For Codere Online and CEO Aviv Sher, it has been a mixed start to 2025. Continued success in one of its core markets, Mexico, saw net gaming revenue (NGR) in Q1 jump 15% year on year (YoY) to €30.5m despite the devaluation of the peso. However, the decision was made to scale back investments in Colombia following President Gustavo Petro’s decision to implement a 19% VAT levy on player deposits, while Codere Online’s other core market, Spain, endured a 2% YoY drop in NGR to €21.9m.
Overshadowing all of this in the first half of the year was a Nasdaq delisting notice received in May, informing the Spain-based operator that it had failed to submit Form 20-F, an annual report that needs to be filed by non-US and non-Canadian companies that have securities trading in the US. The notice was the second the firm had received, the first coming a year earlier.
But just like in 2024, Codere Online did regain compliance with the stock exchange at the start of June. And, with systems in place to prevent the company from falling foul of Nasdaq’s requirements for the third consecutive year, Sher says the operator can now fully focus on not only keeping competitors at bay in Mexico but also getting ahead with its plans for the 2026 FIFA World Cup next summer.
EGR: Codere Online regained compliance with Nasdaq’s listing requirements earlier this month. You must be relieved?
Aviv Sher (AS): Yes, it’s a huge relief. Big kudos to the team that has been working on it over the past year with a lot of documentation. There are five different regulatory bodies that we need to report to [one for each country in which Codere Online operates], plus Nasdaq. So, we need to comply with six different regulatory bodies without any faults or any major errors. It’s been a huge effort by the team.
They were working day and night to regain compliance and be able to answer all our new auditors’ questions. Now that it’s already June, we will be starting our audit for 2025 very soon. But this time we expect to complete it during the regular course of business and not with extended timelines.
EGR: A similar situation arose in 2023. How do you plan to ensure it doesn’t happen again?
AS: It happened because of a very, very technical reason. It was not really up to us; it was up to the auditors. The fault wasn’t ours because we were able to complete our audit and achieve compliance with another auditor. They [the previous auditor] were a little bit reluctant, or hesitant, issuing their opinion and decided to withdraw. Eventually, we found good auditors able to show we are compliant, which we were all along.
This year, we are already prepared. We have improved and have managed to remove the deficiencies during this audit, so we are in a very good position for 2025. But you know, regulation can change everywhere, including at the Nasdaq, so it’s hard for me to say what will happen. In terms of the Nasdaq, we’re a small company that faces a lot of regulation. But it gives us credibility over our competitors that aren’t listed on the Nasdaq.
EGR: Mexico continues to lead the way for your core markets, with a 15% YoY spike in NGR in Q1 despite the devaluation of the peso. What is behind your ongoing success in the country?
AS: We can attribute it to a few factors, starting with the investment that we’ve made so far into this market, which I think is significant for a company of our size. We already invested more than €100m over the past few years to position ourselves in Mexico. This investment, plus the fact we have a local presence with our retail company, gives us a strong position as a local brand. We did well with creating the sponsorship with [Monterrey] Rayados [for the FIFA Club World Cup] and taking some good positions on TV. Part of the success is our technology, which is quite stable with Playtech.
All those moves have led us to where we are, and we’re looking at the future to see how we can improve our position in the market and maintain it. We’ve already seen big moves from competitors coming into this market with a lot of money, such as Novibet announcing their sponsorship with Cruz Azul, one of the biggest teams in Liga MX. We are also aware of moves from other competitors that will happen very soon. A lot of big companies with a lot of money, whether European or local, are going to enter the market. We have to defend our position, and we are getting ready for that.
EGR: You’ve taken the decision to pull back investments in Colombia. What are your thoughts on the 19% VAT on player deposits introduced earlier this year as an emergency economic measure, and how has it impacted your strategy?
AS: We are risk-managing in Colombia in terms of how to keep the returns the way we want it. The effective tax rate, or however you look at it, is already passing 50%. We find it very hard to see a reasonable business case in Colombia. What we are trying to do is to keep our losses to a minimum – or prevent any losses at all.
We saw that our competitors somehow kept all their promotions and everything in place. I don’t think it’s a sustainable business for us at this point in time. Maybe in six months, if the decree is removed, we will be back [to normal] with our business. We are trying to keep a position there. We will start again with some bonuses to see how it affects the P&L [profit and loss]. But if you go all in, the P&L is very negative, and we don’t see any return.
We are trying to play it as safe as possible to protect our investment in this market, but not to exit it. It’s still an asset that we want to keep. Hopefully, we will be able to return to the normal cost of doing business. Before the decree, Colombia performed quite well considering the small investments that we’ve made there. We started growing and we even started thinking of reinvesting. Then this VAT was introduced, so it’s back to basics.
EGR: It’s been a year since Spain reversed its advertising ban decision. How have you adapted to the changes?
AS: It took us a little bit longer than expected. Because the bonus regime changed, player values dropped as the players were looking for bonuses from all operators – and they were getting very generous bonuses from some. Players are jumping around for bonuses, though we’ve managed to find a formula that is working for us. In the next two quarters or so, we expect to grow our business. Right now, the business has plateaued a little bit, but we have several KPIs indicating that we are on the right track.
EGR: Do you have any plans to enter new markets?
AS: We are still in the same position. We have cash but not a lot to enter a new market. Any investments we do in the coming quarters will be around our core markets [Spain and Mexico]. We still see a lot of room to invest there, especially with competition increasing in Mexico. At the moment I don’t see a reason for my next €10m to be invested in a new market. I want to keep playing it safe, so no new markets. We always explore all options but, so far, there’s not a real opportunity and not a real focus on that.
