Robeson Reeves Leads Bally’s Intralot to €544.2M Revenue – 34% AEBITDA Margin Despite a €34M UK Tax Hit
Bally’s Intralot has reported preliminary results for the six months to 30 June 2026, and the numbers arrive with a subplot. Group revenue reached €544.2m with adjusted EBITDA of €184.8m at a 34.0% margin. This is the first full six-month period to include Bally’s International Interactive, and it’s also the first to show what happens when the UK’s remote gaming duty jumps from 21% to 40% mid-year. The Bally’s Intralot 1H26 results are, in effect, a live experiment in absorbing a tax shock.
Announced from Athens on 17 August 2026, the figures show a group that has grown enormously through consolidation, then immediately been asked to defend its margin. How it answered is the story.
Inside the Bally’s Intralot 1H26 Results
Start with scale. Group revenue of €544.2m compares with €182.0m in the prior-year period, and AEBITDA of €184.8m against €60.2m. The jump is mechanical rather than magical: Bally’s International Interactive, now fully consolidated, contributed €377.6m of that revenue and €132.8m of AEBITDA on its own, at a 35.2% margin.
Strip BII out and the legacy business looks softer. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was €166.5m, down 8.5% on a reported basis (5.7% in constant currency). While the U.S. lottery operation was the main drag on legacy B2B due to softer lottery activity and lower equipment sales, legacy B2C was also weighed down by Bilyoner in Turkey following a remuneration structure adjustment and Turkish Lira depreciation. So the growth headline and the underlying trend point in slightly different directions. Worth holding both in view.
How the UK Gaming Duty Reshaped the Quarter
The pressure point is UK tax. The remote gaming duty rose from 21% to 40%, effective 1 April 2026, and it cost the group roughly €34m in the second quarter alone. That single line drove the margin story. Group AEBITDA margin fell from 37.4% in Q1 to 30.7% in Q2.
But management says close to 65% of the hit was mitigated. Around €10.1m came from revenue growth, split between the UK and Spain, with a further €11.3m from operating cost optimisation and adjustments. And the top line didn’t flinch. UK online revenue reached an all-time high, with constant-currency growth accelerating to 11.6% year-on-year in Q2 from 10.5% in Q1 (bringing 1H26 constant-currency growth to 11.1%). Spain hit a record too. The tax took a real bite. The business kept growing into it.
What the Numbers Signal for Gaming Operators
Here’s the operator read. For any business with meaningful UK exposure, the new duty is now a known quantity with a measurable cost, and Bally’s Intralot has effectively published a working template for surviving it: offset through trading momentum and disciplined cost work, not through retreat. The uncomfortable part is that this only works if the top line is genuinely growing. Operators without that momentum will feel the full 40% with far less to cushion it.
The strategic backdrop reinforces the point. New contracts in Victoria, Australia, with the State Lottery of Chile, with Hellenic Lotteries in Greece, and selection as Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s new lottery technology provider all spread the revenue base. The pending offer to acquire evoke plc, announced on 5 June and still subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, sits in the same logic. Diversify enough and no single tax line owns your quarter.
What the Leverage and Going-Concern Questions Mean for Bally’s Intralot
Two things deserve honesty. First, leverage. Adjusted net debt closed at €1,618.9m and the adjusted net leverage ratio sat at 4.05x on a pro forma basis, temporarily elevated by an €85m licence payment in Australia. That’s a number to watch as the evoke deal progresses.
Second, the parent. Group CEO Robeson Reeves used the results to address market questions following Bally’s Corporation‘s going-concern disclosure, stating: “Bally’s Intralot S.A. is a separate, independently listed legal entity from Bally’s Corporation, with its own financial statements, capital structure, and regulatory obligations under Euronext Athens and applicable securities law.” He added that the Company’s trading, strategic plans, and balance sheet remain strong and independent of the parent-level financing process, and that the Company does not expect that process to have a material adverse effect on its business. The distinction matters, and it’s the Company’s own framing rather than editorial judgement.
What Comes Next for the Regulated Gaming Market?
The next quarters will test two things: whether UK trading momentum can keep outrunning the higher duty, and whether the evoke acquisition clears its approvals and reshapes the group’s scale. A £261.8m sterling facilities agreement signed in late July gives the balance sheet room to fund the plan. For the wider regulated gaming market, the takeaway is sharper than any single figure here. The UK’s tax reset has made diversification and organic growth defensive tools rather than optional ambitions, and the operators who can grow through a tax shock will quietly separate from those who can only cut.
Source: Intralot
