Gaming Realms reported a 3% dip in H1 revenue to £15.5m, but the underlying story paints a different picture. The 71% drop in brand licensing revenue, effectively due to an accountancy measure, should not detract from the 12% jump in content licensing revenue, the “core part” of its business, according to CEO Mark Segal.
The Slingo provider also recorded a 3% uptick in revenue in the UK despite remote gaming duty hitting 40% on 1 April and impacting Q2 in full. North America appears to be a real growth engine, while African launches were also cited as interesting new business opportutnies.
And with a share buyback scheme all but complete, the AIM-listed supplier will be looking to reverse the slide in its share price and tap into potential new revenue streams, such as its slots-focused studio Lucky Lunar.
EGR: What are your reflections on H1 given the underlying growth in content licensing and the decline in brand licensing revenue?
Mark Segal (MS): The core part of our business is content licensing, and that really should be the focus, and it is really good growth. Considering the UK almost doubled remote gaming duty from 1 April, it’s nice that we see some growth in the UK. But we’re seeing a lot more growth in other markets as well. We’ve been releasing great games. We have players who love our games. We’ve launched into some new markets. We’ve gone into Africa as well. To back that up, to have 23% growth year on year in July and August has been really encouraging
We’ve launched a second studio, Lucky Lunar, which is publishing more traditional slots games, albeit quite innovative and they’re leveraging the very strong Slingo IP, and that’s starting to have a contribution. We’re also investing in more Slingo games.
Just touching on the brand licensing, it’s an important strategic part of our business because Slingo is such a strong brand. We’re able to licence it into adjacent markets. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to account at the point of a deal [being signed]. And it just so happens that in the first half of last year, we renewed a multi-year deal, which is just not repeated in this year. But that shouldn’t cloud the fact we’re making great progress in our core business.
EGR: On the UK there was a 3% jump in revenue highlighted despite the remote gaming duty increase. How has that come about?
MS: We’ve had some more content go live, so we’re seeing an increase in the gross gaming revenue played on our games anyway. I should point out that last year we had the staking limits come in. So Q2 of 2025 was a weaker period. We’re comparing against that.
We also had a strong Q1 2026 prior to the increase in the remote gaming duty. I’m not sure how this is going to flow into the second half of the year, particularly with growth. We are quite encouraged, putting the tax to one side, by the increased engagement with the games and the number of games going to market. We are trying to manage, but we are really motoring in other markets. North America has been growing very well for us, and we hope that continues. We’re quite well spread. We’re going into more markets now as well. So again, we are managing to de-risk the UK up to a point. But we shouldn’t move on from the fact we’ve seen some encouraging results in the UK anyway.
EGR: When we spoke in March, we touched on the shifting dynamic between operators and suppliers in the face of the tax hike. Has this changed at all since 1 April?
MS: No. We’re happy with all our partnerships in the UK and the way we work with all of our operators. We’re seeing that the games are still super popular here, and we’re still able to create great content for the market. We’re happy on that side of things.
EGR: You launched in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya in H1. What are your learnings at this stage given African markets tend to skew towards low-stake sports betting?
MS: There are some markets that are very sports-led. There are other markets where they have online casino as well. There may be two or three games which are super popular. But I think the markets are maturing. We are seeing a lot of players in these markets, which is really good.
They’re lower staking than other markets we’re in, but we are seeing some volume there. I’m hoping this is the beginning of the journey for us as more markets open up and players start to experiment and play different types of games.
EGR: Not only in Africa, but when you launch in new markets is there an education piece around Slingo games? Perhaps a bit of handholding?
MS: Slingo is a US game. It started in the US, and we celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. The UK was a perfect example where it was completely new 10 years ago, and we brought it to the UK. The great thing about Slingo is it’s got this wonderful mechanic. We licence great IP for different markets as well. Italy’s a good example where Slingo is popular and growing. We’ve licensed a big slot brand in Italy, and that really helped drive the market in Italy for us last year. There may be some opportunities around bringing certain IP or themes into the games for some of these markets.
EGR: A 16% jump in North American content licensing revenue was also posted. Do you have any indication of where Gaming Realms is sitting in the competitive landscape in the region?
MS: We’ve seen some research about the visibility of our games in the market, and we are comfortably a top 10 supplier in the US. We don’t have the advantage of being a land-based supplier coming in. Maybe, if you look at pure igaming studios, we rank much higher as well. We have great presence in the US. Slingo has differentiated itself as a genre as well. I think players tend to be more engaged in our games for longer. Plus, we are the sole supplier of Slingo, which really helps.
EGR: How is Lucky Lunar developing thus far? Any interest from major operators?
MS: We are launching with larger operators. We’ve only launched three games so far. We’ve got games which haven’t launched in the US yet either. We are getting engagement. We’re able to bring Slingo IP into some of these games. They’re all quite innovative, albeit closer to traditional slots games. I definitely see there is a place in the market for the studio. We’ve got the [existing] relationships as well, so we’re quite excited about where that can go.
EGR: Is there an argument that Lucky Lunar means taking the eye off the Slingo core focus internally?
MS: We’ve tried to separate it to have different producers and teams working on Lucky Lunar, albeit there’ll be some elements where it crosses over. From an investment point of view, we have the relationships, we have the integrations. Slingo is a part of the market we’re still investing in. We’re building more Slingo games than ever. We’re building more bespoke Slingo games for partners than ever as well. We’re not slowing down on that. This is meant to be incremental and accretive to the business.
EGR: Is the share buyback now complete? And what is the plan for £13.5m in cash the company has to hand?
MS: The share buyback is almost there. We’ve engaged with shareholders in the past and there are lots of different opinions and uses of proceeds. Last year, we decided on further investment in the business as well as the buyback. We will sit down again to decide what the next phase will be.
The post Q&A: Gaming Realms boss on weathering a UK storm and tackling North America first appeared on EGR Intel.
Mark Segal says the Slingo supplier is “managing to de-risk” in the UK amid growing tax burdens, as he argues the new slots-focused studio is accretive and not a distraction
The post Q&A: Gaming Realms boss on weathering a UK storm and tackling North America first appeared on EGR Intel.