Quarterly reports in iGaming are noisy. Revenue jumps around with sports results, new markets launch and close, bonus costs fluctuate and regulation changes the rules mid-game. For investors, analysts and industry insiders, it’s hard to see which companies are genuinely strong and which are just having a lucky quarter.

The Quarterly Earnings Strength Score (QESS) is a simple 0–100 score that cuts through the noise. It blends growth, profitability, customer health and GEO risk into one comparable metric, so you can quickly see who is leading the pack – and who deserves a closer look.

What the QESS calculator does

The QESS calculator takes the key signals from an iGaming company’s latest quarterly report and turns them into:

• Strength score (0–100)
• Quality band: Excellent, Solid, Early warning or Risky
• Traffic & margin sustainability view
• A mini peer-comparison chart vs sector median and top quartile

With one snapshot, you get a feel for whether a company’s story is built on sustainable fundamentals or on short-term volatility.

Inputs: what you feed into the model

The calculator is built specifically around how iGaming companies report:

• Revenue YoY growth
  How total revenue moved compared to the same quarter last year.
• EBITDA YoY growth
  Whether operating profit is growing with – or lagging – revenue.
• Net profit margin
  Net income as a percentage of revenue, capturing bottom-line efficiency.
• Casino GGR/NGR growth
  Core casino performance on a like-for-like basis.
• Sports GGR/NGR growth
  Sportsbook performance, where volatility from results can hide underlying trends.
• Active customers growth
  Whether the customer base is expanding or standing still.
• Churn rate
  How many players the company is losing over the period. High growth with high churn looks very different to high growth with loyal users.
• GEO exposure (regulated vs grey)
  A rough classification of the company’s market mix: Tier 1 regulated, broadly regulated, mixed, grey or high-risk.

You can fill it manually from the quarterly report or from the earnings summaries you publish on your site.

How the score is built

Under the hood, QESS combines these inputs into several sub-scores:

• Growth score – based on revenue and EBITDA growth plus casino/sports vertical performance.
• Profitability score – using net profit margin and EBITDA dynamics.
• Customer health score – combining active customer growth with churn.
• GEO risk score – a premium or discount based on whether exposure is mostly regulated Tier 1 or heavily grey/high-risk.

Each component gets a weight reflecting how investors typically think about quality:

• Growth and EBITDA matter
• Profitability still counts – especially in a higher-rate world
• Customers and churn tell you how sticky the story is
• GEO mix decides if the multiple deserves a premium or a haircut

The result is a single 0–100 score you can use to rank companies against each other or track them over time.

Reading the quality band

Alongside the raw score, the calculator gives a qualitative band:

• Excellent (≈80–100)
  Strong, broad-based performance with good margins, solid customer metrics and acceptable GEO risk.
• Solid (≈65–79)
  Healthy, investable profile. Some areas may need watching, but no obvious structural red flags.
• Early warning (≈50–64)
  Mixed picture. Growth, margins or customer health are not aligned. Worth a deeper look before committing capital.
• Risky (<50)
  Weak or deteriorating fundamentals, high GEO risk or a combination of both. Stories in this zone can still be interesting, but require a very clear thesis and tight risk management.

Traffic & margin sustainability score

The QESS calculator also highlights sustainability, focusing on:

• Vertical growth balance (casino vs sports)
• Active customers growth
• Churn levels

This is shown on a simple “Fragile → Strong” meter with an accompanying text summary. A high strength score with a fragile sustainability reading usually signals a quarter boosted by favourable sports results, isolated campaigns or one-off factors.

Peer comparison snapshot

To make the score more intuitive, the calculator includes a mini peer chart with three lines:

• The company’s own score
• A sector median reference (stylised around ~60)
• A top-quartile reference (stylised around ~80)

You can later calibrate these benchmarks using your own panel of listed operators, affiliates and suppliers. The visualization makes it easy to see if a company is truly best-in-class or simply “fine”.

How investors can use QESS

1. Screening and shortlisting

When you publish multiple quarterly earnings rundowns on your site, attach a QESS score to each company. Investors can instantly:

• Compare operators vs affiliates vs suppliers
• Spot consistently strong names
• Identify turnaround or contrarian stories worth deeper analysis

2. Tracking story consistency

By running QESS each quarter for the same company, you build a time series of strength scores. Sudden drops or gradual erosion often appear in QESS before the share price fully reacts.

3. Context for qualitative commentary

The calculator doesn’t replace reading the report – it organises it. Your editorial analysis can reference the score:

• “Betsson delivers another ‘Excellent’ quarter on QESS with strong casino growth and disciplined costs.”
• “Operator X lands in ‘Early warning’ territory despite headline revenue growth, driven by higher churn and margin pressure.”

How industry insiders can use it

• IR teams and CFOs can see how their numbers might be perceived externally in a quantitative way.
• Sell-side analysts can use the score as a sanity check against their own models.
• Brokers and M&A advisors can incorporate QESS into pitch decks and target screens.
• Founders in private companies can benchmark themselves against listed peers using the same logic.

Limitations and caveats

QESS is deliberately simple. It does not attempt to replace:

• Full valuation models
• Cohort-based LTV analysis
• Detailed regulatory and legal risk work
• Cash flow modelling or balance sheet analysis

It’s an x-ray, not a full MRI. Use it to decide where to spend your real analytical effort.