Flutter Entertainment has revealed a £30 million (€35.6/$37.5 million) loss in revenue attributed to safer gambling measures while also reporting that online gambling revenues suffered a slump following the lifting of Covid restrictions.
the US market accounted for more than half of all stakes made through Flutter brands
The Paddy Power and Betfair owner revealed that first-first-quarter online revenues for the UK and Ireland fell by 20% year-on-year. The report notes that this decline is a result of favorable sporting results in Q1 of 2021 and the fact that both the UK and Ireland were in the midst of lockdowns during that time.
The group’s safer gambling measures were implemented ahead of a UK government white paper due to be published in the coming weeks. The white paper is expected to recommend a raft of safer gambling measures as the government conducts a review of the country’s gambling laws and industry.
Speaking of the expected publication of the white paper, Flutter chief executive Peter Jackson previously said he hopes it will “help to level the playing field and encourage other players to put in place similar measures”.
The Q1 update also showed that UK betting shop business bounced back and is currently almost at pre-pandemic levels. However, the report noted that the Irish betting shop chain will take longer to recover as it remained 24% lower than Q1 2019.
Overall, Flutter’s Q1 revenues rose by 6% to £1.6 billion (€1.9/$2 billion) in 2022 with the fast-growing US business, FanDuel, offsetting any UK losses due to the new safer gambling measures.
US revenues grew by 45% to £429 million (€510.3/$536.7 million) resulting in a 15% jump in average monthly players to 8.9 million worldwide. The report also noted that the US market accounted for more than half of all stakes made through Flutter brands in the first quarter of 2022.
Jackson said of the US performance:
“In the US we had another exciting quarter as FanDuel continued to deliver unparalleled scale, with the US accounting for over half of all stakes for the Flutter Group in Q1. We launched our FanDuel sportsbook in New York and Louisiana in January and also expanded into Ontario in April. We beat a number of FanDuel records in the quarter; Super Bowl Sunday was the single biggest day ever for new customers and we had over 1.5m active customers on the day. March Madness this year also proved our most popular season yet attracting 19m wagers across the tournament.”
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