Century Casinos Q4 2025 Earnings Call - Adjusted EBITDAR Up Despite Licensing and Sports Betting Headwinds, Powered by Missouri and Nugget Rebounds

Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Century Casinos Q4 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we’ll conduct a question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing star one on your phone. Please note this call is being recorded and I’ll be standing by should you need assistance. Now, I’ll turn the call over to your host, Peter Hoetzinger. Please go ahead, Peter.

Peter Hoetzinger, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. We’d like to remind everyone that we will be discussing forward-looking information under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Federal Securities laws. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ from those projected. Throughout our call, we refer to several non-GAAP financial measures, including but not limited to adjusted EBITDAR. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our news releases and SEC filings available in the investor section of our website at cnty.com. With me today are my Co-CEO, Erwin Haitzmann, and our Chief Financial Officer, Margaret Stapleton. After our prepared remarks, we’ll open the call for questions from analysts. Century Casinos delivered solid results in 2025, with full year adjusted EBITDAR increasing 3% year-over-year.

We achieved that growth despite the loss of sports betting income in Colorado and the significant licensing disruptions in Poland. Excluding the sports betting income in Colorado and the Poland impact, EBITDAR would have increased by 5%, driven by strong performances in Missouri and a nice rebound at Mountaineer in West Virginia. Turning to the fourth quarter, net operating revenue was flat, impacted by unusually poor winter weather in December, but adjusted EBITDAR was up 13%. We delivered double-digit EBITDAR growth at several of our casinos, including in Colorado, at Mountaineer in West Virginia, and in Caruthersville, Missouri. At the Nugget in Reno, EBITDAR was up 21%. Across the entire U.S. portfolio, the trend of strong play from our high-value and core customer segments continued, and we are also beginning to see improvements at the lower end of the database.

While total GGR declined a bit, this was offset by growth in the retail segment. I’ll turn it over to Erwin now for more color on our individual properties and markets.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025 beginning in Missouri. Our Century Casino & Hotel Caruthersville had a fantastic quarter and year. EBITDAR in Q4 increased from $4.9 million to $6.1 million. EBITDAR in 2025 grew from $19 million to $24.4 million, a $5.4 million or 28% increase. Rent due to VICI was $7.5 million in 2024 and $11.6 million in 2025, a $4.1 million increase. A quick recap. We acquired Century Casino & Hotel Caruthersville as a $12 million EBITDAR per year property in December 2019 when the casino was still on a riverboat.

With improvements to the gaming floor and the move to a temporary land-based facility, we grew the property to $19 million of EBITDAR by 2023. With the transition to the permanent casino and hotel building accomplished in November 2024, Caruthersville is now an almost $25 million EBITDAR property, effectively more than doubling EBITDAR within the last six years. The success of this property comes from its ability to attract more customers from every direction. We see increases across all age groups, value segments, and distances. The biggest gains are coming from high-value customers, that’s 400+ ADT, middle-aged customers aged between 40 and 59, and customers from more than 49 miles away. Building a right-sized, approachable, almost intimate casino paid off. Our investment in the property has been a success and sets us up for sustainable growth for the next several years.

Now to Century Casino & Hotel Cape Girardeau. Our property in Girardeau saw declines in both the quarter and the year. EBITDAR in Q4 decreased from $6.8 million to $5.9 million, and EBITDAR for all of 2025 decreased from $25.6 million to $24.7 million. In 2025, Century Casino Cape Girardeau lost some market share to our property in Caruthersville, which it gained in 2024 when Caruthersville was in a temporary facility with limited space and amenities. Both properties are only 85 miles apart. When we acquired Century Casino Cape Girardeau, also in December 2019, it was already a beautiful, financially successful property with a well-appointed gaming floor, restaurants, and a conference center. Annual EBITDAR at that time was $19 million. The only amenity the property lacked was a hotel. We built one.

