Flutter Lauds US FanDuel Casino Performance, Promises iGaming Product Upgrades

FanDuel Casino is the primary reason Flutter Entertainment‘s US iGaming market share rose to 21% in Q4 2022, complete with a 63% increase in players each month during that quarter. According to the March 2 Flutter earnings report, its US iGaming brands of FanDuel Casino, PokerStars, and Stardust will soon see improved products and player experiences as a result.

Dublin-based Flutter cited “exceptional US performance” in its 2022 results, spending the most time discussing FanDuel Sportsbook‘s status as the No. 1 US sports betting operator. It had 50% of the market share in Q4 2022, up 10% from Q4 2021’s 40%.

US sports betting revenue rose 115% in 2022.

However, Flutter – the primary owner of FanDuel – also highlighted the “podium position” of FanDuel Casino, PokerStars, and Stardust. The US iGaming brands are still outpaced by BetMGM. That operator announced on Jan. 26 that it had 30% of the US online casino market share in Q4 2022 and was still No. 1.

Flutter announced its revenue grew 67% in 2022 among its US brands – FanDuel, FoxBet, TVG, PokerStars, and Stardust.

The earnings report adds:

The US was our largest division by revenue in 2022.

That’s one of the reasons Flutter (Flutter Entertainment 24,79 -0,04%) is considering a US stock market listing. That would be a secondary listing.

However, Flutter can’t yet offer a FanDuel IPO, even though FanDuel Group represented 97% of US revenue in 2022.

The report says:

As previously disclosed, the legal arbitration process with Fox Corporation remains ongoing. As noted in our recent announcement, in the event that there is shareholder support for an additional US listing, this will take precedence over any plans to list a small shareholding in FanDuel.

Flutter’s US iGaming Brands Can Improve

Flutter’s US iGaming revenue only increased by 34% in 2022. Yet FanDuel Casino yielded a bright spot, showing that focus on that brand made a difference.

In July 2022, FanDuel hired the New York-based ad agency Mischief @ No Fixed Address to increase FanDuel Casino’s market share, add bettors, and grow brand awareness.

H1 2022’s US iGaming revenue was 31% higher, but H2 2022 saw a 37% rise.

Flutter credited “strong player growth and higher levels of engagement” for the overall 2022 US iGaming revenue increase.

However, the impact of the attention to FanDuel Casino is evident in the following sentence of the earnings report:

Our focus on acquiring direct casino customers, our broadened product portfolio, and the new FanDuel Casino brand strategy led to a step up in momentum, exiting the year with iGaming [average monthly players] AMPs up 63% in Q4.

A Mischief representative didn’t respond to a Bonus request for comment today.

Flutter to Increase Focus on US iGaming

Flutter plans to pay closer attention to the US iGaming brands in the future.

As the earnings report notes, US online casino and poker players will see marketing and advertising efforts aimed at them. They won’t be taken for granted as crossover sports bettors.

According to Seeking Alpha‘s transcript of the March 2 earnings call, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson said:

Look, on the iGaming side, we are the world’s biggest online casino operator.

If you look at our – the strength of our business in the UK, which is a fiercely competitive market, and those figures that [Flutter CFO] Jonathan [Hill] just quoted are clear in the presentation. We know how to run these businesses, and we’re very successful.

And look, we are our hardest critic. And I think, when we look at the quality of our products in the States, we knew it was not good enough. We have made some improvements to it, but there’s a lot more that we’re going to bring to the market. So we’re very pleased with the share gains that we’ve seen so far. But we’re not standing still from a product perspective. So we’re going to continue to make improvements, which we expect to enhance the offering we have in the market.

The earnings report had gentler language:

We have a clear strategy to improve our iGaming performance and grow our podium position, through increasing our focus on casino direct iGaming customers and improving our product range and player experience.

Although it is early days, we are pleased by progress to-date. Q4 customer player days were 1.5 times the comparable period last year, benefitting from the introduction of our FanDuel Casino daily Reward Machine in Q3.

As a result of those improvements, such as the Reward Machine, the report says FanDuel Casino’s Q4 2022 market share increased three percentage points over Q4 2021.

So for 2023, Flutter outlined “increased US product investment and Group investment in casino studios and shared platforms.”

Flutter also plans to add national advertising campaigns in mature US markets. Considering part of the FanDuel Casino marketing effort recently included commercials, new ads may be arriving this year in US online casino marketplaces.