Earnings call transcript: High Roller Tech’s Q2 2025 sees turnaround with positive EBITDA

High Roller Technology (HLRT) reported its Q2 2025 earnings, showcasing a remarkable turnaround with positive adjusted EBITDA and a slight uptick in revenue. The company’s stock remained stable, closing at $2.20, reflecting a 0.45% increase, though InvestingPro data shows the stock has declined nearly 50% year-to-date. The earnings call highlighted strategic initiatives and market expansion plans, particularly in Canada. With an overall Financial Health Score of 1.14 (labeled as WEAK), investors seeking deeper insights can access comprehensive analysis through InvestingPro’s detailed research reports.

Key Takeaways

• High Roller Tech achieved a positive adjusted EBITDA of $362,000, reversing a Q1 loss of $2.5 million.
• Revenue increased by 2% from Q1 to $6.9 million.
• The company plans to enter the Ontario market in Q4, targeting a $2.5 billion addressable market.
• Strategic cost reductions led to a 75% decrease in cash burn and a significant reduction in advertising costs.

Company Performance

High Roller Technology demonstrated significant improvement in Q2 2025, with a focus on financial discipline and strategic market expansion. The company reversed its Q1 losses by achieving a positive adjusted EBITDA and increasing its revenue by 2%. This performance was driven by a 12% increase in net gaming revenue and strategic cost management.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $6.9 million, up 2% from Q1
• Adjusted EBITDA: $362,000, compared to a Q1 loss of $2.5 million
• Adjusted Earnings Per Share: 4¢, compared to a Q1 loss of 30¢
• Cash Position: $3.6 million, down from $4.5 million in Q1
• Cash Burn: Reduced by 75% quarter-over-quarter

Outlook & Guidance

High Roller Tech is set to launch in the Ontario market in Q4 2025, with a focus on capturing a share of the $2.5 billion market. The company is also exploring potential expansion into Alberta and aims to optimize its market strategy to achieve operational economies of scale. Future revenue forecasts for FY2025 and FY2026 remain at $28 million, with EPS forecasts of -0.87 USD and -0.79 USD, respectively.

Executive Commentary

Seth Young, Chief Strategy Officer, expressed satisfaction with the Q2 results, stating, "We’re really pleased with the direction that our Q2 results are signaling." He emphasized the company’s commitment to building trust and confidence, saying, "Our intent is to continue to do exactly what we say we’re going to do."

Risks and Challenges

• Market Entry: The success of the Ontario market launch is crucial, and any delays or regulatory challenges could impact growth.
• Cash Position: Although the company has reduced its cash burn, maintaining a healthy cash position is vital for ongoing operations.
• Competition: As the only online casino pure-play of their size, maintaining a competitive edge in a crowded market is essential.

High Roller Tech’s Q2 2025 earnings call highlighted a promising turnaround, with strategic market entries and cost management driving positive results. The company’s focus on expansion and operational efficiency positions it well for future growth, though challenges remain in maintaining its competitive edge and financial health. For comprehensive analysis of HLRT’s valuation and growth prospects, including exclusive Fair Value calculations and peer comparisons, explore the full suite of tools available on InvestingPro.

Full transcript - High Roller Tech Inc (ROLR) Q2 2025:

Conference Moderator, High Roller Technology: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Roller Technology’s Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. Before I turn the call over to High Roller Technology’s CEO, Ben Clems, I’d like to remind you that this conference call will include forward looking statements within the meaning of U. S. Federal Securities Laws with respect to future operations, financial results, events, trends and performance, which are based on management’s beliefs and assumptions as of today’s call or other specified date.

Forward looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. See High Roller’s financial results press release and SEC filings for information regarding specific risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Except as required by law, High Roller undertakes no obligation to update such forward looking statements. I will now pass it over to Ben Clems.