We opened the 69-room The Riverview in April of 2024. Since then, we have also added a Starbucks cafe and a retail sports book. All these amenities complement Century Casino Cape Girardeau, which is without doubt one of the best small casino resorts in the United States. The 2025 EBITDA of $24.7 million was achieved despite a new competitor in one of Cape Girardeau’s feeder markets in Illinois, which opened in the summer of 2023. To sum it up, as we have already said on past earnings calls, we could not be happier with our Missouri properties, and we thank our Missouri leadership and their teams for their commitment, strong results, and loyalty. Now moving to Colorado. At Century Casino & Hotel Cripple Creek, EBITDA in Q4 increased from $1.1 million to $1.5 million.

EBITDA in all of 2025 decreased from $7.5 million to $6.3 million. The year-over-year EBITDA comparison, however, is skewed by a one-time termination payment of $1.1 million received from a sports betting provider in 2024. Therefore, without this, EBITDA at Cripple Creek would have been almost flat year over year. At Century Casino & Hotel Central City, EBITDA in Q4 increased from $0.5 million to $0.7 million. EBITDA in 2025 in total decreased from $4.9 million to $3 million. The year-over-year EBITDA comparison is also skewed by a one-time termination payment, in this case of $1.4 million received from a sports betting provider in 2024. At the start of 2025, we eliminated table games at Century Casino Cripple Creek and Central City. This turned out to be the right move.

At both properties, the loss of table games revenue was more than offset by payroll savings. Slot revenue did not suffer because of the removal of table games. Over the course of the year 2025, both properties gradually improved due to the efforts of our local management team and are off to a strong start to 2026. Now to the east, starting with Mountaineer in West Virginia. EBITDA in Q4 increased from $2.6 million to $3 million, and EBITDA in all of 2025 increased from $13.1 million to $14.1 million. Mountaineer’s full year 2025 performance may be summarized as follows. The first four months were challenging due to unusually severe weather conditions. That was followed by seven strong months, and the year ended with further weather-related challenges in December. The drivers of EBITDA increase were cost-saving initiatives.

Overall, revenues were slightly down, except for iGaming. Mountaineer, situated in the northern panhandle of West Virginia, is the third asset we acquired in December 2019. It is our largest property by gaming revenue. It faces stiff competition from casinos in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where more than 85% of Mountaineer’s customers come from. The margins at this property have always been low, between 13% and 14%. This is due to West Virginia’s gaming taxes exceeding 50% and the thoroughbred horse track. Recent trends have been very positive, and we continue to invest in the property and expect to be able to drive continued growth at Mountaineer. Now we move on in the east to Rocky Gap.

EBITDA at Rocky Gap in Q4 declined from $3.2 million to $2.9 million, and EBITDA in all of 2025 declined from $14 million to $13.2 million. Rocky Gap in Western Maryland joined our portfolio in July 2023. It is in the most beautiful setting, situated in a state park next to a lake and with a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus. Rocky Gap is also one of the properties where adverse weather conditions can have a substantial negative impact because it is not easily accessible to most of its customers under severe weather conditions. Unfortunately, in 2025, weather hit the property hard, with much of the bad weather occurring on weekends. On the other hand, the first 2 months of 2026 look very promising for Rocky Gap. We’re optimistic about Rocky Gap and hope for a great 2026.

Now to the west and the Nugget Casino Resort in Reno Sparks. EBITDA in Q4 increased from $1.1 million to $1.3 million, and EBITDA in all of 2025 declined from $9.7 million to $9.1 million. The Nugget joined our portfolio in April 2023. Since then, we have been focusing further developing the mid-value customer segment. Over the past almost three years, we have significantly improved the amenities at the Nugget and continue to do so. We reduced operating expenses where possible and revamped the marketing programs. As for 2025, we hope this was the last transitional year. For 2026, we have an excellent lineup of concerts, including Brooks & Dunn, who are sold out already, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Shinedown, and Miranda Lambert. The changes to the loyalty program are showing improvements in customer return visits and group business is rebounding.

We also brought in a new GM with extensive experience, including in the Reno-Tahoe market. Now to Canada and Europe. Despite a slow start to the year due to extreme weather conditions, we saw solid performance at our Alberta operations in 2025. We recorded slightly higher results than the previous year, mainly driven by improved performance at our St. Albert property following the facade upgrade completed in the second quarter of the year and by disciplined cost management across all four sites. In 2025, the slot coin-in was up 4%, net operating revenue up 2% in local currency, and EBITDAR up 1% to $20.3 million. In Q4, the slot coin-in was up 4%, net operating revenue up 5%, and EBITDAR up 5% to $4.9 million.

