Bally's Corp (BALY) 2021 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to Bally's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

I will now turn the call over to Craig Eaton, Executive Vice President and General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. By now, you should have received a copy of our Q1 earnings release, which we issued earlier this morning. If you haven't, the earnings release and presentation that accompanies this call are available in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.ballys.com under the News and Events & Presentations tabs.

With me on today's call are George Papanier, who's our President and Chief Executive Officer; Steve Capp, our Chief Financial Officer; Phil Juliano, our Executive Vice President, Casino Operations and Chief Marketing Officer; and Adi Dhandhania, our Senior Vice President of Strategy and Interactive.

Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that comments made by management today will contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include plans, expectations, estimates and projections that involve significant risks and uncertainties. These risks are discussed in the company's earnings release and SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in these forward-looking statements.

In addition, during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the schedules contained in our earnings release. We do not provide a reconciliation of forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures due to our inability to project special charges within certain expenses.

Today's call is also being broadcast live on our investor site and will be available for replay shortly after the completion of this call.

I'll now turn the call over to George. George?

Thanks, Craig. Good morning, everyone, and thanks very much for joining us on a Monday morning. We're extremely excited to take this time to recap a very successful first quarter and provide some additional color on several recent announcements that we've made.

I'd like to begin by addressing the significant progress being made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are encouraged by the rate and effectiveness of vaccinations as well as with the loosening of capacity restrictions and other COVID-19 protocols. We are very much looking forward to continuing to safely welcome back our loyal patrons to our properties across the country.

I would also like to take a moment to highlight the incredible efforts of our more than 6,000 outstanding employees, who have gone above and beyond over the past year to help us not just weather the impact of the pandemic but to truly thrive and grow as a company despite a challenging operating environment. We greatly appreciate their efforts which serve as the foundation of our success.

As the reopening process continues to progress across our brick-and-mortar locations, we are approaching historical operating levels, and we're confident that we'll continue to benefit from a strong rebound in demand.

Now turning to our first quarter results. The first quarter results reflected encouraging performance of the momentum that began in the third quarter of last year, which was temporarily slowed by a second wave of COVID restrictions in Q4 that gained traction. So much so that we achieved record adjusted EBITDA of over $50 million for the quarter. While acquisitions closed in 2020 helped drive positive results, it is important to note that same-store property level EBITDA exceeded our first quarter 2020 performance by more than 80%.

We're also pleased to report that adjusted EBITDA margins for the quarter were 27.2%, representing an increase of 708 basis points over the same period last year. Excluding the dilutive impact from $6.5 million in negative adjusted EBITDA at Bally's Atlantic City, EBITDA margins were 35.4%, more than a 1,500 basis point improvement from the first quarter of 2020, with 280 basis point improvement from the strong margins we saw in Q3 2020.

At the segment level, Southeast segment recorded revenue of $64.6 million, up 153%; an adjusted EBITDA of $26.4 million, an increase of approximately 400% from the same quarter last year. Once again, from a same-store perspective, Biloxi led the year-over-year improvement with EBITDA of $14.6 million for the quarter, an increase of 175%. Biloxi's adjusted EBITDA margins continue to be extremely strong, with a margin of over 44% for the quarter compared to 21% in Q1 2020.

In Rhode Island, we continue to benefit from the resumption of the 24/7 operations in February, the loosening of some COVID restrictions, pent-up demand in the region, a positive customer response to our targeted marketing initiatives. Overall, adjusted EBITDA for Rhode Island was $24 million, up $5.4 million or 29% from the prior year. The adjusted EBITDA margin for Rhode Island was also extremely strong in the quarter at 47%, which represents a 1,437 basis point improvement over the same quarter 2020.

In the West, Kansas City had a record Q1 and its second consecutive record-breaking quarter, contributing over $8 million of adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, with adjusted EBITDA margins of over 38%. During the quarter, we commenced work on our planned capital improvement projects at the property. Once completed, our new land-based facility will house all of our non-gaming activities and include branded restaurants, sportsbook and retail outlets. The facility will also link to casino's existing parking structure to provide a stronger sense of arrival and a better customer service experience.