Ben Clems, CEO, High Roller Technology: Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. I’d like to begin today’s call by acknowledging the hard work of the entire Highweller team to deliver a positive second quarter result, which represents a significant improvement from our first quarter this year. For those of you who’ve been following our journey, you’ll recall that we underwent a significant strategic realignment, reconstituting our executive leadership team and refocusing our brand operations through a high upside, high potential markets like Finland and Canada. I’m pleased to say that this strategic shift is taking hold, and we are pleased with the track the business is on.

From my vantage point, I will return to an important corner. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of to be sure, and we believe we are well positioned to continue to execute at high level. Before we dive in, we would likely notice that within this period of transformation for high roller, we received a notice of noncompliance with the NYSE listing standards. We did anticipate this, and we promptly addressed it by making all the relevant filings and notifications consistent with the requirements of the NYSE. They also submitted our compliance plan to the exchange on July 7, and we’re confident that this will be resolved promptly.

It is fair to say that we’ve been

Conference Moderator, High Roller Technology: really

Ben Clems, CEO, High Roller Technology: busy. We have a lot to report, and we feel that there’s a lot to be excited about moving into the q three, q four, and beyond. We’re shortly launching a third market specific brand as part of our strategic focus. In addition, our brand launch in Ontario is progressing well, and we anticipate being live there in q four pending the approval from the relevant regulatory authorities. Insiders have continued by robust throughout q two, demonstrating continued confidence in the business.

Joining me on the call today are Adam Salmon, CFO, and Seth Young, chief strategy officer. Adam will go into more detail on the numbers, and Seth will provide a bit of commentary. But I’m gonna steal some of their thunder prior to them joining. Starting with this, I’m thrilled to report that High Volers’ positive adjusted EBITDA results of 352,000 and adjusted earnings per share of 4¢ in q two. This is basically a complete turnaround from q one where we have adjusted EBITDA loss of 2,500,000.0.

The new addition to our team have been immediately impactful. We start key roles at all levels of the business from incredibly strong talent, and the results are beginning to show the fruits of their labor. In this thing, we have reorganized our team to represent a more efficient, scalable structure with clear reporting lines and strong localization that are preparing us for our future growth. We anticipate achieving operational economies of scale as we continue to expand our operating profile over time based on

Conference Moderator, High Roller Technology: this

Ben Clems, CEO, High Roller Technology: corporate reconfiguration. We streamlined our marketing trends towards growth markets while winding down winding down operations and revenue in long term market. And our revenue has managed to hold strong while cost has been bought to optimized levels. To this end, while our unique deposit and customers were down for another quarter, which was expected and anticipated given our planned market closures, our net gaming revenue, unique deposit and customer was up nearly 80% to $340 over the same period, leading to modest quarter quarter over quarter revenue growth. Revenue in our core market of Finland was up nearly 55 year over year from the previous six month corresponding period ending 06/30/2024.

That’s demonstrating strong year over year growth. Net growth across key performance indicators are healthy, giving us strong momentum as we progress towards securing our license and launching our brand in Ontario. And with that, I’m pleased to introduce our chief financial officer, Adam Solomon, who will go into further details on our financial performance.

Conference Moderator, High Roller Technology: Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon. Starting with our financial overview, as Ben mentioned, we are pleased to report that High Roller delivered quarter on quarter revenue growth, while simultaneously cutting costs across the board. This led to a positive adjusted EBITDA of 362,000 as compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of approximately 2,500,000.0 in the first quarter. As such, our adjusted earnings per share this quarter were 4¢ as compared to adjusted loss per share of 30¢ for the 2025.

Our total revenue for the quarter was up 2% from the first quarter to 6,900,000.0, with net gain revenue increasing 12%. Our strategic focus on regulated and preregulated markets continues, with Finland representing 57% of NGR for the 2025. This compares to 39% for the 2024. Our net cash position for the period ended 06/30/2025 totaled approximately 3,600,000.0, of which 934,000 is restricted. This compares to 4 and a half million for the first quarter of this year, of which approximately a million was restricted.

