BetMGM has delivered a first-quarter 2026 revenue figure of $696 million, up 6% year-over-year but landing approximately 9% below the Wall Street consensus estimate of $767 million.
The miss prompted the company to cut its full-year revenue guidance from $3.1 billion to $3.2 billion down to $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion, while maintaining adjusted EBITDA guidance of $300 million to $350 million at the lower end of that range.
The headline narrative from the April 14 earnings call centred on competition from prediction markets. CEO Adam Greenblatt addressed Kalshi directly by name, describing the prediction market platform’s advertising strategy as a deliberate attempt to poach sports bettors from traditional operators.
A report from Sensor Tower released in early April estimated Kalshi had captured a 21% share of monthly active users in the US sportsbook market, a figure that crystallised executive concern about the structural competitive shift underway.
Online sports betting net revenue of $203 million grew just 4% year-over-year, a pace that compares unfavourably to the 17% growth expected from DraftKings, 26% from Rush Street Interactive and 18% from Caesars’ online division for the same period. BetMGM’s sportsbook performance was complicated by what the company called “player friendly sports outcomes,” meaning the results of sporting events in Q1 were statistically favourable to bettors rather than to the house. The gross gaming revenue hold percentage came in at 8.8%, below the 9-10% historical average that management considers a more typical run rate.
Average monthly active users fell 9% year-over-year to approximately 597,000, with online sports monthly actives down 16%. Management maintained that this decline was partially by design, reflecting a strategy of focusing on higher-value players at the expense of volume. In online sports, handle per active user rose 23% and net gaming revenue per active increased 25%, supporting the argument that the remaining user base is more valuable even if it is smaller.
The iGaming division delivered $481 million in net revenue, up 9% year-over-year, doing the heavy lifting for overall results. Online casino growth has consistently outpaced sports betting for BetMGM and represents the more structurally defensible part of the business in the current competitive environment. An Alberta launch is confirmed for July 13, adding a new regulated market to BetMGM’s operating footprint in the second half of the year.
Adjusted EBITDA reached $25 million, up 11% from Q1 2025 but below the analyst expectation of approximately $34 million. The company reiterated a path to $500 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2027, which requires significant improvement across both revenue and margin metrics from the current trajectory. CFO Gary Deutsch acknowledged on the call that the guidance reduction reflected both Q1 performance and expectations for the remainder of the year in roughly equal measure.
