U.S Performance Pushes Flutter to ‘Upgrade’ Full-Year Forecast

Given its continued growth throughout the third quarter of the year, particularly within its U.S-based activities, gambling giant Flutter Entertainment have re-addressed their original financial projections. Furthermore, the group also expects its American segment – for the first time since its inception – to deliver full-year profit in 2023.

Indeed, an 82% year-on-year boost from its U.S efforts, coupled with its strategic acquisition of Italian online betting firm Sisal, has helped boost progressive revenues by 31% on the previous year. This development has sparked a re-calibration of the organizations full-year forecast, which is now set between $2.95-$3.2bn, in comparison to an initial estimate of $2.85-£3.1bn.

Despite the expectation of supercharged GGR figures, the company is still likely to incur a $300-$600m loss tethered to U.S exertions. However, given current takings, this hit on profitability won’t overly impact the full-year EBITDA. True, Flutter anticipates core group profits to hold within the £1.29bn-£1.39bn threshold it predicted at the beginning of the year.

Drilling down into Q3 numbers, the operator, whose subsidiaries include the likes of Paddy Power, Betfair, and Poker Stars, reached revenues of £1.891bn – a staggering uplift of over 450m on 2021’s like-for-like performance. It’s U.S successes between July and September were chiefly driven by FanDuel, who presided over a colossal 42% online market share, consolidating its position as North America’s largest sports betting platform. Flutter’s overall sportsbook revenues were 150% higher than the previous year, thanks to a widened customer reach, with licenses acquired for six additional states in the intervening period.

The only slight disappointment came via the group’s UK & Ireland retail arm, which saw a drop-off of 3% due to unseasonal weather and, in the UK, fixture cancellation due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

‘’We are really pleased with our performance in our U.S division since the start of the NFL in September, where we are now averaging over one million players on a regular NFL Sunday. In addition, we are seeing an increase in customer retention rates as our parlay products continue to grow in popularity, boosted by the start of the NBA season’’ said Flutter CEO, Peter Jackson, adding ‘’the ongoing momentum in our U.S division has led to an upgrade to our outlook for the year, underpinning our confidence that we will be profitable in 2023.’’