This was partially offset by continued margin expansion initiatives such as DTC expansion as we look to optimize our cost structure, seeking a long-term sustainable turnaround. iGaming delivered a $5 million year-over-year increase on continued momentum in North America, underpinned by first-party content proliferation and the expansion of our partner network, offsetting the U.K. tax impact. Corporate costs decreased modestly, reflective of continued margin enhancement initiatives, partially offset by investments in AI as we continue to build tools and technology for our team. As we look into the second half, we will be opportunistic with investments back into the business. We expect corporate costs to trend in line with our historic range of mid- to high $30 million range per quarter for the remainder of the year. Moving on to adjusted NPATA. Consolidated EBITDA was the primary driver in delivering $21 million of adjusted NPATA growth, up to $156 million in the quarter. Partially offsetting our consolidated AEBITDA growth was a depreciation and amortization increase of $6 million and an interest expense increase of $4 million compared to prior year. These expense increases are reflective of continued gaming operations installed base growth and the accretive Grover acquisition. Lastly, income tax was a $2 million tailwind in the quarter, benefiting from favorable international tax rates in certain operating jurisdictions. For the first half comparisons, I will refer you to Slide 19 for more information with commentary on the performance drivers. Now let's turn to Slide 20, where we continue to focus on building a highly cash-generative financial profile. In Q2, we delivered another solid quarter of free cash flow, reflecting the cash enhancement initiatives discussed during our 2025 Investor Day. Net cash provided by operating activities was $241 million, a meaningful increase from $106 million in the prior year period. This increase was largely driven by strong earnings generation, lower cash taxes, expansion of recurring revenue and the prior year period adversely impacted by $73 million in legal settlement payments. Adjusted free cash flow for the quarter came at $156 million, a 50% increase from the prior year period. This reflects ongoing expansion of our recurring revenue streams as well as favorable receivable collections, lower tax payments and a full quarter of Grover cash earnings. Capital expenditure for the quarter was $83 million compared to $78 million in the prior year and represents roughly 10% of consolidated revenue. The increase is largely driven by investments in our North American and charitable gaming operations fleets. We remain committed to expanding our highly cash-generative business model. This increases our financial flexibility to support capital allocation priorities, including the ability to self-fund our future growth, retire debt and/or repurchase shares. Our adjusted free cash flow conversion has steadily improved over the years. Adjusted free cash flow conversion rates versus consolidated AEBITDA and adjusted NPATA were 41% and 100%, respectively, meaningful increases from 30% and 77% in the prior year period. These improvements were driven by strong earnings growth and continued focus on cash enhancements across the organization. As a reminder, our free cash flow will fluctuate quarter-to-quarter and timing of tax, interest payments and working capital. Our cash enhancement initiatives are in place for us to regularly assess our progress and position on an annual trailing 12-month basis. That said, this quarter validates our strategy to improve our cash conversion through highly profitable recurring revenue growth. On to our capital structure on Slide 21. Our net debt leverage ratio at the end of June remained at 3.4x within our targeted range. Turning to our debt profile. The principal face value of our debt at period end was $5.2 billion. As previously referenced, we successfully repriced our $2.1 billion term loan in January, reducing the margin by 25 basis points to 2% above SOFR and generating approximately $5 million in annual interest savings. The maturity profile of our debt remains long dated, averaging around 3.9 years with no maturities until 2028. The effective interest cost on our debt for the quarter was a competitive 6.30% with a relatively balanced 53% fixed to 47% floating debt mix. We continue to preserve significant balance sheet flexibility with $928 million of available liquidity maintained to support our various growth initiatives and navigate any macro uncertainties that may arise. Our team regularly evaluates further opportunities to optimize our capital structure should favorable market conditions arise. We boast an attractive business profile, which enables us to delever organically. This is best illustrated on Slide 22, reflecting leverage reduction over the years. The company is highly cash generative, delivering adjusted free cash flow of $692 million over the last 12 months. We've applied a disciplined approach to capital management. Since 2022, we allocated circa $2.1 billion of capital to our share buyback program. These decisions reflect our commitment to long-term value creation for the company and its shareholders. This represents roughly 1.4 turns of net debt leverage driven by capital returns relative to our current net debt leverage ratio of 3.4 turns, translating to approximately 2x leverage under a different capital allocation scenario, underscoring the cash flow generation that continues to fund our capital allocation priorities. What we've proven over the last five years is that we constantly evaluate our capital allocation strategy and remain nimble to drive sustainable long-term shareholder value. Given broader market dynamics, the company is committed to deleveraging our balance sheet towards the midpoint of our targeted net debt leverage ratio range over the course of 2026 and below 3x during the first half of 2027. With the intention to move toward an investment-grade level leverage profile while preserving optimal flexibility to fuel sustainable growth. As we prioritize debt paydown, you can see that our capital allocation pillars remain intact on Slide 23. With technology and content as important as ever, we invest deliberately, sizing up the potential return to ensure we maximize the value of every dollar. While AI will increase R&D efficiencies over time, we continue to target an annual R&D and CapEx spend of roughly 17%, which can range between 15% and 20% in any given quarter depending on timing. As previously flagged, Q2 featured an accelerated period of buyback activity with $134 million or 1.6 million CDIs repurchased. This leaves $180 million of our approved buyback program available. Buybacks remain a permanent feature of how we effectively return capital to shareholders. Since the inception of our first ever share repurchase program back in 2022, we have returned $2.1 billion to shareholders. This represents roughly 27% of total outstanding shares prior to the commencement of the program. Going forward, we will continue to monitor the market for opportunities. But as previously mentioned, the focus will be to rapidly delever our balance sheet through the remainder of the year and into the first half of 2027. Before we take questions from the call, let's move to our outlook on Slide 25. We reaffirm our outlook of mid- to high single-digit consolidated AEBITDA growth in full year 2026. This takes into consideration external factors beyond our control, including U.S. tariffs and changes in U.K. iGaming taxes. In addition, we expect to deploy discipline and strategic investments, providing the necessary infrastructure and foundation for sustained growth in Grover as well as ongoing AI initiatives and costs related to legal matters. We continue to anticipate the shape of earnings for 2026 to be broadly in line with 2025. This reflects industry cyclicality and our customer CapEx intentions, our growing recurring revenue base and investments that were predominantly weighted towards the first half of the year. From a capital management perspective, we remain committed to rapidly delever the balance sheet. As we mentioned a few times on this call, we anticipate being towards the midpoint by year-end and go below 3x leverage during the first half of 2027 with the intention to move toward an investment-grade level profile. Consequently, while we continue to monitor the market for buyback opportunities, we expect the level of buyback activity should be well below the first half level of circa $150 million as we've accelerated our full year buyback allotment in this quarter. On Slide 26, you will see several operational and financial assumptions to assist for modeling purposes. Most importantly, Light & Wonder remains focused on our full year 2028 financial targets. This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the session for Q&A. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Andre Fromyhr of UBS.