The Mid-Atlantic segment saw mixed results. Dover had the strongest adjusted EBITDA quarter since we took over the property, with revenues of $22.7 million and adjusted EBITDA of $8.6 million. The resulting EBITDA margin of 37.9% was up 2,451 basis points from Q1 2020 and up 78 basis points from the Q3 2020 high of 37.2%.

The other property in the Mid-Atlantic segment, Bally's Atlantic City, was a drag on quarterly results once again. Since the acquisition closed in late November, operations have been impacted by a combination of seasonality, year-over-year revenue impact due to COVID-19 restrictions and complex decoupling from the legacy Caesars IT systems, which was largely completed in mid-February. First quarter adjusted EBITDA at the property was negative $6.5 million on revenue of $25.7 million. We note that Q1 and Q4 have been traditional loss-making quarters for the property, even without the complicated factors I mentioned above. However, wanted to close, -- however, we wanted to close on the property as soon as possible so that we could take charge of the transformation. And we believe these impacts have begun to dissipate, and we see a path to profitability as we move into historically more profitable periods in late Q2 and Q3.

We also successfully opened our permanent sportsbook location within the Bally's Atlantic City property during the quarter through our previously announced partnership with FanDuel and just in time for March Madness. We're encouraged by early visitation by how the new sportsbook complements the property. This represents the fifth retail sportsbook that we have opened over the past couple of years and features a central 25-foot-wide, state-of-the-art LED video wall, flanked by 2 10-foot-wide LED video walls as well as 10 video displays, 5 betting windows and 20 self-service betting kiosks. This is one of the many developments planned here. We are certainly transforming the property and making significant progress towards returning it to prominence in the Atlantic City market.

Turning to other capital expenditures. We continue to make progress on our $40 million redevelopment plan at Casino KC. We believe this project will greatly enhance the property and overall guest experience, driving growth and a solid return on our investment. The Casino KC project is largely a second half of 2021 event, which we intend to complete some time in 2022.

In Pennsylvania, subject to regulatory approvals, we expect to begin construction on our State College, mini casino development with local real estate and private equity investor, Ira Lubert, in the fourth quarter. We believe that construction will take approximately 1 year and cost approximately $120 million.

As for Rhode Island, should the legislation approving our proposed joint venture with IGT pass, and we're optimistic that it will by the end of June, we expect the Lincoln expansion project to take 18 months, commencing as soon as practical. We expect to incur CapEx in both 2021 and 2022 as we make exciting updates to Twin River Casino, and we'll provide more detail on IGT later on during this call.

Now turning to a few of our pending brick-and-mortar acquisitions. As we mentioned on our last call, we continue to expect that our previously announced acquisitions of the Tropicana Evansville and Jumer's Casino & Hotel will both close in the second quarter, likely in June, pending regulatory approvals. We're encouraged by the progress we're making with the various regulatory bodies. Both of these properties represent valuable additions to a growing national portfolio, and we're looking forward to welcoming them into the Bally's family.

In addition, we recently announced an agreement to acquire the Tropicana Las Vegas Casino Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc., an acquisition that is expected to be accretive to Bally's shareholders long term. Notably, the transaction requires 0 cash outlay from Bally's at closing. We expect that we will close some time in early 2022. To go a little deeper, and as we mentioned when the transaction was announced, under the terms of the agreement, Bally's will pay $150 million to the property's nonland assets. While we have agreed to lease the underlying land from GLPI for initial term of 50 years at an annual rate of $10.5 million, subject to increase over time.

Bally's and GLPI will also enter into a sale-leaseback transaction related to our Black Hawk, Colorado and Rock Island, Illinois casino properties for a cash purchase price of $150 million payable by GLPI. Lease will have initial annual fixed rent of $12 million, subject to increase over time.

The Las Vegas strip is a preeminent destination visited by over 40 million players and guests each year. We're confident that this addition to our brick-and-mortar portfolio will significantly enhance our robust customer base, which includes more than 15 million connected customers and unlock additional marketing opportunities for us to leverage the iconic Bally's brand.