Excluding restricted cash, quarter on quarter, our cash burn dropped significantly by 75. We have made significant improvements to our balance sheet, underpinned by substantial reductions in nearly all expense lines as a percentage of total revenue. Further, accounts payable has been reduced by approximately 44% when compared to December 2024, while advertising and promotional costs have been reduced from 61% of total revenue in the first quarter to just 26% in q two. While the total number of unique deposit and customers in q two was down from q one, as Ben highlighted, wavering activity in q two of approximately a 153,000,000 was nearly identical to that of q one. This represents an average increase an increase in average revenue per user of nearly 80%, with each customer waging an average of nearly $8,000 in q two.

This results to the testing both for our refocus efforts and targeted high value user acquisition and the optimization of our retention strategies. In just one quarter, we have managed to significantly send cash burn, optimize up to rate operations, and deliver a positive adjusted EBITDA result. Our q two results are part of our expectations detailed in our h two business update, which we released in June. A truly remarkable improvement that is particularly salient as we prepare to enter new markets in the second half of this year. On a personal note, I’m so thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to such an exciting growth company.

As we work through the transition between q one and q two, we have hit the ground running, implementing operational and strategic change from day one. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the work ethic and action of the entire High Roller team, and I’m really, really confident about our future. With that, I will hand it over to Seth Young for some closing remarks.

Seth Young, Chief Strategy Officer, High Roller Technology: Thank you, Ben, and thank you, Adam. Good afternoon, everybody. As a young high potential growth company in the public markets, we recognize that among other things, it’s of tantamount importance for us to be consistent, transparent, and credible with our existing and prospective shareholders. As both Dan and Adam mentioned, our second quarter was underpinned by tight operations and stronger execution against a strategic roadmap built to deliver long term shareholder value. It’s in this spirit that I think it’s important for us to say a few things out loud since where we’ve been prior to q two is not necessarily the best indicator where this business is heading.

But High Roller underwent its IPO in late twenty twenty four. That story was was a bit different than the one you’re hearing today. Then following the IPO, the first real quarter of the company’s public charity, which q one of this year, was by anybody’s account less than stellar, not up to the standard that we expect of ourselves. And we recognize that those results probably didn’t do much to earn the confidence of our existing and prospective investors. We put a plan in place.

There’s no silver bullet for instant success, but we’re really, really pleased with direction that our q two results are signaling. And our intent is to continue to do exactly what was what we say we’re going to do in an effort to continue building your trust and confidence in High Role. Our plan represented executing against a few key pillars. The intent of this plan was not just to improve short term results, but to lay the groundwork for a sustainable future. So far, we’re tracking very well against it.

The first pillar was reconstituting the leadership team. Leading to the second quarter, I rolled a part of days with this incumbent chief marketing officer, chief product officer, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer. And those key roles were replaced by myself as chief strategy officer, Adam Selman as chief financial officer, Emily McAllister, our chief ops chief operating officer and chief staff, Sarah Simon as chief legal and compliance officer, Carlos Capapici as managing director for Canada, and Sarah Nunez as managing director and chief commercial officer in Finland. Additionally, the marketing and retention department was fully reconstituted with senior localized talent focused on the execution of our multi brand profile and our strategic markets of focus. So far, so good.

The second pillar was housekeeping and executing the cleanup. Broadly speaking, we identified key opportunities for performance increases across multiple departments. Our CFO transition to Adam Feldman was an important step in solidifying our leadership team moving forward, and Adam has more than risen to the occasion both as a team leader and an executor with the ability to think critically and strategically. As COO, Amy McAllister rose rose to the occasion leading the reorganization of our team, instituting clear reporting lines, instituting clear business processes meant to help us achieve those operational economies of scale as we continue to invest and expand. We also recognize that a hard left turn from a global operating profile to one of more of a laser focus towards these large high potential regulated markets would require exceptional local talent and strong corporate governance.