I just want to ask about the guidance commentary around the ops revenue per day indicating at sort of in line with CPI for the year. Just curious if you could talk through some of the drivers sitting behind that because if you take out the Grover mix that's showing up year-to-date, the otherwise underlying revenue per day has been much stronger than that rate. But of course, you're also getting some mix towards premium as you remove the non-premiums that we've seen year-to-date. So yes, just curious to understand whether there are commercial things behind that or if it's just mix that's going on?

Yes. I mean the Huff N' Puff business continues to perform very well, scaling our installed base nicely, again, beat that guide we gave to you of 500 units. So very happy with the team's performance there. We've had industry-leading yield expansion. Our competitors just are seeing what we're seeing from an increase in RPDs year-on-year. It's been very solid for us the last few quarters. It was 7% again this quarter, which I think is an exceptional combination of scaling installed base and scaling RPDs. That really points back to the predictability, stability in our earnings. I thought that point in the presentation about 71% of our revenues are now recurring is -- should be well understood by investors. This is a very predictable set of earnings. We've suggested a moderation in terms of the yield increase. Again, we want to set expectations appropriately here. We still have ambitions to drive that line item in the P&L very aggressively through new content, new commercial models. So not signaling anything significant in the way we approach the market, just moderating expectations at 7%. I think it was 8% in the prior period. That's exceptional industry-leading yield expansion. So just trying to moderate expectations a little bit on that line as we continue to scale the installed base. So very impressed and satisfied with the team's performance when it comes to gaming operations.

And our next question comes from the line of Barry Jonas of Truist.

There's been a lot of M&A activity or there is a lot of M&A activity going on in the U.S. there for gaming operators. How should we think about the potential ramifications, if any, for Light & Wonder and I guess, the gaming tech sector in general?

