• Canada first stop in international expansion
• Recent acquisition attempt didn’t materialize

Sightline Payments could raise capital next year to fund overseas expansion ahead of a possible initial public offering in mid-2025, said Andrew Crowe, senior vice president of investor relations and growth initiatives.

The Las Vegas, Nevada-based provider of payments services for operators of casino resorts and online gaming businesses is in the final stages of closing a small, unpublicized round, according to the executive, who declined to provide details.

Sometime early in 2Q24, the company plans to make some decisions about the scope, nature and timing of its plans to expand beyond North America. Depending on the path forward, more capital could be needed, Crowe explained.

“It would be both strategic, as well as funding and building out a new business line or a new geographic distribution for us,” he said.

With the legalization last year of sports betting in Ontario, Canada, a number of Sightline’s clients have begun operating north of the US border and the payments services provider has been expanding to meet that demand. Aside from Quebec, the Ontario market is largely English-speaking, and licensing and regulatory schemes around gaming and payments are relatively similar to those in the US, Crowe explained.

“That was our first foray into non-US,” he said. “It was really a good opportunity for us to establish that blueprint, if you will, for international expansion.”

The company could move into more foreign markets, and is considering places like the United Arab Emirates, where new gaming opportunities are opening up in Dubai.

Another possibility involves markets served by Genting Group, a strategic investor in Sightline and owner of Resorts World Las Vegas, as well as casinos in Malaysia, London and New York. “They have asked us to support them internationally,” Crowe said. Sightline has not ruled out other gaming markets, like Australia or newly opened Brazil and South Africa, he added.

Crowe did not specify whether the company will use M&A to expand geographically. However, he did say it pursued an acquisition target a few months ago that didn’t make it across the finish line.

“We went pretty far down the road [with a target] … and ultimately didn’t come to terms on it,” he said.

Crowe declined to provide additional details about the acquisition attempt or Sightline’s overall M&A strategy other than to say it is “looking at things that complement our business today or support what we’re doing, or take it in a slightly new direction.”

In 2021, it acquired JOINGO, a Las Vegas-based mobile engagement and loyalty platform for the casino gaming industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sightline projects it will reach a scale where it “will be ready” for an IPO sometime in the middle of 2025, Crowe said. Market conditions will influence the timing of a possible listing, he noted.

The company raised USD 370m across two rounds in 2021 with Cannae Holdings [NYSE:CNNE] investing USD 272m. Cannae and Searchlight Capital Partners are its largest investors, jointly comprising just over half of Sightline’s equity.

Other backers, according to Crowe, include Worldpay and JP Morgan Payments, the latter having been courted for more than a year before it made an investment of an undisclosed amount in October 2022. “The importance of having people that know payments and have influence with Visa and MasterCard, it can be a real asset to us,” Crowe said.

Management owns about 12% of the company, the executive added.

Founded in 2010, Sightline provides payment services enabling customers to increasingly engage in cashless gaming and shopping across brick-and-mortar casino resorts, and online gaming platforms. The company’s Play+ product powers customer financial transactions on the BetMGM sportsbook and online casino app, for example.

Other clients include the Station Casinos chain and Resorts World Las Vegas, which is among the early adopters of cashless gaming, where players can use a Sightline mobile app to obtain chips by scanning a QR code on the gaming table, Crowe explained.