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About Hearthstone
According to Multiples.VC, the average enterprise multiple (EV/EBITDA) of top US-listed gaming companies is currently 10x. Data from New York University last updated in January pegged the overall market average at 23.9x and 19.7x among EBITDA-positive firms, suggesting the sector is undervalued relative to other industries. In a report released Monday, Fitch Ratings said most North American gaming companies hold “Stable” outlooks with “adequate rating headroom” despite consumer headwinds.
Macquarie’s Beynon agrees with that sentiment, pointing to the relative stability of gaming companies through tough economic stretches such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Bankruptcies in the sector have been low relative to the broader market, he notes, and both land-based and digital companies have reason for optimism moving forward.
“It’s certainly not lost on us that this sector has underperformed for several years in a row just because it doesn’t have either the growth of say, tech companies, or the perceived free cash flow-insulated businesses, which we believe it does…We’ve thought there’s been value in the sector for a few years, particularly this year,” he told iGB.
What is Hearthstone?
Large and demanding portfolios were highlighted as a key challenge, with 64% of managers overseeing 100 or more VIPs, while one in five managed more than 500.
The report highlighted the intense workload by estimating that a manager looking after 250 players would have roughly 100 seconds to commit to each player each day if their time was split equally. Data quality and fragmentation were also issues.
Grygorenko emphasised that prioritisation was the key to adapting these portfolio sizes.
What is Hearthstone?
Holland Casino has a responsible gambling board, which includes scientists, experts with lived experience and their own RG executives. They meet with the board every few months to talk over current processes, and the board challenges the operator’s ideas and implementations, pushing them to do better.
“They challenge us both from an academic side and a more practical side. We try to develop our rules as we go along but you have to prove every single day that you’re doing all that you need to do on responsible gaming,” Petra notes.
The Netherlands online gambling market has been the subject of many column inches and much speculation thanks to regulation that has been largely described as heavy-handed and perhaps a little short-sighted – even by the country’s own regulator.