Taking a step back, we think through overall trends, strengthening customer confidence, limited entertainment options and our disciplined operating strategy all contributed to record results in many locations. Starting in February and excluding the impact of weather, business returned to levels similar to those in the third quarter of 2020. In March, where we made almost half of our EBITDA for the quarter, we began to benefit from even stronger improving trends, which have continued in April with great momentum.

We're encouraged by the increased visitation as the vaccine rollout progresses. As we continue to safely welcome our customers back to our facilities, we believe we can return to pre-COVID levels in short order. One of these opportunities is in the 65-and-over segment. While we have seen strong rebound from this core Bally's group particularly in the last couple of months, many are still on the sidelines. As our country continues to make headway against the pandemic, we are confident that more of these guests will return to our properties.

In summary, we are encouraged by the opportunity for growth on the non-gaming side of the business, and we'll take a thoughtful approach in reintroducing these amenities. We remain committed to a disciplined operating strategy that has delivered outstanding results over the last several quarters.

With that, I'll turn it over to Adi to provide an update on our Interactive business. Adi?

Thanks, George, and good morning, everyone. Since our last call, we've outlined -- we've continued to make excellent progress developing and diversifying our Interactive business. I'd like to begin with an update on the overall platform, starting with Bet.Works, that will serve as the anchor asset for the Bally's Interactive division and underpin our mobile sportsbook launches.

While we're still awaiting regulatory approval for the acquisition, which we expect will occur next month, we are actively working towards officially launching our Bally Bet.Works sportsbook in our first market, Colorado, by the end of the month. In addition, the team is working on a road map for at least 3 additional state launches throughout the course of the year. While the focus this year would be to get our product launched with very limited marketing, it will allow us to test and deploy our new product features, along with media integrated across broadcast TV stations and a recently rebranded Bally's sports artisans. Following these initial launches, we expect we will begin to layer in additional states throughout 2022 while positioning us well in key markets to take advantage of a full sports calendar.

In addition to Bet.Works, we've been strategic in acquiring complementary platforms, with recent additions of Monkey Knife Fight, the fastest-growing daily fantasy sports platform in North America; and SportCaller, a leading global B2B free-to-play game provider. Monkey Knife Fight provides us with market-leading fantasy sports content and a brand whose squared database will be developed and leveraged to support the launch of our (inaudible) platform.

SportCaller will enable us to launch our own suite of free-to-play games this year for interactivity within the newly launched Bally's sports app and/or the Bally's [sport artisans]. These top-of-the-funnel opportunities will allow us to acquire new players at a significantly lower cost and engage with our existing database of players throughout the Bally's ecosystem.

Together with Sinclair, we are advancing our vision to change the paradigm of sports viewing by creating new and engaging lean-in experiences for the sports fans across the country. The first step in the journey was the April 1 rebranding of Sinclair's 19 former FOX regional sports networks to Bally Sports. Bally Sports is the home of more than half of MLB, NHL and NBA games in the U.S., thus providing Bally's brand with tremendous exposure.

The recent launch of the Bally Sports app is part of the first phase of a major investment that Bally's sports is making into the expansive digital ecosystem designed to generate interest and engagement with fans throughout the day. The app provides continuous video content and our other RSN programming, keeping fans coming back throughout the day and driving increased interest in upcoming games.

We are pleased with the early reactions to Bally Sports launches and expect more exciting upgrades to these assets as we continue to gamify the sports reading experience. Rebranding the RSNs was an integral part of our overall corporate rebranding initiative, and we continue to make progress to rebrand our brick-and-mortar properties under the Bally's name. We plan to provide greater detail on that process over the coming months as the rollout officially begins.

We also recently announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Sinclair to collaborate on programming Interactive content on the RSNs and Sinclair's other platforms, which includes the tennis channel and stadium assets. We will work together to facilitate the production and broadcast of Bally's produced content during nongame windows. We're confident that the engagement opportunities we will create will elevate the live viewing experience as our interactive content gamification strategy continues to evolve.

In addition to our partnership with Sinclair, we've also formed sports betting partnerships with MLB, NBA and NHL. These partnerships provide us with access to official league and team marks, logos and data. Access to these assets will enable us to enhance fan engagement with their favorite teams.

