Flutter’s US Q4 results hit by NFL favourites winning

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SkyBet and Paddy Power owner Flutter has blamed the decrease in its US Q4 results on ‘the most customer friendly NFL results in 20 years’.

The world’s biggest online gaming company, that is listed on the London Stock Exchange and owns FanDuel, revealed its US revenue for the last quarter of the year is down $390m (£313m) due to the favourable NFL results. 

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In its report for the period, the company stated that: “The 2024/2025 NFL season to date has been the most customer friendly since the launch of online sports betting with the highest rate of favourites winning in nearly 20 years.”

The company also revealed it suffered its biggest one-day loss on 30 December when the Detroit Lions beat the San Francisco 49ers by a scoreline of 40-34. That one result cost the company £59m, with many punters enjoying successful parlays and multi-game parlays.  . 

Flutter revealed that out of the 256 games to take place in this NFL season, to the end of December, 184 of them were won by the favourites, which works out to be around 72%. In the last three months of the year, that percentage rose to around 77%. 

The company added that games this season had seen more points scored too, a trend that favours customers who tend to prefer to bet on offensive returns as opposed to low-scoring affairs. 

All this means that the EBITDA of Flutter’s US results for Q4 is likely to be down $260m (approximately £210m) than previously estimated. 

Therefore, for the entirity of 2024, revenue for the company as a whole would now drop to around $5.78bn (approximately £4.6bn). To add, spending on attaining new customers has dropped due to the customer friendly results. 

Shares in Flutter Entertainment were down 1.51% today, at the announcement of the news. 

Despite the unfavourable results in the US, Flutter’s UK&I market recorded favourable results in the Premier League which lead to 2024 global revenue to be up approximately 1% to 2%. 

This comes off the back of the company’s strong performance in Q3, when the company announced global revenue rose 27% to $3.25bn (approximately £2.62bn). 

As well as that, on 25 September 2024, the company held an Investor Day where they wanted to showcase the opportunities of success. As a part of that opportunity, Flutter mentioned that FanDuel is a ‘US Market Leader’ and provides its online sportsbook in 23 states. 

The company claimed that, since its launch in 2018, the platform has invested over $10bn (approximately £8.1bn) on its product and marketing services. 

Flutter confirmed that a more detailed update on their Q4 performance will be provided in their annual 2024 reports, which are due to be released on 4 March.