EGR: You last spoke to EGR in January 2024 when the Brazilian market was a year away from regulation. Six months into the regulation, how do you think Brazil has fared so far, particularly the recent announcement to increase tax on GGR from 12% to 18%?
AS: That’s connected to your previous question. I think we were wise not to enter Brazil, likewise Peru. Both market regulators have proved, or are going to prove, that they are not standing behind their agreements and are changing the tax rate as they go along. This is a big hit to the industry. In retrospect, we were wise not to run into a new market but instead to wait a while for it to stabilise. I don’t know if the tax increase will come into effect or not because in Brazil it [regulation changes] can take years but, if the new tax does come into effect, it will take even longer to cover your investment – if it is even possible for medium and small companies.
Maybe the big companies can continue but the medium and small companies will get a big hit. With those changes, and if the same goes with Peru, a lot of operators, at least the ones that I’m speaking with, are sitting on the fence and waiting to see if the law will change, a bit like in Colombia. We are lucky Colombia is not our main market. We have competitors for whom it is their main market. Let’s see how they will be affected and how their quarterly results will look after this, especially on the EBITDA front.
We were smart not to rush into the new markets. It’s too big for a medium company. It’s a game for the big companies, or maybe a small player can enter with a small amount of investment. But for us, as a strategic decision, it looks now like we will not enter. I read some articles that the predicted GGR in Brazil is huge – around €80bn. That’s three or four times that of Spain and Italy. Nothing will happen this year. Next year we will be smarter. Things will settle down. Maybe it will be a little bit more expensive to enter Brazil, but we will be able to better predict the outcomes of this kind of investment.
EGR: What are your key markets right now?
AS: We are still focusing on Spain and Mexico, and they are generating very good ROI. Panama is picking up slowly but, even if we become the best in Panama, it’s still a small market. As for Colombia and Argentina, we are waiting for some kind of change. In Argentina, without the province [of Buenos Aires], it’s a very small market. It’s an interesting market, but very small.
So unfortunately, we are waiting to see if we have a way to enter. So far, we have had no success. Spain and Mexico are the two markets. We are not number one in either of the markets, so we have room to grow. I feel we are in a good place. We are seven years into this project [Sher joined Codere Online in 2018], a lot of our processes are in place. It’s a well-oiled machine. I can support this team and double the investments that we are doing now. It took us a long time to build, but we’ve built a very good infrastructure for an online gambling company. It’s a global company, but Latam focused.
EGR: When it comes to localisation, how does Codere Online tailor its products differently in Latam and Spain?
AS: In each country we have a local team and local creative, everything is done with a local twist. We have, for example, our Real Madrid sponsorship. Maybe not now, but it used to be, let’s call it a global sponsorship between Spain and Mexico until it was banned. We treated it like a global sponsorship. We were trying to be a global brand with local heroes, but as time goes by, we are just local heroes with a global brand. In Mexico, we are working with influencers, with Rayados, and as local as possible including regionally. Rayados is from Monterrey in northern Mexico. We put a lot of focus into that with marketing related only to that area. We are trying to be as local and as regional as possible, with some global flavour and reinforcement from a global brand. We try to speak the local languages as much as possible.
EGR: What have been your main highlights and biggest challenges since becoming CEO?
AS: In terms of highlights, hitting the first profitable year [in 2024]. It delivered the message, or standing behind the message, that we gave to the investors when we did the IPO [in 2021] – ‘we said we would be profitable, and you can see we can be profitable’. For a company to reach that level of confidence, this is one of the greatest achievements. The topline revenue, which we said at the beginning of the SPAC [listing in 2021], we also met.
Those two financial KPIs were very important. I’m proud that we were able to renew our sponsorship with Rayados, which will give us benefits. Unfortunately, we lost River Plate in Argentina. It was a huge and amazing sponsorship. We couldn’t get to the province [of Buenos Aires], so we lost it. There was no economic sense behind it, so this was a bit of a low point on the sponsorship side.
On the other side, we managed to release a few products. Whether it’s in Mexico or in Spain, the casino vertical grew a lot in the last couple of years and is generating a nice stable revenue stream, which you cannot say with sports due to it being very seasonal. I’m very happy with the team we’ve built around the world. The team is doing very well.
EGR: What plans do you have for the remainder of 2025 and 2026?
AS: Next year, 2026, is a World Cup year, so everybody’s planning towards it. What we are doing is trying to work out the budget from now until the World Cup that will put us in the best position in the markets we are already operating in. This is the focus – how to be prepared for the World Cup. That is what we will be doing in the next two quarters, and maybe the first quarter of 2026. Also, to keep growing at the same rate. I am trying to get to a decision to maybe increase investment above what we have planned so far around this event.
Another plan is to be able to defend, or to take better positions, [in the markets we are in] which we are able to do due to some opportunities. Overall, we are on the right track and delivering what we said that we would deliver. Hopefully, the market will realise that the current share price does not reflect the true value of the company. This is what the analysts are saying about the share price, and I stand behind it because we are well positioned and the machine is working very well. We regained compliance, so hopefully the market will recognise it. Maybe if there is a surge in the share price it will allow us to do some interesting and bigger moves.
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Aviv Sher on how the Spanish and Latam operator worked “day and night” to comply with the delisting notice, investment in core markets and why it was a smart play not to enter Brazil
The post Codere Online CEO: It was “a huge relief” to regain Nasdaq listing compliance first appeared on EGR Intel.