Now let's turn to our recently announced combination with Gamesys. As we continue to work through the regulatory process in the U.K., we remain limited in what we are able to disclose at this time, but we're extremely excited with the acquisition's potential. Gamesys is a leading global online gaming operator, with #1 provider of bingo and casino games in the U.K. By bringing together Gamesys' proven technology platform alongside its highly respected and experienced management team, combined with the U.S. market access that Bally's provides, we will be well positioned to capitalize on the significant growth opportunities in the U.S. sports betting and iGaming marketplace.

We firmly believe that the combination has a compelling strategic and financial rationale and will result in long-term value creation. We were excited to be able to speak with investors and analysts about the announcement during our recent equity offering roadshow, and we look forward to providing additional details about the combination over the coming months.

Finally, I would like to provide a brief update on the status of our proposed joint venture with IGT. As was announced last week, there have been updates made to enabling legislation in Rhode Island, and we're optimistic, given the support of the legislator and governor, that will pass this quarter. We expect this legislation will be accretive to us and position us to compete more effectively in the region as we feel it will provide us with state-of-the-art VLTs and a mechanism for ensuring that we maintain a competitive slot flow well into the future.

The extended term associated with the legislation also gives us a horizon we need to support additional investment in our facility and amenities and would deliver a positive financial return for our shareholders even before taking into account any improved performance driven by our enhanced product offering. The proposed legislation would lock in a table game and VLT tax rates, cement marketing reimbursement dollars and allow for greater flexibility in the use of promotional credits through 2043.

And further, it would also result in favorable changes to our regulatory agreement in Rhode Island, including an increase in the maximum leverage ratio to 5.5x and greater flexibility of sale-leaseback transactions relating to Rhode Island assets.

I will now turn it over to Steve. Steve?

Thanks, Adi. I want to start with a quick update on our cash and liquidity. We ended the quarter with cash on hand of right about $150 million. We did recently increase our revolver from $250 million to $325 million. And at the end of the quarter, we had $75 million funded under the revolver. So remaining availability is $250 million, and that gives us total liquidity of just over $400 million. In addition, we generated cash flow from operations of a little over $25 million in the quarter.

On the CapEx front, our approach to maintenance and growth capital investment will continue to be focused and disciplined. For Q1, total CapEx invested was $15 million, of which $7 million was maintenance. That nonmaintenance amount, the $8 million, included just over $4 million of hurricane damage rebuild at Biloxi, which was covered by insurance proceeds received.

On April '20, we completed our public equity offering of 12.65 million common shares at a price of $55 per share. Total shares issued included 1.65 million shares from the full exercise of an over-allotment option. The proceeds from this offering, net of the underwriting discount, was $671 million. In addition to that equity raise, we also announced a sale of 909,000 warrants to Sinclair Broadcasting for $50 million. We have applied the net proceeds from these equity raises to pre-fund our anticipated combination with Gamesys.

With regard to that combination, and as we've said along the way, we intend to maintain optionality as it relates to the ultimate sources of funding and closing capital structure. As part of this process, we continue to discuss a private offering of equity-linked securities with a potential strategic investor who made an unsolicited offer some weeks ago.

Bear in mind, moderate leverage and abundant liquidity have enabled us to be opportunistic in acquiring assets, securing the related financing and growing the company. And so we won't be changing course on those priorities moving forward with Gamesys.

As George mentioned, we also announced the expansion of our relationship with GLPI through the proposed acquisition of the Tropicana Las Vegas. This is our second transaction with GLPI and, once completed, will result in 5 of our properties being leased from GLPI. While we do remain committed to outright ownership of a good portion of our real estate portfolio, this transaction is another example of our continuing to execute on an opportunistic basis. And of course, we're acquiring an asset on the strip in a debt-free manner with no cash out of pocket. Another recently announced M&A comp near the strip suggests our transaction is a good one.

And with that, I'll turn it back to George.

Thanks, Steve. Well, that concludes our prepared remarks for this morning. I will now ask the operator to open it up for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of John DeCree of Union Gaming.