In Poland, the challenging period marked by license delays and relocation has ended, and we can focus on improving overall results. Our second Wrocław location started operations in February 2026, further strengthening our position there. In the fourth quarter, net operating revenue is up 4% and EBITDAR is up 245% to $0.9 million. All current licenses are valid through at least 2028, and we expect stable operations going forward. With that, back to you, Peter.

Peter Hoetzinger, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thank you, I’ll now go over some balance sheet items and share our outlook for 2026 with you. Our cash and cash equivalents as of December 31 were $69 million. We spent approximately $4.5 million in capex in the quarter, mainly for the new retail sportsbook at Cape Girardeau in Missouri, for gaming equipment and exterior upgrades at Mountaineer and Rocky Gap, as well as for the new casino in Poland. Total debt outstanding was $338 million, resulting in net debt of $269 million. At the end of the quarter, our net debt to EBITDAR ratio remained unchanged at 6.9 times. On the lease adjusted basis, the ratio was 7.6 times, again, unchanged from the third quarter. Let me also note that we have no debt maturities for three years from now.

That is until Q2 of 2029. Looking ahead, we see a good path forward to higher EBITDAR and cash flow for 2026 and beyond. It’s all about harvesting what we have invested over the last couple of years. We expect to benefit from a strong improvement at the Nugget and the continued ramp of the new land-based facility in Caruthersville. Consumer benefits from tax cuts in Alberta should be additional catalysts in 2026 to drive growth throughout the rest of the year. We also expect our cash flow to benefit from decreasing capex. While we spent a total of $18 million of our cash in 2025, we expect that to come down to between $14 million and $15 million for this year.

We are just a couple of weeks away from the end of the first quarter, and we are really excited about our progress on all fronts. Net operating revenue and Adjusted EBITDAR are up significantly compared to last year. Every single property in the U.S. and Canada is showing double-digit EBITDAR growth, especially highlighting great performances at both Colorado casinos, the Nugget, as well as Rocky Gap in Canada. I’ll give a couple of examples. At Cape Girardeau in Missouri, net operating revenue in February was the highest total for any February in the property’s history. The hotel there achieved its highest monthly occupancy rate since opening. Our sports betting partnership with BetMGM also started out really well. Statewide reports show that the BetMGM sports book at Cape Girardeau was the retail book with the highest handle volume in the entire state for the month of January. In St.

Alberta, Canada, the coin-in and GGR were the highest total for any 20-day February in the property’s history. As of today, we see a strong growth trend across the entire portfolio in North America and really look forward to telling you more about it in our next earnings call in mid-May. Finally, as you know, we are in the midst of a comprehensive strategic review process. While this process may very well lead to the one or the other divestiture, no final decisions have been made, and there can be no assurance that the review will result in any transaction or particular change. We continue to make progress. Selected assets are under exclusivity agreements, hence we cannot make public comments right now. With that, I ask for your understanding that we will not take questions on this topic in our Q&A session. All right. That concludes our prepared remarks.

We’ll now open the call for the Q&A session with analysts. Elvis, go ahead, please.

Operator: Thank you, Peter. If you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone now and you’ll be placed into the queue in the order received. If we do not get to your question, please reach out to the company using the investor relations page at cnty.com. Again, that’s star one for a question, and we’ll pause briefly to form our queue. Our first question today comes from Jordan Bender of Citizens Bank. Please go ahead.

Jordan Bender, Analyst, Citizens Bank: Hey, everyone. Good morning, and thanks for the question. I want to start on the comments around the green shoots that you’re seeing in the retail player. Can you just kind of maybe apply or elaborate on where you’re seeing that? Is that specific properties? Any region of the country? That would be great. Thank you.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thank you for the question. Hi, Jordan. Your question refers to retail customers across the board in the U.S.?

