Two-to-one
Flutter Entertainment, one of the world's largest gambling companies and the owner of FanDuel, made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.
The move makes Flutter a dual-listed company, trading on both London and New York’s markets — although the company is looking to pivot its primary listing over to the States "as soon as practicable". Making the US-centric transition would reflect the company’s broader ambitions to go all-in on the American market, which has boomed since the Supreme Court delegated the decision of legalizing sports betting to individual states in 2018.
Doubling down
Just a week after the Supreme Court ruling, Flutter’s management took a gamble, exchanging its own US assets — reportedly worth $612m — and $158m in cash for a ~60% stake in a newly combined entity with FanDuel. That bet has paid off. Sports betting has soared, with the US market now accounting for 43% of the company’s business, up from just 12% in 2020 — mirroring the rapid expansion of the industry as a whole, which has grown more than 5x to some ~$8 billion in just 3 years.
Although online sports gambling is yet to be legalized in some 26 states, several of these are expected to soon follow suit, strengthening the odds that Flutter will deepen its US expansion.