I had one on games to start. I think in the prepared remarks, you've discussed possibly getting Bet.Works up and going sooner than perhaps closing. And given that Gamesys is a B2B provider, licensed in New Jersey, not sure how U.K. takeover laws would affect your launch. But could they get started in getting licensed in some of your other states? And could you get started as a B2B relationship in making some progress on the iGaming front as well?

Sure. Adi, why don't you take that?

Sure. John, thanks for the question. So yes, look, we are working with our colleagues at Gamesys. They're already licensed, as you mentioned, in New Jersey. New Jersey is on our road map for states we would be launching, and we will be looking to partner with them for our launch in New Jersey.

Is there any other states that you could get started on? Or would the focus just be New Jersey for now?

This is Craig Eaton. John, short answer is no. The transaction needs to be approved regulatorily in multiple states. Obviously, Gamesys could, on their own, get an approval, but we're in that transaction phase right now. That being said, we hope to close the strip. We're aggressively pursuing this transaction close.

That's helpful clarity. And maybe one for Steve on the financing package, as you kind of rounded out the prepared remarks and talked about your flexibility. We've kind of gotten a lot of questions over the last couple of weeks as to what that flexibility might look like, and we see your kind of cash flow generation in our model through the back half of the year as well as Gamesys.

So I was wondering if you could help give us a little color on how some of that flexibility might play out in terms of financing. You obviously have GLPI in your back pocket and a possible strategic investor. But as you think about some of the levers that you have to pull between now and potentially closing, I think that might be helpful.

Yes. John, look, I -- as you know, we're under 2.7 disclosure rules under U.K. Takeover Code. We can't go into a whole lot. I can tell you, we continue to emphasize optionality moving forward. Look, there are a lot of moving variables, right, including, on the closing date, LTM EBITDA. Our business is, as George commented, specifically, in March, but even for the whole quarter of Q1 and continuing into -- through April, our business is rebounding with considerable strength. Gamesys has had reported recent results of similar strength.

So the denominator in the cash flow leverage equation is an important piece of the puzzle, right? Because at the closing date, that LTM EBITDA will dictate how much leverage we are willing to put on the company. Also cash flow -- free cash flow generation, which is a function of that same denominator of LTM EBITDA, will be important from a sources of funding perspective as well.

Look, as well John, Adi commented about the IGT deal. While the IGT deal, if it gets passed in Rhode Island, does provide more flexibility to us and our capital structure at the closing date of Gamesys as well. So the variables floating around are numerous, and that's why we've been talking about optionality.

Look, the good news is the credit markets remain very strong. And we'll need those to consummate the acquisition, and so we're keeping a very close eye there as well. But look, John, it will be about optionality for us and getting the right capital structure with moderate leverage, which we've always maintained, and that will be our focus as we look to close the transaction.

Optionality is good. And I get the tough ones out early. I'll hop back in the queue.

Your next question comes from the line of David Katz of Jefferies.

This is [Cassandra] asking on behalf of David. So I know that there are other states that you would probably need to get market access to. How do sort of balance acquiring properties versus seeking partnership?

So I missed the last part -- [Cassandra], I missed the last part of your questions -- your question.

So in terms of gaining more market access to states, how do you balance acquiring properties or seeking kind of strategic partnerships with kind of existing operators there?

Sure. So this is more along the lines of sports betting and iGaming. So Adi, I'm going to pass it over to you and talk a little bit about not only kind of relationships, but also we're looking to enter states right now that have more of an open process and not necessarily related to access. So we're taking advantage of that as well.

But Adi, I'll turn it over to you.

Sure. [Cassandra], thank you for the question. Yes. Look, we're actively looking at states and regulations as they evolve and legislation as it evolves in different states. As you may have noted, we were able to secure market access both in Virginia and Iowa, 2 states where we don't have physical casino properties. And a wave of new states are enacting legislation as we speak. And a lot of what we're noticing is states are not tethering these skins, and they're open for folks to apply, and we are in those discussions and conversations and monitoring it very closely. Our goal is to get into as many states as possible. And we're aggressively working on that.

Got it. Appreciate it. And if I may add another one. So in terms of cost of customer acquisitions, we've heard other operators provide like various kind of data point indicating where they are, some like between like 100 to 600, we've heard. Where do you think you fall on that spectrum?