To present Sarah Simon, Carlos Capacci, and Sarah Nunez have all listened to the occasion as well with Carlo and Sarah leading strong localized teams. All of the additions to the high roll team have been immediately impactful in their areas as evidenced by our q two results. Team is highly focused, growing in the same direction. It’s going really well. The third pillar of our plan is raising awareness of our business within the investment community.

Following q one, High Roller has been actively taking steps to raise this profile in the global investment community through participation in non deal road shows in various global cities, investor conferences, many one on one meetings with analysts and so on to build familiarity with the business and its high growth intent. Our positioning is the only online casino pure play of our size in the public market is really compelling, and the high roller story has generally been very well received. Our high roller brand resonates with anyone that accounts as it relates. One of those brands where you don’t need to tell anybody what it is. It’s casino.

It’s intuitive, and this coupled with our thoughtful multi brand approach to key markets is really powerful. There’s also growing recognition of the depth of experience of our founding and executive team, which gained a tremendous amount of strength throughout q two as we’ve highlighted, and there’s growing recognition around the value of our strategic alliance with Psych Up Media, arguably the world’s best online gambling customer acquisition firm, and the positive impact that this partnership is expected to have on our unit economics. Our marketing capabilities for PsychUp is a major differentiating factor in our business relative to our peers. It really can’t be understated. So today, we’re here with a motivated, highly experienced team, a solid go to market plan and operational strategy, important lessons learned, and a quarterly result representing an incredibly strong proof point in our journey.

We’re really appreciative for your support during this transformative time. And for those of you that might be integrated by these developments over the last few months, we’re even more excited to hear that we’ve clearly scratched the surface. And hopefully, this helps you understand why we’re so excited about what we believe the future holds for Highlower. At this stage, we’re happy to open the floor for some q and a. And if we don’t get to everybody, we’re more than happy to follow-up directly with those that have attempted.

Thank you so much.

Conference Moderator, High Roller Technology: Thank you. And with that, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the

Please proceed with your question.

Ashish, Analyst: Thank you, and congratulations on the quarter, Ashish. I have a couple of questions. First one, starting with the average revenue per user that increased 80% quarter over quarter. Can you help us understand what drove this improvement? And going forward, what should we expect the level of the ARP PU to be?

Will it normalize or continue at this level that you saw this quarter?

Seth Young, Chief Strategy Officer, High Roller Technology: Thank you, Ashley. I appreciate the question. So my understanding is the question is what drove the improvements in the ARPU quarter over quarter? And your second part of the question, can

Ashish, Analyst: you repeat that? I’m so sorry. Yeah. It’s just that what should we expect the ARPU to be going forward? Like, will it normalize, or is it going to continue at this level that you reported this quarter?

Seth Young, Chief Strategy Officer, High Roller Technology: I gotcha. Thank you. So generally speaking, the quarter over quarter improvement ARPU was a refocus of our marketing spend in key markets, focus on acquiring more high value users, really just a a general refocus on the CRM. As I mentioned, we we sort of reconstituted the management team both at the c level and at the middle levels with really good local talent. So I wanna chalk it up to a stronger focus with strong talent really across the board for our operation.

That’s from acquisition all the way down to retention. And as far as the second question goes in terms of what expectations may be, we’re not providing guidance per se, but we really are focused on on growth and, you know, the core markets that we continue to work in. We’re pretty pleased with this with this future performance delivering a positive EBITDA. Directionally, we feel that this quarter better represents our capabilities as a company than q one. So, hopefully, that’s that’s a helpful and supportive.

Ashish, Analyst: Right. Thank you. And with you have about 3,600,000.0 in cash right now. How comfortable are you with current liquidity given your expansion plans? And do you expect to raise any capital in the near term?

Seth Young, Chief Strategy Officer, High Roller Technology: Yeah. Sure. I’ll take that. So as far as cash flow in the near term, we’re pretty comfortable with where we are right now, and our efforts throughout q two to reduce cost and stabilize and increase revenue and set the business up for new market expansion. We’re all through the lens of ensuring the company has sufficient cash flow ongoing.