Yes, it's a great question, a great observation. There's been a lot of kind of take private activity in the market, both on the supply side in the last year with IGT and Everi and AGS, among others. And then that's kind of spilled over now into the operator landscape with interesting deals, proposed deals with Caesars and MGM. I don't -- as I think through that, I don't think it has any major implications for the supply side of the industry. The management teams in those two deals sound like they'll stay intact, and they have an ideology or philosophy around the amount of investment they put into the slot CapEx -- into OpEx as it relates to gaming operations product. T he market has never been more competitive when it comes to the operator landscape. Just think about Las Vegas and the dynamic playing out here. You've got Wynn, which has one of the freshest floors, I'd say, on the planet in terms of their reinvestment rates. You've got the Seminole's about to open Hard Rock who are a prolific spender when it comes to CapEx and OpEx as it relates to slot product. You've got Apollo with the Venetian property spending a good amount of money refreshing their floor. You've got Yaamava, who they have some of the freshest floors on the planet as well when it relates to their California property, but then also owning the palms here. And then you've got MGM and Caesars who have been long-standing great customers of ours. And I think if you look at the forward predictions in the Eilers survey, they're still very healthy from a CapEx investment from a percentage of the floor that's premium leased. And I think this just points to players demand the best and freshest product, and that's what drives the investment rates from these operators. So it's an interesting thing to see play out in the operator space. We watch it closely. But kind of as I zoom in on it, I don't really think it has any material implications for the supplier space, but we'll watch it closely. And we continue to invest heavily both on the R&D line and the CapEx line to build the world's best games, and that's really just following what these operators need to be successful, which is the most engaging and entertaining slot games on the floor.

And the next question comes from the line of Matt Ryan of Barrenjoey.

I had a question on the full year EBITDA guidance. And I'm interested in whether anything has changed since the start of the year in regard to how much that second half EBITDA skew is going to be driven by revenue versus costs?

Yes. So I mean, we've reaffirmed that guidance today. We feel very comfortable in that range of mid- to high single-digit EBITDA growth. The natural shape of our business has always been heavily skewed towards the second half. There's a few things that play into that. There's seasonality around the holiday periods. There's kind of the underlying investments we're making into the recurring revenue profile. So when you think about gaining of scaling the installed base, scaling the RPDs, that just naturally has this kind of compounding effect throughout the year. The same is true for Grover. So there's those two dimensions. I wouldn't suggest there's any major changes to the top and bottom line. Obviously, we didn't guide to the revenue line. We guided to the EBITDA line, but no significant changes. I thought the mix -- sorry, the margin uplift was a key feature of this result. That was less about cost out and more about an intentional mix shift towards recurring revenue, adding Grover, which is a high-margin business, scaling Huff N' Puff, which is a high-margin business, scaling 1PP content and iGaming, high-margin business. So it's as much about a natural mix effect on that margin line as it is about cost containment, although we are very deliberate about the way we manage costs in this business and any owners on the line should wish that we were. That's the way to operate a business effectively spend, money invest dollars in the areas that can propel us forward and minimize costs in areas that don't drive our growth, and that's what we'll continue to do.

Yes. And maybe just want to add to that. We're really excited about our portfolio here in the second half. We have AGE coming up next week. We have G2E coming up, obviously, in late September. So as we start to show some of the new games and content hardware across the portfolio, that's going to support kind of the growing aspects of our business here as we head into fourth quarter, but also into the first part of next year.

And our next question comes from the line of Rohan Sundram of MST Financial.

Just one for me. Around the Huff N' Puff net installs performance, I appreciate the strong growth in premium units. But can you just clarify where you saw the churn that quarter? And was there any residual impact from the Resorts World conversion?

Yes. I mean we were very deliberate about informing the market last quarter about that Resorts World shift. It's something that's been out in the industry. It's the worst kept secret across both the sell side and all industry permits far and wide. So there shouldn't have been any shock that, that continued into the second quarter. It's done now. So there's no further removals from that VLT market. In fact, you may see some incremental as in the New York VLT market down the line as we see some new properties coming online. So there could be a net tailwind there. But that's really there's nothing more to see there in terms of resort, that's all played out. And we've had some great commercial opportunities off the back of that. We've added a premium Huff N' Puff sold product in there. We have big tables lease business. So it's been a commercial success for us, that shift. It's something we've known about for five years since I joined the company that this was happening. The regulator out there awarded the license. And so it was always going to happen. It just happened in these first two quarters. So it shouldn't be a shock to the market that, that was kind of well foreshadowed.

Yes. And I'll just add to that is if you kind of remove the kind of public KPI impact, we will be over 1,000 units net adds for the quarter. Our premium installed base plus 652, that's the main focus for us as we drive better content across the portfolio that drives the RPD that Matt mentioned earlier. So we feel really good about our position. And then the last point I'd make is -- if you think about the total addressable revenue in that space, we're actually going to be benefiting from that in 2026 just based on the net adds that we're going to have on the premium side as well as the game sales and ETG side.