So I'm going to pass it over to you, Adi, but I'll just comment that we have, because of the significant portfolio of regional assets, we have 50 million people in our database. So the conversion rate of those customers, we feel, will be a lot less. But I'll turn the rest over to Adi.

Sure. [Cassandra], look, we've talked about this at length that we have built very significant top-of-funnel opportunities. We obviously haven't launched yet, so we don't have explicit guidance as to what the numbers are or will be just yet. But everything we've amassed today, from our free-to-play offering to DFS, ultimately converting to our Bally's bet sports betting platform positions us well to have a lower customer acquisition cost than what we've seen in the industry, along with the point that George just made around the conversion and cross-selling of the casino database.

In addition to this, I think it's important to note that our reach through Sinclair and all the different assets they have, both on broadcast TV side, the RSN side, along with the tennis channel, stadium and STIRR, the OTT platforms, positions us extremely well in the marketplace to capture different segments of the population and target them as we think about customer acquisition in the markets we launch.

Your next question comes from the line of Barry Jonas of Truist Securities.

This is actually [Matt Cole] in for Barry. Just 2 quick ones. Given all the recent deals, how are you guys thinking about sort of M&A here? And is this more of a focus on land, interactive or anything else you would highlight at this point?

Sure. I'll take that. Well, obviously, we've been very active. We'll continue to be opportunistic, but we're also going to be disciplined as we've been historically. We have a track record of acquiring pro forma at a sub-7x multiples, and we're going to continue to look for assets that we feel have upside as well as give us access to sports betting and potentially iGaming markets and, as Adi mentioned earlier, assets that complement our sports gaming or sports betting and iGaming initiatives like daily fantasy sports and free-to-play acquisitions, which we just closed on.

And then a follow-up here, just beyond the branding side of it, I think about how you expect to integrate sports betting or iGaming with the sports launching experience. I guess how do we think about the key differentiators?

Sure. Adi, do you want to take that?

Sure. So look, from a -- just outside of branding, I think it's important that we think about the integrations we get. So if you look at what we announced with Sinclair recently through our MoU, we also have the ability to program nongame windows with content that we think would cross sell well and/or help create our brand when it relates to our sports betting product or any product that the Bally's ecosystem would have.

But even with our current deal, we have exclusive rights to the integrations on the RSNs, where we have market access. And those integrations are from pregame, in game, post game, branding, et cetera, that allow us to target our audience with new content offering that helps us gamify the content and keep them coming back and/or have them stay engaged with us.

(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Stantial of Stifel.

This is actually Jackson Gibb on for Jeff Stantial. I want to start on the brick-and-mortar side of the business. I think what everybody is kind of trying to figure out this quarter is how much of the strength being witnessed in March and April are truly sustainable versus one-time given the environment.

You called out lack of alternative entertainment options in the release, but there's also stimulus out there and pent-up demand. How do you guys view consumer behavior shifting as we get into the second half of the year? And on the cost side of the business, what do you feel most confident can stay out versus which we should expect to come back in as things sort of normalize a bit?

Sure. I'll take that. Jackson, so we're certainly benefiting from providing an environment in which our customer feels safe. There's still, as you said, limited amount of entertainment options. But we view it long term that we're going to benefit from the considerable exposure that we're getting to a younger demographic, that really, from our perspective, realizes that our facilities -- our facilities really provide a lot of entertainment options.

And you had mentioned, and what we're starting to see now, that's even fueling this growth, is that we're starting to see a return of our older demographic, I'd mentioned earlier, 65 and older. Well, that's still substantially less than what we've seen historically. So we see a lot of upside still from that perspective.

As far as margins are concerned, we're experiencing about 500 basis points improvement on historical levels, pre-COVID levels. And we really feel that because we really were forced to shut down, that allowed us to reevaluate how we operate. And as we go back to the volumes of business that we're now seeing, we're able to do that more efficiently. As a result of that, we're seeing margins effectively starting to stick from our perspective. We're seeing that in labor. We're seeing that, in some cases, in marketing.

So we think a good portion of this improvement will remain long term. And it just really depends on how other operators or our competitors really react from a marketing perspective. And hopefully, they had a lot -- they learned as well as much as we did during this period and will be rational going forward.

