Playtech H1 adjusted EBITDA up 77% as US revenue jumps 161%

The supplier is on track to beat €270m in full-year earnings, but has flagged a weaker second half as UK duty bites.

Playtech is now a pure B2B supplier, and its results lean heavily on a small number of large partnerships in the Americas. That concentration worked in its favour in the six months to 30 June 2026, when group adjusted EBITDA rose 77% to €162.5 million.

Playtech key financial highlights

Where the growth came from

Group revenue rose 10% to €425.1 million. Nearly all the profit growth came from B2B, where revenue increased 14% to €394.8 million and divisional adjusted EBITDA rose 75% to €128.1 million. The B2B margin widened from 21.1% to 32.4%. Adding B2C, adjusted EBITDA from operations reached €128.3 million, up 79%. 

The biggest single driver was the US and Canada, where revenue rose 161% to €56.9 million from €21.8 million. Playtech attributed most of that to Games powered by Past Motor Racing, a product built for Hard Rock Bet in Florida that settles bets on outcomes from historical motor-racing events rather than a random number generator. 

The company also launched in Connecticut during the half, taking its regulated iGaming footprint to six US states, and went live with FanDuel in West Virginia, Bet365 in Michigan and Fanatics across several states.

Latin America brought in €99.9 million, up 14%. On an underlying basis, the rise was 29%. The gap is the revised Caliente Interactive deal, which inflated the 2025 comparative. Mexico and Colombia did the work.

Europe outside the UK was flatter, at €104.5 million, up 2%. Strip out a one-off hardware sale from last year and growth was 10%. Spain and Poland were the strongest markets.

Mor Weizer, Playtech CEO, said:

‘Playtech has delivered a first half significantly ahead of our expectations at the start of the year, demonstrating the strength of our technology, the quality of our customer partnerships and the disciplined execution of our strategy. We saw continued momentum in regulated markets, particularly in the Americas.’

UK revenue falls as duty bites

UK B2B revenue fell 8% to €59.0 million. Remote gaming duty rose from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026, squeezing the operators Playtech supplies, and only three months of it landed in the first half. 

The duty reaches Playtech indirectly, through the operators it supplies, and the company expects a full six months of that pressure in the second half. The same cost pressure has already prompted job cuts elsewhere in the UK market.

Cash, investments and buybacks

Free cash flow was €101.0 million, against €6.6 million a year earlier. Net cash stood at €39.2 million at 30 June, up from €28.5 million at the end of 2025 but down from €77.1 million a year earlier, when Playtech was still holding proceeds from the Snaitech sale.

Investment income contributed €34.2 million of adjusted EBITDA, up 73%, mostly through the 30.8% stake in Caliente Interactive. The holding in Hard Rock Digital was valued at €246.7 million at 30 June, against €178.8 million at the end of 2025 and an initial outlay of around €80 million in 2023.

Not everything went the right way. Playtech recognised a full €28.9 million provision against its guarantee on a loan to NorthStar, the Canadian operator, which became subject to a cease trade order from the Ontario Securities Commission during the period.

The company bought back about 1.8% of its share capital for €24.6 million (£21.3 million) in the half, and has repurchased 10% of issued share capital for around €100 million since September 2025. No interim dividend was declared.

PTEC shares up 46% this year

Playtech shares stood at 397.4p ahead of the London open on 10 September, up 45.8% since the start of 2026. The stock has traded between 210p and 446p over the past 52 weeks and peaked above 430p in April.

Significant gain arrived in a single session. The shares jumped 18% on 9 July, when a trading update told the market that first-half adjusted EBITDA would exceed €155 million and full-year earnings at least €270 million, well ahead of the consensus range Playtech cited at the time.

Investing.com data compiled on 10 September shows a Buy consensus, with nine ratings logged over the previous three months: six buy, two hold and one sell. The average 12-month price target across eight analysts is 478.84p, around 21% above the price shown, with a high of 689.92p and a low of 291.49p.

What happens in the second half

Playtech kept full-year guidance of more than €270 million in adjusted EBITDA, a figure that already sits inside the €250 million to €300 million medium-term range it set in early 2025. 

It now expects to reach the top of that range, and the €70 million to €100 million free cash flow target, far earlier than planned.

Second-half earnings will come in below the first half. Hard Rock Digital revenue is expected to settle at a more sustainable level after the Past Motor Racing surge. Playtech is also spending ahead of a Brazil partnership it expects to sign late in 2026. And the higher UK remote gaming duty will apply across a full six months for the first time.

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