SuperPlay may be worth more than Playtika itself as gaming firm's market value hits record low
The gaming company's shares have fallen 25% in two days, leaving it worth about $1.1 billion as Tencent reportedly considers paying up to $1.5 billion for SuperPlay.
Playtika's newest growth engine is becoming increasingly difficult to value inside the company that owns it.
After reporting second-quarter results, Playtika's market value has fallen to about $1.1 billion, its lowest level ever. The stock has dropped roughly 25% over the past two trading days, underscoring investor concerns about the company's shrinking user base, weaker cash generation and the outlook for its older games.
At the same time, the Israeli gaming studio SuperPlay, which Playtika acquired for $690 million less than two years ago, is reportedly attracting interest from Chinese gaming giant Tencent at a valuation of between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.
That creates an unusual situation: SuperPlay could be worth more on its own than the entire public market value of the company that owns it.
SuperPlay has quickly become Playtika's most important growth story. Its Disney Solitaire game generated $142.4 million in revenue in the second quarter, up 15.5% from the previous quarter and 288.6% from a year earlier. The game has become almost as large as Playtika's longtime flagship Bingo Blitz, which generated $145.1 million in quarterly revenue.
Playtika acquired SuperPlay in late 2024 from founders Eyal Netzer and Gilad Almog, both former Playtika executives. The deal included $690 million in cash and an earnout that could reach another $1.25 billion depending on the studio's performance through 2027.
The better SuperPlay performs, however, the more Playtika may ultimately have to pay under that agreement. Playtika estimated its future contingent payments at $734 million at the end of 2025 and raised that estimate to $829 million in its first-quarter 2026 results. The company paid $350 million in contingent consideration during the first half of this year.
Now the company is facing an even more striking question: whether to keep SuperPlay or sell it.
Calcalist reported last month that Playtika was negotiating a possible sale of SuperPlay to Tencent at a valuation of between $1 billion and $1.5 billion. If completed at the upper end of that range, the proposed sale would be worth roughly 36% more than Playtika's entire current market capitalization.
The possibility comes as Playtika's broader business is showing signs of strain.
Revenue in the second quarter was $731.1 million, up 5% from a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA rose 23.4% to $206.1 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin jumped to 28.2%, from 16.8% in the first quarter.
But Playtika's average daily active users fell 9.1% year over year to 8 million, while average daily paying users fell 2.9% to 367,000. Bingo Blitz revenue fell 9.5% year over year.
The company also generated only $51.5 million in operating cash flow during the first half of the year, down from $164.9 million a year earlier. Free cash flow fell to $15 million from $119.6 million. Playtika ended June with $438.5 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, compared with $684.2 million at the end of 2025.
Playtika also has approximately $2.4 billion in long-term debt, with significant maturities coming in 2028 and 2029. It suspended its dividend earlier this year as it sought to preserve financial flexibility.
Against that backdrop, SuperPlay's performance is becoming even more important.
On the earnings call, CEO Robert Antokol argued that Disney Solitaire's growth shows that Playtika can build games whose players remain engaged after the initial marketing push.
"In the first quarter, we increased our investment to grow this game," Antokol said. "This quarter, we have a clear answer. We brought our marketing spending down and the game still grew."
CFO Tae Lee made the same point, saying Playtika had "made a significant reduction in Disney Solitaire marketing quarter-over-quarter and revenue still grew over 15% sequentially."
"Revenue that grows with new installs coming down, that only happens if the players are already in the game are staying and spending more," Lee said.
But that strength comes with an important caveat. Playtika deliberately front-loaded its marketing spending on SuperPlay's games into the first half of the year because of the structure of the earnout. As a result, the company expects SuperPlay revenue to decline sequentially in the second half even as the games continue to grow year over year.
Playtika said it plans to reduce overall SuperPlay marketing investment by roughly 70% in the second half compared with the first half.
"That reduction is also weighted towards the third quarter," Lee said. "The second half sequential pattern, it's not linear. It's timing. It's not trajectory."
Management nevertheless acknowledged that the company does not yet know how large Disney Solitaire can become.
"Right now, frankly, we don't know the full potential of Disney Solitaire," Lee said. "We're going to keep on growing this game, but we're going to do it in a way that's profitable."
That may be the central question for Playtika now. The company has demonstrated that it can create a rapidly growing new franchise, but it has yet to show that this growth can translate into a sustained recovery for the broader business.
Playtika is maintaining its full-year revenue guidance of $2.75 billion to $2.85 billion and adjusted EBITDA guidance of $750 million to $790 million. But management now expects to finish toward the lower end of both ranges, citing the planned reduction in marketing spending and weaker consumer spending.
The company's explanation for the weaker outlook was unusually direct. Lee said Playtika began seeing a slowdown in the industry during the second quarter, which it attributed to weakening consumer confidence and persistent inflation.
"We saw that step down from May to June," he said. "We have that level of seasonality every year. It's just that this year, we saw a step down that was greater than what's typical."
The contrast leaves Playtika in an unusual position. Its newest major acquisition is producing one of the company's fastest-growing games, while the parent company itself is worth less than the reported valuation of that asset.
Whether Playtika ultimately sells SuperPlay or continues to use it to rebuild the broader business, the market is now placing a remarkably low value on everything around it.
At its peak in February 2021, Playtika was valued at more than $13 billion. Today, after the latest selloff, the company is worth about $1.1 billion.
SuperPlay, meanwhile, was bought for $690 million and could reportedly command up to $1.5 billion less than two years later.
The question for Playtika is no longer simply whether SuperPlay can produce another hit. It is whether the company's most valuable growth asset can become the foundation of a recovery, or whether its value is greater outside the company that built its public-market value around it.
