Responding to questions from analysts during Codere Online’s H1 earnings call on Thursday, CEO Aviv Sher said the operator would need “a lot of money” to be able to replicate its business model in Brazil’s newly regulated market.
Sher told analysts that Codere Online had successfully replicated its Spanish strategy in the Central American market and he believes the playbook “can be applied [elsewhere]”.
“We do think the playbook we have can be applied [elsewhere],” he said.
“We took some of our experience in Spain and took it to Mexico, so we have already proven we are able to replicate our strategy and grow a market.
“I’m sure that Brazil will come up in this call. To replicate [our model] in Brazil, we would need a lot of money.”
The operator reported a 9% uptick in NGR in Mexico in H1 compared to the previous year, to €59.5 million ($68 million).
This, Sher said, was helped by a higher level of player activity than usual during a historically weak period of the year.
“In Mexico, we were successful in growing net gaming revenue despite the 19% devaluation of the Mexican peso and grew our portfolio of active customers in the country by an impressive 36% versus Q2 2024,” Sher said in the earnings release.
Despite the continued impact of the Mexican peso’s devaluation, CFO Oscar Iglesias said the operator expected the currency to strengthen sooner than previously expected and forecasts the impact will lessen in H2.
He said he expects EBITDA in the second half of the year to be “strong”.
More broadly across the entire group, NGR was up 4% year-on-year to €11.8 million in H1. This was split 61% iGaming to 39% sports betting.
In Q2, group NGR was broadly flat at €54.8 million.
Codere Online recorded around 277,000 new customer registrations during Q2, with a 28% conversion rate and cost per acquisition of €218.
During Q2, monthly actives were up 7% on the previous year to approximately 155,000.
In Spain, NGR was flat at €44 million, compared to €44.1 million in H1 2024. Sher said revenue in Spain during the period was once again impacted by the reintroduction of welcome bonuses in 2024, which increased competition across the market.
He also said the company had taken a more selective approach to customer promotions in Spain, to drive more valuable players and lower acquisition costs.
Codere Online closed H1 with €40.7 million in available cash, up from €35.3 million at the beginning of the year.
Iglesias hinted the company was considering strategies for expanding either within its current market of Mexico or entering into new markets in the region.
He highlighted continued difficulties in Colombia, due to the impact of the recently implemented VAT, which Iglesias said has increased the operator’s tax rate to almost 50% of revenue.
Sher said operations had been reduced “to the bare minimum” in the market, to maintain a break-even point.
Iglesius said the company was undergoing discussions to decide what its next move in the market was, with its performance in Panama mitigating some of the company’s initial losses from Colombia.
Cashback bonuses were trialled with Codere Online customers, with other operators like Stake implementing similar strategies in Colombia to mitigate the impact on players.
But Sher said the topline impact was significant. Codere does not split out its other markets in its earnings report, but under “other” the group’s NGR was down 3.5% in H1 to €8.2 million.
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