And as far as your question about a raise, right now, we’re not looking at raising capital capital from Wall Street hedge funds or institutions, but we are talking to some strategic in our space. We’ve all been in the industry quite a long time. We know a lot of companies, a lot of individuals in the gaming business, and we have some very well filled founders in the company. I I doubt they’d wanna raise capital from the market at these levels that we’re at today. So right now, we just don’t see raising money like that as an option.

Ashish, Analyst: Thank you. And so the launch in Ontario is something that really that people are looking forward to. Can you just provide a little detail on the second half Ontario launch timeline and the marketing strategy for entering the channel market.

Seth Young, Chief Strategy Officer, High Roller Technology: Yeah. Absolutely. So we’re really excited about launching Ontario, and our expectation is that the high roller launch in that market will be a big step for the company. I’ve already mentioned that our marketing relationship with Psycho Media, and I I can’t stress this enough. They’re really, really strong in Ontario.

So we’d expect to do well there. Outside of Ontario being the sixth largest regulated online gambling market in the world, it has a with a total addressable revenue opportunity roughly 2 and a half billion and counting. Almost 75% of that is casino revenue as opposed to sports betting revenue. It’s also growing every day. Spiked up strength here and their partnership with us was definitely part of the calculus as we considered where we focus our efforts.

We’re a casino led brand. We have one of the best brand names I’ve ever seen. Our product is super strong. The Canadian player is educated. And typically, led brands backed by strong operators have shown a proclivity to over index their fair market share of the casino portion of the total addressable revenue opportunity in these markets.

So we definitely believe we’re gonna be successful in Ontario and then eventually in Alberta following that. So we’re we’re by all accounts on track for the launch in the back half of the year. We don’t have a hard date to give you, but nothing has changed from from previous commentary on this website.

Ashish, Analyst: Thank you so much. Thank you.

Conference Moderator, High Roller Technology: You. You. And as a reminder, if you’d like to ask questions, please press star one. And our next question comes from the line of Steve Sniper with Storbridge Investments.

Seth Young, Chief Strategy Officer, High Roller Technology: Following up on one of the answers to the last question and the way you guys answered after Q1. So on the Q1 call, when we discussed capital needs, you had anticipated a turnaround, which did happen in Q2, and you didn’t think there was going to be any need to raise capital. You you thought you’d make it through. Based on your answer to, you know, the prior question where you said, you know, management probably doesn’t have much interest in raising capital down here, you know, unless it’s strategic or whatnot, is that we don’t want to raise capital or we don’t or or the answer is still we don’t need to raise capital. We may do it opportunistically, but we still have enough cash flow that we think we can get where we need to go without raising capital.

So it’s the latter. You know, like, I think it would be foolish of us not to be opportunistic and listen to everything. So we are considering any number of interesting strategic opportunities. We, you know, normal course of the business, we pursue, you know, looking at all kinds of interesting interesting opportunities to to power our expansion further growth. But we haven’t we haven’t provided any other information other than what what I just said previously.

So we have been talking to some strategics. It doesn’t change the fact that we are comfortable where we are. We do have a pretty relative founders, strong backing, and we’re really comfortable with with how we’re how we’re moving. Q two was good. Right?

Q is is basically effectively a complete turnaround from q one. We do think this is a better way for, you know, those that are on this call to be yourself to to look at our business and our capabilities moving forward. You know, we’re not providing any guidance yet about what what what revenue could look like for Ontario, for Alberta. Hopefully, sometime next year after we get our food under us in those markets, we’ll consider doing so. But for the moment, we’re head down focused on executing against the road map.

The team is doing great. We’re just in a great place, and and we’re really excited about our results in q two. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Steve.

Conference Moderator, High Roller Technology: Thank you. And with that, this does conclude the question and answer session as well as concluding the conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.