Jordan Bender, Analyst, Citizens Bank: Yeah. Just kinda where are you seeing that strength? Is it, you know, related to certain properties? Or is it just-

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Understand.

Jordan Bender, Analyst, Citizens Bank: Thank you.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: No. Sorry. Understand. Yeah, I think we can say that the retail customer is coming back all across the board. We see increases in the retail performance. That’s not only true for the casino, that is also the case in the hotels where we have hotel rooms. We have increases in hotels on the retail side as well.

Jordan Bender, Analyst, Citizens Bank: Perfect. Thank you. Just maybe turning to Canada, you know, as we look to kinda what oil prices and I guess gas prices are doing, have you seen any historical precedent that when we do see higher oil that those properties actually benefit during times like these?

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Not necessarily. No. No, we haven’t. Neither did we see less business because of higher oil or gas prices. Nor did we see. It’s not going that directly. You know, the oil price goes up, but it doesn’t mean that the salaries of the employees go up right away.

Jordan Bender, Analyst, Citizens Bank: Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Sure.

Operator: Next, we have Ryan Sigdahl of Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Hey, Peter, Erwin. Wanna start with kind of the guidance for Q1. I think I caught it right that you said double-digit growth at every U.S. property. One, confirm that I heard that right. Two, is there any reason to believe those trends shouldn’t continue through the rest of the year, or is there anything kind of unusual happening in Q1?

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: First question, yes, you heard right with double digits. Secondly, of course, nobody can tell for sure, but we see all signs positive. If we had to make a guess, then we would say, yes, we have no reason to believe that this should not continue until the rest of the year.

Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Great. And then on the Nugget, good to see the concert pipeline strong for this year and the pre-sales there. Curious on, as you think about kind of building the corporate pipeline there of conferences, how that looks and then how that kinda looks over the next couple of years, just an update from what you guys have done over the last couple of months.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Right. As you know, the last conferences have quite some lead time. In this quarter, we were able to secure a few large conferences for the years 2030, 2031, and 2032. It’s really long perspective we’re looking at. It’s still very good. It’s good to know that there is still demand and the people like the property. They like it, particularly the large companies like them a lot. That’s a good sign for us and for it. When it comes to the shorter-term booking, so we call it in the year for the year, we already also see a very positive trend.

Everything that we see now is what we’ve had so far and what we see in bookings coming in. It is, I think, fair to say that in the year for the year, we will be performing better than in 2025.

Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Great. Good luck, guys.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: At the moment, we’re up by like 15% or so year over year.

Ryan Sigdahl, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Helpful. Thanks, guys. Good luck.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chad Beynon of Macquarie Group.

Chad Beynon, Analyst, Macquarie Group: Hi. Good morning, Peter and Erwin. Thanks for all the commentary at the outset. Focusing on Missouri, great to see everything that’s occurred there at Caruthersville and the growth on the revenue and EBITDA side. I know in February there was a court ruling or a federal ruling against, you know, some of these video lottery terminal games that are fairly prevalent throughout Missouri. If those are removed, do you think you could see a benefit from that? Or do you believe your customer is a different customer than those playing these unregulated games? Thank you.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: We think this will be definitely good for our casinos. No doubt about it.

Chad Beynon, Analyst, Macquarie Group: Okay. Do you have a sense of, you know, are there a number of these machines just within proximity? I know Caruthersville is a farther out reaching catchment area, but I’m assuming there’s games, you know, close in the 30-mile range. I guess maybe just confirm that that’s the case to your two properties.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Yes. Yes, that’s the case for both properties.

Chad Beynon, Analyst, Macquarie Group: Okay, great. Then wanted to ask about the promotional environment. You talked about, you know, West Virginia, obviously it’s been very competitive against Pennsylvania and Ohio, and you mentioned the competitive nature at Cape Girardeau. What are you seeing in terms of promotions from some of the other land-based operators in the space? Has that changed? If retail accelerates, if retail play accelerates, do you think that could accelerate? Thank you.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: We don’t see anything unusual with regard to promotions from them and also from us, and also within the retail sector, other than what we said earlier, that retail is getting strong everywhere. Nothing that would be worth pointing out that would be out of the, so to speak, ordinary.

