Key Points
- Q3 revenue just tanked, 12% down to €8.5m, and the loss after tax shot up to €4.5m, even though GiG did manage to wring some more cash out of those lower operational costs.
- The fresh infusion of cash from 888Africa did boost GiG’s cash pile to €8.0m, but don’t get too excited, its net cash actually took a €1.8m hit over the first nine months of the year.
- And to top it all off, GiG’s August 2026 EBITDA forecast already assumed 888Africa would turn a profit for the whole last quarter of the year. Not too shabby…except it’s also a long way off the mark from the January target.
GiG has decimated its workforce, cut more than a quarter of its staff this year, but somehow still managed to rake up a bigger net loss. Q3 revenue fell off a cliff, 12% down to €8.5m, and the loss after tax shot up from €3.0m to €4.5m.
Now GiG is looking to the future, dreaming up a rosy picture for 2027 when it expects to bring in between €85million and €90 million. But between now and then is where the rubber meets the road for 888Africa, the big deal that’s got everyone talking. The question on everyone’s lips now is, will it make all the difference for the company?
Q3 Revenue Craters 12% As The Net Loss Just Gets Worse And Worse
According to GiG’s own Q3 results, the adjusted EBITDA was a paltry €0.8m, a far cry from the €1.2m it raked in last year. And the operating loss? Well that’s gone from €3.5m to a whopping €4.3m in just one year.
Over the first nine months of the year the loss after tax has gone up to €16.9m, a rise from €11.7m 12 months earlier.
EBITDA was just €0.4m and the operating loss was a nasty €4.3m. Then there’s the €4.7m in hidden costs below EBITDA that pretty much blew the whole profit for the year.
Cash on hand did get a welcome boost, €8.0m from €3.5m in late June, thanks to the 888Africa transaction, but the CEO Richard Carter reckons it’s all just a one-off and that 888Africa has “strengthened our financial position” for the whole group.
But if that’s the case then why did the group’s net cash slink back by €1.8m over the first nine months of the year? Last year at this time, the company had a cash pile of €9.9m.
GiG Chops A Quarter Off Its Workforce, But Sales Keep On Sliding
Over on the Q3 earnings call, the CFO Phil Richards said the company’s taken the axe to its headcount by more than a quarter this year. But the math behind it is pretty interesting, “using AI & operational efficiencies to protect delivery” basically means they chopped the staff but tried to keep things running as smoothly as possible.
Staffing costs did take a €1.0m hit, and recurring revenue did see a bit of a bump up to €7.1m, according to NEXT.io’s Q3 breakdown.
Still, all these changes somehow didn’t stop the company from bleeding cash. Revenue was down, and according to NEXT.io, GiG reckons that was all down to the toxic combination of client exits and lower set-up fees, courtesy of clients like Richmond Atlantic, who went belly up after getting caught out by UK tax changes hitting online slots.
The ITV slots and bingo site ITV Win shut shop on the 5th of May after Richmond Atlantic went toe-to-toe, and several of the suppliers were left with unpaid invoices.
Completion of 888Africa Deal As GiG Guidance For 2026 Is Revised
Last month, the gambling company GiG confirmed in its Q2 report that it planned to acquire 80% of 888Africa from Evoke for €16.4m. The latest Q3 results confirm that the deal was completed on 30 September, marking the end of the quarter.
The acquisition will bring cash on the GiG balance sheet. However, NEXT.io reports that it was completed too late to impact the company’s Q3 results.
The more noticeable change comes in the form of the revised guidance. As for 2026, GiG now forecasts total revenues between €45m and €48m, and the adjusted EBITDA ranging between €5.5m and €7m.
At the beginning of August, the company estimated its adjusted EBITDA range at €5m-7m. This forecast included the entire fourth quarter of operation of 888Africa.
Before the deal, in a January trading update, GiG provided a forecast of the adjusted EBITDA of €10m to €13m. The same figures were mentioned in the May Q1 report. It should be noted that the two forecasts are incomparable due to the acquisition.
