Century Casinos Inc Lytham Partners 2026 Consumer & Technology Investor Summit

All right. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Century Casinos fireside chat. My name is Robert Blum, Managing Partner at Lytham Partners, and up next I'll be moderating a Q&A discussion with Peter Hoetzinger, the company's Co-Chief Executive Officer. As a reminder, the company trades under the ticker symbol CNTY on the Nasdaq. All right, let's get started.

Peter, welcome. Robert, thanks for having me.

Fantastic. For those maybe not familiar, could you start with an overview of Century Casinos and maybe your own background with the company as well?

Century Casinos is a casino entertainment company with an exceptional collection of regional gaming assets supported by dedicated teams, strong local brands, and unique positions within their respective markets. In the U.S., we have a portfolio that spans some of the most distinctive gaming destinations in the country, from Rocky Gap Casino, Resort & Golf in Maryland, the only casino resort operating within a state park in America, to Mountaineer in West Virginia, where the world's first racino pioneered a new chapter in regional gaming, to the legacy of excursion riverboat gaming along the Mississippi River, to Colorado's historic gold mining communities, to The Nugget, one of northern Nevada's iconic gaming and hospitality brands. Each property has its own history, customer base, and its competitive advantages.

In Canada, we operate three properties in the greater Edmonton region, one of which has a horse racetrack, plus one casino, also with a racetrack, in the Calgary market. Those two together represent one of the most distinctive regional gaming portfolios in North America. In addition, we also operate small casinos in Poland. We have a small investment over there in Europe, where we operate six small club-type casinos in four- and five-star hotels in all major cities throughout the country. With regards to my own background, I co-founded the company in 1993. We then listed on Nasdaq in 1994. Yes, we celebrated our 30th listing anniversary a couple of years ago. Currently, I serve as the Co-CEO as well as the Vice Chairman.

All right, very good. You touched on this a little bit, but maybe expand for us a little bit more on the regional gaming model that you're pursuing here and really the types of markets that you target.

As I said, I think we have one of the most distinctive collections of regional gaming assets in North America, and each property serves a different market. Each has its own history, and each has its own competitive advantages. Our responsibility is to preserve what makes each property unique while applying a disciplined operating approach that consistently creates value for our guests, our communities, and our shareholders. Each property enjoys a protective position in attractive North American regional gaming markets with limited new competition and entrenched local market share. Our focus lies on the drive-through markets. The majority of our revenue is generated from guests residing within an hour's drive from the casinos. That proximity to our casinos creates the opportunity for very loyal, repeat local customers, stable demand, and tailoring marketing, creating a more predictable revenue base and limited reliance on destination tourism.

Let's dive into a couple of the properties in particular, maybe starting, what is the remaining upside at properties such as the Nugget and Rocky Gap, too, that you mentioned there?

Yeah. We are excited about those two. The tremendous performance of The Nugget recently was one of the highlights of our recent results. The Nugget delivered an outstanding second quarter with net operating revenue up 16% and adjusted EBITDA increasing 93% compared to prior year. More importantly, this marks The Nugget's third consecutive quarter with year-over-year EBITDA growth, reinforcing that the operational improvements implemented over the past are gaining traction. We continue to believe The Nugget presents one of the greatest long-term opportunities within our portfolio. Built upon the hospitality legacy of the property and supported by one of the region's largest hotels with 1,400 rooms, we also have large convention and entertainment operations. The Nugget possesses very competitive advantages that cannot easily be replicated.

Whilst we are pleased with the progress we made over the past year, we believe there remains significant runway for further strengthening the gaming performance, hotel utilization, entertainment programming, and convention business as we continue executing our long-term operating strategy there. In the east, Rocky Gap continued to demonstrate the resilience of its operating model during the second quarter, despite a more challenging competitive and consumer environment. Year to date, Rocky Gap has increased EBITDA by 9% year over year, and its performance reflects the broader regional market conditions rather than the property-specific challenges. The management team there remains focused on disciplined operations, targeted consumer acquisition, and protecting long-term market share while positioning the property for further growth.

All right, very good. Talk about how the newer investments in Missouri, including Caruthersville and sports betting, are contributing to the business here.

Our Missouri business continued to demonstrate what disciplined operational execution can accomplish and remains a key driver in our portfolio. The region has achieved for us nine consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We believe those results reflect far more than favorable quarterly comparisons. They demonstrate that the strategic investments we have made in our gaming product, in our hotel amenities, in database marketing, and the operational execution are producing sustainable long-term returns. Our retail BetMGM sportsbook at Cape Girardeau continues to broaden our customer base while creating additional cross-play opportunities throughout the property. Since we opened the new land-based casino in Caruthersville in late 2024, the property has continued to validate the strategic investment we have made in the market. During the second quarter, Caruthersville achieved the highest quarterly gross gaming revenue, net revenue, coin-in, and slot win in the property's history.

And perhaps most notably, during Missouri's fiscal year ending in June, Caruthersville recorded the highest percentage increase in gross revenue amongst all 13 Missouri casinos, and we have outperformed every major gaming operator in the state on a percentage growth basis. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about Missouri's long-term outlook. The continued gaming flow optimization, disciplined database marketing, and the ongoing maturation of the Caruthersville property provide a solid foundation for further growth. We believe the consistency demonstrated over the past nine quarters position Missouri to remain one of the strongest contributors to Century's long-term shareholder value.

All right, very good. Let's talk a little bit about how sort of the gaming, hotels, dining, racing, and entertainment really sort of all work together across the portfolio.