Flutter CEO: Strong UK results due to product and rivals playing catchup
Peter Jackson says safer gambling measures put in place before competitors has given firm the edge at the start of 2023
Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson has claimed the firm’s proactive approach to safer gambling measures and top-class tech were the core reasons behind the group’s impressive performance in the UK and Ireland during Q1.
Following the release of the group’s quarterly update yesterday, Jackson fielded questions on a subsequent analyst call and lifted the lid on the secret behind the somewhat unexpected growth.
Flutter’s UK and Ireland arm, which includes Sky Betting and Gaming, Paddy Power, Betfair and Tombola, saw revenue jump by 17% to £608m on a constant currency basis.
Additionally, average monthly players were up 11% to four million, while online gaming revenue (17%+) and online sports revenue (16%+) both surged.
The FTSE 100 firm seemingly bucked the trend that has been common in the market, with revenue slipping amid a greater drive to safer gambling and the cost-of-living crisis.
In fact, rivals Entain saw net gaming revenue in the UK down by low single digits and 888 saw online revenue dip by 9% during Q1 to £167m.
Jackson said Flutter was “outperforming” in the UK and that his was pleased with the performance, before diving into the dual catalyst for the outcome.
The CEO said: “It’s quite hard to separate how much of it is product and how much of it is competitors belatedly trying to implement the safer gambling initiatives that we’ve already undertaken.
“If you had to guess you might say half and half. I think, from a product standpoint, with the 4,000 engineers, I wouldn’t want to be trying to catch up with us because we continue to race ahead,” he added.
Additionally, Jackson touched on the impact of the white paper into the Gambling Act 2005 review, namely affordability checks, which the operator has been implementing already, albeit at a higher ceiling.
The proposals in the white paper include non-intrusive financial checks at “moderate” and “higher” spending levels
Jackson said that while the number of customers who will be subject to checks will rise, the actual impact on them should be minimal.
He said: “The new thresholds are clearly going to result in a larger proportion of our customer base being subjected to the frictionless checks and being assessed with spending levels and at-risk behaviours than we would undertake at the moment.
“We’ve got a very well developed and extensive player protection framework and we’ve been enhancing [it] over the last few years.
“I think there will be a step up in the volume of customers we engage with, but actually, there’s going to be new solutions available to us, which will be genuinely frictionless. And so there should be no impact on customers as a result of that,” he concluded.