As for 2027, which will be the first year of operation after acquiring 888Africa, GiG expects to achieve total revenues of €85m-€90m. In addition, the company projects the adjusted EBITDA to be €17m-€19m.
NEXT.io informs that the GiG shares increased by more than 22%. We have failed to find any explanation for the growth. Thus, we consider this figure only as the price of the stock at the moment, not as an assessment of GiG’s progress.
How GiG Got Here?
These Q3 results come after a tough year for the company.
On 19 November 2025, GiG announced that the Q3 2025 revenues rose by 31% to €9.7m. Then, on 15 January 2026, the company issued a profit warning along with redundancies in the technology department.
Furthermore, GiG’s first Brazilian partner postponed the launch due to tax and regulatory uncertainties.
On 26 August, the company reported Q2 revenues of €8.8m, 5% down from the previous year. During this quarter, GiG launched nine brands and signed three operators for the new regulated market in Alberta.
This release included information about €4.5m annualised savings already achieved. It also mentioned an additional savings program, which was launched in June and is expected to save €6m.
Annualised numbers reflect the savings on an annual basis at the current rate.
What the 2027 Goal Expects of 888Africa?
You’ve got to start with the bottom of GiG’s 2027 revenue target: €85m. So that’s roughly €21m per quarter if you divide that by four. The problem is GiG’s own business only managed €8.5m in Q3, so if that level stays the same then 888Africa would have to chip in roughly €51m over 2027 to help the group reach its target.
Of course, we can’t find a standalone revenue figure for 888Africa in the Q3 results, which makes it impossible to check our estimate against the business’s actual performance. That said, it does give you an idea of just how big the target is.
Carter put his foot in it when he said “With revenue now running above operating costs, incremental revenue flows through to cash.” That’s not exactly a fanfare, but it does give you some hope.
He’s predicting GiG’s core business will break even in Q4 2026. That’ll be the first time we’ll see some real numbers on how the old GiG business compares to the new, expanded group since the acquisition.
Expert Analysis: Three Numbers GiG Still Needs To Explain
The first thing that stands out is that the guidance has been changed around so much, GiG’s 2026 adjusted EBITDA target has fallen from €10m to €13m to €5m to €7m. And this lot includes a full quarter from 888Africa, a business the company says is already profitable.
That puts the revised target, €7m, at roughly 45% lower than where it started, even with the acquisition factored in. The truth is, GiG hasn’t said directly how much the core business has weakened, but it looks like it’s weakened more than 888Africa will offset, even if we can’t be sure about that.
And then there’s cash. On paper, €8.0m looks like a much stronger position, but that’s largely down to the inclusion of 888Africa. In reality, net cash actually fell by €1.8m across the first nine months, that’s a fact that gets lost in the headline cash figure.
We reckon it’s only fair that investors see the full picture, not just the cherry-picked bits.
We also need to know whether the insolvency of Richmond Atlantic, which is cited as a main reason for lower revenue, has been provisioned for. GiG has so far refused to confirm either way, which is frustrating.
Clarity on that point would go a long way.
And then there’s GiG’s argument about the benefits of AI. They like to say it’s helped improve efficiency by over 25%, but that’s a bit of a leap, you need to see some real evidence to back that up.
Just because GiG’s cut costs by slashing headcount doesn’t necessarily mean the AI has done the job it’s supposed to do. They still need to show how much of the savings came from AI and how much came from simply cutting back elsewhere, like ditching work in the Philippines, for instance.
A smaller company could say they’ve also cut costs like that and got similar results, but that’s a bit of a stretch.
On the other hand, there are some positives to consider, recurring revenue held up, costs are lower, and GiG reckons 888Africa is a very profitable and cash-generative business. If the core business does get back to break even in Q4, then all the current sceptics may have been too quick to write off GiG’s recovery.
Finally, there’s 888Africa itself. The company has got a great position in Mozambique and also operates in Angola and Tanzania, which is quite a strong platform to build on.
But here’s the thing, we’re talking about a B2B supplier taking over a consumer brand, and that brand’s performance is still heavily linked to just one market. That could either be a stroke of genius or a recipe for disaster. You can make up your own mind.
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