Okay. Great. That's super helpful. So for a follow-up, I just wanted to switch gears to the online business. So as you think about the marketing and some of the development costs that it's going to take to get to a competitive level of market share here in the United States, should we expect the interaction -- the Interactive division to be EBITDA-negative for a significant period of time starting out?

Or should we expect some of the more mature Gamesys international operations to compensate or sort of offset the ramp to profitability here in the United States? Just curious how you're thinking about the dynamic between those 2.

I'll start and I'll pass it over to Adi. As we said earlier, we're limited to what we can say as a result of the U.K. code 2.7 disclosure. But I can tell you, aside from access to Europe and associated free cash flow that Gamesys does now, it gives us a proven iGaming platform, which we feel is complementary to our Bet.Works sports betting platform. And it's going to obviously put us in a lead position to capitalize on existing and future expansions of iGaming in the U.S. So we're looking forward to that.

As far as -- Adi, why don't you take the B2B from Bet.Works as well as kind of give a little idea of how we're going to launch in the U.S.?

Sure. Happy to do that. Thanks for the question. Look, I think what we would like to point you to is that we have been very thoughtful in our acquisition and building of the Interactive business. There are certain advantages we have that we think will help us reduce our reliance on heavy marketing spend compared to peers and competitors in the space, one being that we have our own market access in most states. We also have our own proprietary technology stack.

And third, we have significant content and media footprint that gives us the impressions that we need to attract an audience. And more importantly, we have the ability to program content on the RSNs, where there are millions of viewers today of sports -- or sports viewers today that we could engage with and interact with through our content that we put on there.

Your next question comes from the line of Brett Andress of KeyBanc Capital Markets.

In terms of the apps -- in terms of the app rollout, it still seems like we're going to get the 4 states by football season this year, but you mentioned additional states into 2022. So maybe some more clarity on 2022. I mean, how many states could you get or are you targeting before the Super Bowl or March Madness next year?

Adi, why don't you handle that?

So thanks for the questions. Look, I think we talked about in our prepared remarks that we will be launching Colorado, which is our first market by the end of the month. We have a current road map for at least 3 more states this year. And we plan to obviously launch those 3 states and, if possible, launch more states.

Our goal this year is to get our product out, get it tested with limited marketing but, more importantly, test the integrations that we get across broadcast TV stations and RSNs. So that would position us well for 2022. So you should think about 2022 as a year where we have the full sports calendar. We would have multiple markets launched in '21 that we could expand upon in '22. And we would add additional states as either they open up or from our portfolio of market access that we currently hold.

Got it. Okay. And then just on Atlantic City, I think it did $6.5 million of negative EBITDA in the quarter. Is there any way to help us with how that property did in March and April? Maybe just we can get some kind of better run rate there.

Sure. I'll handle that. So obviously, we actually rushed to acquire this property well on occasion before 2021. So we closed on it kind of earlier than we probably should have because it really is a seasonal business, Atlantic City, but we wanted to get going with the integration of that property as well as to pursue sport betting and iGaming opportunities there.

So we've -- I mentioned the decoupling from the Caesars system. We got through that TSA arrangement there was probably one of the tougher transitions of the property that we have. Everything else went very smoothly. So we just -- we needed to kind of roll out of that. And we just implemented our marketing calendar in mid-February there. So we're now starting to see the benefits of that, particularly in March. And still it's not the season until you really get into the summer season there.

So we're looking to bring it to profitability in the second quarter, which was always our plan, which was really related to really starting to enter into the summer season. And then as you know, in that market, the third quarter is really where you make the majority of your free cash flow. So we feel comfortable there, and I have Phil Juliano on the line. So if you want to add anything to that, Phil, from a marketing perspective, that may be helpful.

Thanks, George. Yes, we see the momentum happening. The programs are maturing. The customers are responding. The capital is being prepared. We're telling a story about the capital that is to come and be finished. We'll open a restaurant, which is a branded restaurant that we've Jerry Longo's Meatballs & Martinis will open at in about a week, followed by another restaurant in July, which will be a 3-meal restaurant up on the sixth level.