That's very clear. So just to confirm, were any outright shipments booked in Q2 related to that? Or is that to come through?

Yes. That's partial and then that will ship throughout the rest of this year.

And our next question comes from the line of Justin Barratt of CLSA.

I guess I had just a bit more of an encompassing question on SciPlay. Obviously, margin performance there really, really strong and supported by your DTC penetration. And I appreciate your commentary around sweep stakes and potential regulation. But just thinking about, I guess, the timing of expected UA spend as you look to, I guess, really reengage that customer base and drive sort of revenue growth again. How should we sort of think about that timing of UA spend uplift? And I guess, more importantly, how we should think about margins for that business going forward over the remainder of this year and potentially into next?

Yes, I'll give some broad commentary, and I'll let you kind of pick up on UA and margins. There's no hiding from the fact that this part of the portfolio and this part of the industry is under pressure. If you look at the Eilers numbers, it was down as a sector, 6% year-over-year. I guess one glimmer of hope for us is we held share sequentially in what was a tough market quarter-on-quarter, but we're not happy with the results of SciPlay and where we're at, and we take accountability for that. And we've got some very specific things that we're working on to stabilize and return that part of the business to growth. We talk a lot about controlling the controllables, and that really comes back to a focus on engagement, making sure these games are fun and we get great rewarding experiences for the players that are part of our ecosystem and then appropriately monetizing those players over time. That's the recipe for long-term success. We are benefiting from that DTC mix shift. I think it's up from 18% to 29%. So really good execution on the DTC side that helps at the margin line. But really, there's two drivers on the margin side of the equation. It's really that DTC mix and also UA. One of the unfortunate implications for this category with the rise of illegal sweepstakes offerings is an inflection higher on CPIs. They've been spending a lot of marketing dollars, which pushes CPIs higher. So it makes ROIs a little tougher on the social casino side. So we've always been good about being prudent as it relates to the UA spend. We only spend when we see the returns. We're not chasing rainbows as it relates to LTV curve. So we're going to be prudent. That was part of the margin result here. But we are starting to see opportunities to push more UA into these games. But Oliver, maybe you want to kind of build on that.

Yes. No, that's exactly the long-term strategy for us as we kind of look at this from a capital allocation perspective is how do we drive every dollar of investment to the highest ROI return. That wasn't the case last year as we saw some of the challenges that we had in Jackpot Party as an example. We're clearly not going to declare victory here, but we're starting to see green shoots here. To Matt's point, we are seeing those ROI calculations start to turn positive. And now it's starting to become a place that we can invest back into to really bring players back into the top of the funnel. That's going to be important for us over the next several years to rebuild the DAU and then ultimately, as Matt mentioned, continue to kind of monetize that off of that base. So right now, I think we see the green shoots. We are going to start to look at these investment opportunities here in the second half, and we'll continue to kind of monitor that on a weekly basis.

And our next question comes from the line of Jeff Stantial from Stifel.

Can you just share some of the feedback that you've been getting on the COSMIC DUAL Cabinet since you launched in Australia? And to that end, what's your latest expectation for shift share recovery in the market in the back half of the year?

Yes, we launched that cabinet midway through the reporting period. So we saw the share tick up. We were kind of sub-10% in Q1, which again, we weren't comfortable with that. Not our ambient share level in the Australian market. We aspire to something much higher than that. We're in the 20s now. So we didn't get a full quarter reporting period for the COSMIC DUAL screen. So we ticked up nicely. That's off the introduction of a new piece of hardware that always drives buyer activity. What we said at the last call was that will give us the impetus to take share higher, but to really get it higher sustainably, we need a portfolio of games coming through to drive that share number. Excited to say we've got a Hus&puff game launching in the Australian market, which is very highly anticipated. We've got a product called BIG STEAM, which we on the debut at the AGE show next week. I'm on a plane with Oliver on Thursday night to go down there and see customers and investors. Behind that, we've got a new game out of the Element Studio, Drums Link, which is exciting. And then we've got Nate MacGregor's first game. As you know, Nate McGregor is a new game design with us that we invested in down there called GRAND LEGION, which we're very excited about. So the second half is very stacked from a content perspective. The hardware is doing its job. It's high quality. That cabinet has done very well for us globally. So it will be about that combination of exciting new hardware and this content lineup that we have laid out for the back half of the year. So we feel like we can keep the share moving in the right direction in the Australian market. And then also importantly, you didn't ask, but I'll tell you, is we're launching that same cabinet in Asia this quarter. So we're excited about the opportunity for COSMIC DUAL Screen up there up there, too.