Chad Beynon, Analyst, Macquarie Group: Okay, great. Great to hear the progress in January and February. Thank you.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thank you.

Operator: From Stifel, we have Jeff Stantial.

Jeff Stantial, Analyst, Stifel: Hey, good afternoon, Peter, Erwin. Thanks for taking our questions. Maybe starting off on Missouri. Erwin, can you just give us an update or talk through some of the initiatives that are in place to sort of continue driving more trialing and repeat visitation from new carded play, whether that’s, you know, further out over the border or even closer to the property. On the cost side of things, are you sort of at stabilized margin staffing, those sorts of things? Is there still sort of optimization in the OpEx space that we should be contemplating?

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Okay. Concerning the cost and stabilization, I think Caruthersville is a model property with when it comes to cost. I mean, they have super high margins, and I think they are at the point where we can’t really squeeze more percentages out. However, a little bit might be possible in Cape Girardeau, but not a whole lot either. However, we see upside on the revenue side. We will continue to market the hotel rooms. There is still some room for both in both properties of Missouri, and we’re marketing those heavily. If we just continue to do what we’ve been doing diligently, then there is no reason why we should not gain some more upside in the revenues on both casino and hotel.

One thing that might be worth mentioning is that, as you know, we said that earlier, we have the sports book facility in Cape Girardeau that is so successful that in itself helps a lot also to further solidify and have a well-rounded product in a resort area where players find everything they want.

Jeff Stantial, Analyst, Stifel: That’s helpful. Thank you, Erwin. Then maybe just as a quick housekeeping item, is there any chance you know off the top of head how much of an impact weather had on revenues and EBITDA during the fourth quarter? I just wanna be clear, I didn’t hear it mentioned when you talked about operating trends, which are really quite healthy Q1 to date. Did you see much of an impact from any of the adverse weather across your portfolio?

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: In Q4, as we mentioned, a few properties were hit in December, a little bit. In the first quarter, so far, not really anything to mention.

Jeff Stantial, Analyst, Stifel: Okay. No, no number to share for Q4, but it sounds like it was relatively minor.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: I can’t give you a number, but there wasn’t like a disastrous snow weekend or so we didn’t have that, so which is good.

Jeff Stantial, Analyst, Stifel: Perfect. That’s all from us. Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Erwin.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thank you, Jeff.

Operator: Next, we have Connor Parks of CBRE Investment Bank.

Connor Parks, Analyst, CBRE Investment Bank: Hey, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just a capital allocation one for me, maybe absent a strategic review that remains ongoing. I guess, you know, what’s the approach to share repurchases against, you know, debt pay down or the view on the balance sheet for 2026, now that CapEx is stepping down a bit, and it’s maybe just maintenance from here. You know, how are you looking at, you know, maybe weighing share repo against the balance sheet at this point in time?

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Sure. Thank you for the question, Connor. Peter, why don’t you take that question, please?

Peter Hoetzinger, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Yes, thanks, Connor. For 2026 and also looking into 2027, of course, subject to cash flow, operational performance and divestitures, our main focus would be on debt pay down vis-a-vis share purchases. We don’t make any concrete amounts available on this call. As we said, we have some assets under exclusivity, so we expect decisions for divestitures fairly soon. Once we have that on the table, we’ll be able to share some more detailed info with you. In terms of where the focus is, it’s going forward, it’s definitely in debt pay down.

Connor Parks, Analyst, CBRE Investment Bank: Understood. Looking forward to hearing more on that. I’ll leave it at that. We covered a lot of ground here. Thank you.

Peter Hoetzinger, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thanks, Connor.

Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thank you, Connor.

Operator: This is all the time allotted for questions. Again, if we did not get to your question, please reach out to the company using the investor relations page at cnty.com. Peter, back over to you for any additional or closing comments.

Peter Hoetzinger, Co-CEO, Century Casinos: Thanks, Elvis, and thanks, everybody. We appreciate you joining our call today. We’ll talk again in a couple of months when we will present Q1 results. Until then, thank you and goodbye.

Operator: That concludes our meeting today. You may now disconnect.