So those things have to happen. Customers need to see that. We'll start the renovations of our rooms in August. And some people would say, why August? Well, because the sooner we get the rooms renovated, the better we'll do. And we're also enhancing our player development staff. We have some new hirees coming on board and -- new hires coming on board.

And so I like the momentum. We're moving in the right direction. And we're also taking a deep dive into expenses and making sure that we find every opportunity to enhance the bottom line.

Your next question comes from the line of Lance Vitanza of Cowen.

This is [Jonathan] filling in for Lance. So my first question is, to what extent does beating consensus estimates reflect the inclusion of properties in the first quarter 2021?

So Steve, you want to handle that? I talked a little bit about same-store and the improvement, but we added some properties in 2021 that were not comparable in 2020.

I actually missed the question. Would you repeat it again?

Yes. Sure. So to what extent the consensus beating the consensus reflect the inclusion of properties that were acquired during the first quarter?

Well, I think consensus was inclusive -- generally inclusive of those properties because -- just because we -- that information was pretty well known. So we consider those to be one and the same. But look, we -- George commented on this in his initial comments that the same-store beat year-over-year was up 80%. And consensus doesn't really break that down, if you will.

So listen, the beat was significant on same-store. The newly acquired properties folding into the portfolio have -- we just commented about Bally's AC, but across the portfolio, even the brand-new properties in the portfolio, have ramped up nicely in this -- as the vaccinations for COVID take hold and we have approached more of a stabilized post-COVID environment, we're seeing strength even in the new properties, some setting records in their all-time performance. So strength across the portfolio. Bally's AC is the outlier at the moment. We've talked about that. But portfolio is shaping up very well.

Got it. And a follow-up for me, just regarding the (inaudible) game market. Steve, for instance, like they're having some -- they're teaming up with like the AZ Diamondbacks. Like how should we look with regards to the market share with Bally's? Like should it be like the big 4 owning 90% share and then Bally's and others eyeing for the remaining? Or like how are you guys viewing the market share?

We certainly -- I'm going to turn this over to Adi, if we want to get granular, I don't know that we do at this point in time, but we're certainly as you can see, we've assembled the third largest portfolio of casino assets in the U.S. We own our own technology stack. We added the Bally's brand. We talked about the significant relationship with Sinclair, really the #1 portfolio live sports rights that we recently added daily fantasy sports and Monkey Knife Fight and free-to-play. And Gamesys completes us as far as key technology and personnel. So we feel that we're extremely well positioned, and we're positioning ourselves to be a leader in that space.

And I'll echo what George just mentioned. Look, we think that we will be a major player in the space. We are having similar conversations to the ones you pointed out. Obviously, Arizona is an important market, and you referenced to Diamondbacks. As you may note, in Arizona, we have 3 RSNs through the Sinclair relationship. All 3 of them are Bally's sports branded, Bally's sports Arizona today. And we are looking into team relationships and partnerships as legislation evolves and schemes are tethered to teams and are open.

So in every market where there's an opportunity for us to partner with our Bally's sports colleagues, we are partnering with them, and are going direct based on what the legislation allows us to do.

Got it. And just a last one for me before I get back to queue. I just wanted to give a little more commentary about betting in Virginia. We thought that you guys have done a tremendous amount of work. So kind of wondering like, I guess, get a sense of what happened here?

Well, we certainly are not in the minds of who the people and the committee are. We entered into the process a little late, so we're a little disadvantaged from that perspective. There's other parties that were on the ground a lot longer, particularly parties that are doing business in and around that market. But certainly, we felt we had the best economics for the city as well as the state.

We had the best location with the best infrastructure that we felt could drive the most business to that market. And it just was a decision that they made. We're not going to get into any specifics of that. But we put our best foot forward, and we felt really good about what we provided through the RFP process for the city.

At this time, there are no further questions. I'll now turn the call to George Papanier for any additional or closing comments.

Sure. Well, thank you, operator. Again, I wanted to thank you for joining us on today's call and for what has been a very successful first quarter and as we look forward to continuing this momentum into the second quarter.

This does conclude today's Bally's first quarter 2021 earnings call. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.