Caesars Entertainment reaffirmed its optimism in achieving $500m EBITDA digital goals within the next 12-24 months. A series of product enhancements will be launched by the operator.
In a Q1 earnings conference call, Eric Hession detailed the plans of Caesars Sports & Online Gaming to implement “three significant technology enhancements” on its platform over the rest of the year.
First, a standalone app for online casinos will be launched in the third quarter. This will aim to improve customer engagement by focusing on more game content. It will also include improved marketing capabilities and new proprietary games.
Caesars will also begin testing an in-house system for player account management, which will eventually lead to the shared wallet, which it expects to roll out in 2024. The group will also move all its Nevada operations to the Liberty tech stack in advance of 2023 NFL season.
Tom Reeg commented on the excitement of Caesars employees at the launch of a standalone app for igaming. “We are particularly excited about it, as that will improve our slot business, since our current portal is via a sports betting application. Our existing icasino is more oriented towards tables than our competitors, and igaming Forward app will change that.
If we can get our igaming to equal our sports betting share, that will be the third boost to EBITDA. We’ve also talked about this before, but we have partnership and talent deals that will come up within the next 12 to 24 months. This is the third leg that will get us to $500m.
Every time I talk to you, my confidence in these numbers grows. Every time I talk to you, I’m more confident in those numbers.
Caesars first quarter revenue was $2.83bn – up 23.7% year-on-year, from $2.29bn – driven by increases across all segments.
Digital went from a loss to a gain of $238m. Las Vegas, the regional division of the company and its revenue increased by 23.7 and 2.2% to $1.13bn (in 2022: $914m).
The company’s managed, branded, corporate and other reporting component saw fractional increases to $69m (2022, $66m) as well as PS3m (2022, PS2m).
The net loss has improved from $680m in the previous year to $136m at the end of the time period. Losses were felt by digital ($32m against 2022’s 576m), corporate and other (491m versus $185m in 2022).
Venues in Las Vegas increased by 74.4% to $293m (2022 : $168m), while the regional division fell 39.5% to $75m (2022) : $124m. Managed and Branded also saw a rise to $19m from a loss $211m year-on-year.
The adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $958m (in 2022, $296m), and there were again declines in regional, corporate and digital.
Reeg said, “We had another great quarter highlighted by the new record for adjusted EBITDA in Q1 Las Vegas.”
The results in our regional segment were consistent with previous quarters, especially after excluding the negative impact of the bad weather that occurred in northern Nevada in the third quarter.
“Our digital segment almost broke even during the quarter, despite opening operations in Ohio and Massachusetts.”
