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Description of the Business and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2024

Basis of Presentation and Principles of Consolidation

The accompanying consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The accompanying consolidated financial statements include the accounts of L&W, its wholly-owned subsidiaries and those subsidiaries in which we have a controlling financial interest. All intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.

Use of Estimates

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ from those estimates.

Cash and Cash Equivalents and Restricted Cash

Cash and cash equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents include all cash balances and highly liquid investments with an original maturity of three months or less. We place our temporary cash investments with high credit quality financial institutions. At times, such investments in U.S. accounts may be in excess of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insurance limit.

Restricted cash

We are required by gaming regulations to maintain sufficient reserves in restricted cash accounts to be used for the purpose of funding payments to WAP jackpot winners. These restricted cash balances are based primarily on the jackpot meters displayed to slot players or for previously won jackpots and vary by jurisdiction. Compliance with maintaining adequate restricted cash balances and complying with appropriate investment guidelines for jackpot funding is periodically reported to gaming authorities. Additionally, restricted cash includes Gaming operation transactions collected on behalf of certain customers and funds that the Company designated as restricted associated with certain collections for Dragon Train game sales in which control of the units has transferred to a customer, but the title transfer is pending until the final payment is made.

Minimum Guarantees

Minimum guarantees under licensing agreements

We enter into long-term license agreements with third parties in which we are obligated to pay a minimum guaranteed amount of royalties, typically periodically over the life of the contract. These license agreements provide us with access to a portfolio of major brands to be used across our business segments in building our strong brand presence across multiple channels of distributions. We account for the minimum guaranteed obligations within accrued and other long-term liabilities at the onset of the license arrangement and record a corresponding licensed asset within intangible assets, net. The licensed

intangible assets related to the minimum guaranteed obligations are amortized over the term of the license agreement with the amortization expense recorded in D&A. The long-term liability related to the minimum guaranteed obligations is reduced as payments are made as required under the license agreement. We assess the recoverability of license agreements whenever events arise or circumstances change that indicate the carrying value of the licensed asset may not be recoverable. Recoverability of the licensed asset and the amount of impairment, if any, are determined using our policy for intangible assets with finite useful lives.

Other Assets

Other assets

We capitalize debt issuance costs associated with long-term line-of-credit arrangements and amortize such amounts ratably over the term of the arrangement as an adjustment to interest expense. Other assets also include the fair value of our interest rate swaps and other long-term deposits and investments.

We assess the recoverability of our other long-term assets whenever events arise or circumstances change that indicate the carrying value of the asset may not be recoverable.

Other Long-Term Liabilities

Other long-term liabilities

We record various liabilities with terms longer than one year past the balance sheet date, including income taxes payable, license liabilities, WAP annuity liabilities and contingent consideration liabilities.

Noncontrolling Interest

Noncontrolling interest

On October 23, 2023, we acquired the remaining approximately 17% equity interest in SciPlay not already owned by us pursuant to a merger (the “SciPlay Merger”) in an all-cash transaction of $496 million, excluding transaction fees and expenses. Prior to the SciPlay Merger, we owned a controlling financial interest in SciPlay, approximately 83% of SciPlay’s outstanding common stock, and we have consolidated SciPlay for all periods presented. The noncontrolling interest share of equity in SciPlay is reflected as noncontrolling interest in the accompanying consolidated financial statements for periods prior to October 23, 2023. As a result of SciPlay Merger, SciPlay ceased to be publicly traded and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of L&W.

Advertising Costs

Advertising costs

The cost of advertising is expensed as incurred and totaled $177 million, $160 million and $162 million in 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

R&D

R&D relates primarily to software product development costs incurred until technological feasibility has been established and costs that do not meet internal-use software capitalization criteria. Employee-related costs associated with product development are included in R&D. Such costs are expensed as incurred.

Other Income and Other Expense Disclosure

Other income, net

Other income, net for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022 primarily consisted of the following:


	Year Ended December 31,
	2024		2023		2022
Foreign currency transaction net loss	$	(6)	$	(29)	$	(13)
Interest income	20		34		17
Gain on sale of assets	28		—		1
Other, net	6		6		6
Total	$	48	$	11	$	11

Foreign Currency Translation

Foreign currency translation and Comprehensive income

We have significant operations where the local currency is the functional currency, including our operations in the U.K., Europe, Australia and Canada. Assets and liabilities of foreign operations are translated at period-end rates of exchange and results of operations are translated at the average rates of exchange for the period. Gains or losses resulting from translating the foreign currency financial statements are accumulated as a separate component of accumulated other comprehensive loss in stockholders’ equity.

Comprehensive Loss

In addition to unrealized gains and losses from our foreign currency translation adjustments, our comprehensive income includes the effective portion of derivative financial instruments designated as hedging instruments. For periods prior to 2023, comprehensive income also included net investment non-derivative hedge of our investments in certain of our international subsidiaries and certain gains or losses associated with pension or other post-retirement benefits, including prior service costs or credits and transition assets or obligations.

Discontinued Operations

We completed the Divestitures of our former Lottery Business and Sports Betting Business during 2022. For the sale of our former Lottery Business completed during the second quarter of 2022, we received $5.7 billion in gross cash proceeds and recorded a pre-tax gain of $4.6 billion. For the sale of our former Sports Betting Business completed during the third quarter of 2022, we received $793 million in gross proceeds and recorded a pre-tax gain of $359 million. We have reflected the prior period financial results of these Divested Businesses as discontinued operations in our consolidated statements of operations.

New Accounting Guidance

The FASB issued ASU No. 2023-07, Segment Reporting (Topic 820) in November 2023. The new guidance enhances reportable segment disclosure requirements. Public entities are required to disclose significant segment expenses and other segment items by reportable segment if they are regularly provided to the Chief Operating Decision Maker (“CODM”) and included in each reported measure of segment profit or loss. Additionally, disclosure of the titles and positions of the CODM is required on an annual basis, as well as an explanation of how the CODM uses the reported measure(s) and other disclosures.

We adopted this standard during the current fiscal year and applied it retrospectively to all prior periods as presented in Note 2. The adoption of this guidance did not have a material effect on our consolidated financial statements.

The FASB issued ASU No. 2023-09, Income Taxes (Topic 740) in December 2023. The new guidance enhances income tax disclosures, specifically as it pertains to the rate reconciliation, income taxes paid and certain other disclosures disaggregated by jurisdiction. The amendments in ASU No. 2023-09 are effective for all public entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2024, and early adoption is permitted. We are currently evaluating the impact of adopting this guidance.

The FASB issued ASU No. 2024-03, Income Statement—Reporting Comprehensive Income—Expense Disaggregation Disclosures (Subtopic 220-40) in November 2024. This new guidance requires public companies to disclose, in the notes to the financial statements, specified information about certain costs and expenses at each interim and annual reporting period, including purchases of inventory, employee compensation, depreciation and intangible asset amortization that is included in each relevant expense caption. This guidance also requires a qualitative description of the amounts remaining in relevant expense captions that are not separately disaggregated quantitatively, among other increased disclosures. The amendments in ASU No. 2024-03 are effective for all public entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2026, and early adoption is permitted. We are currently evaluating the impact of adopting this guidance.

We do not expect that any other recently issued accounting guidance will have a significant effect on our consolidated financial statements.