FanDuel parent Flutter announced a change at CEO as the company cut its guidance for the second time this year.
Peter Jackson said the time is right for him to step down in the company’s second quarter earnings release on Wednesday. Dan Taylor, the CEO of Flutter International and Flutter’s president since May, will take over on Oct. 1.
“After nearly nine years as CEO, I believe this is the right point in Flutter’s journey for me to hand over the leadership of the business to Dan,” Jackson said. “In my time as CEO Flutter has changed beyond recognition, transitioning from a UK-focused Paddy Power Betfair, into the world’s leading online sports betting and iGaming operator, with market leading positions in the US and around the world.
“Having worked closely together for years, I am confident Dan and the leadership team will continue to build on Flutter’s success. I will help the transition during Q3 as we prepare for the important NFL season and hand over fully at the end of the quarter.”
Shares of the FanDuel parent are down more than 7% in premarket trading so far.
Another big change for Flutter
Jackson stepping down and transitioning into an advisory role is not the first major switch for Flutter this year.
Taylor took over as president of Flutter after Christian Genetski was selected to replace Amy Howe as FanDuel CEO in May.
That shakeup happened after Jackson admitted on Flutter’s year-end earnings call that the company failed to invest properly in promotions to align with the high hold the business was seeing, which led to customer churn.
“It’s fair to say we didn’t execute our generosity strategy like we wanted to,” Jackson said at the time. “We should’ve pushed harder.”
Why lower the guidance again?
Simply put, Flutter is still looking to reverse those customer losses from the fourth quarter.
Underlying sports betting performance was near internal expectations for the second quarter, with average monthly players, handle and revenue outside of sports outcomes improving compared to the first quarter. There is still work to be done, though Jackson noted the third quarter was off to a positive start due to the World Cup.
“While this sequential improvement in underlying trends is encouraging, our H1 performance also reflected a continuation of the market-wide trends observed since Q4 2025, when a long sequence of customer-losing weeks resulted in high levels of customer churn,” Jackson said in his letter to shareholders. “As a result, underlying market growth remained subdued during H1. While we firmly believe market growth will ultimately return to higher levels, with more compelling content driving stronger customer engagement, our forecasts prudently assume market growth rates in H2 will be broadly consistent with the mid-single digit growth seen in H1.
“The US leadership team changes implemented in H1 are designed to ensure we are positioned to deliver improved performance through a more competitive customer-led proposition. Crucially, the encouraging signs we now see in our performance give us the confidence to increase investment in customer acquisition and retention.”
FanDuel now expects $760 million in U.S. adjusted EBITDA from $7.4 billion in revenue. Those figures are down $210 million and $395 million, respectively.
FanDuel: Q2 by the numbers
Revenue fell 6% in Q2, which was attributed to an “adverse swing in results,” offsetting strong customer engagement seen from the NBA Finals and the World Cup.
The 15% drop in sports betting revenue was partially offset by online casino revenue growing 14%. Average monthly online casino players also jumped 14% as total average monthly players grew 9% to 3.8 million.
While sports handle grew 2%, net revenue margin fell to 8.7% on multiple factors:
- Structural revenue margin up 0.4 percentage points to 14% due to “high levels” of same game parlays during the World Cup.
- A 0.7 percentage point impact from adverse sports results, accounting for a $21 million decline in revenue.
- Promotional spending increased 1.4 percentage points to 5.4% of quarterly handle thanks to new states and the World Cup.
Prediction markets change
FanDuel Predicts is incremental to the existing U.S. business and is growing the overall online gaming market, Jackson said. So far, predictions have led to “limited cannibalization” of existing customers in states with regulated sports betting.
Operational progress of FanDuel Predicts was “slower than expected” in the first half, Jackson said, but noted it is starting to gain traction. To help maintain that momentum, FanDuel will move all of its sports and novelties contracts to Crypto.com while continuing to provide financial markets from CME.
“This new exchange arrangement will ensure we can deliver new products at pace ahead of the NFL season start,” Jackson said. “Our ‘One App’ offering will also enable us to leverage FanDuel’s nationwide brand equity, driving both accelerated penetration and marketing efficiencies.”
Flutter expects $50 million in market-making revenue this year.
Phase 2 of cost savings plan
Flutter expects to save an additional $500 million in gross operating and capex costs by 2029.
That will help absorb pressures from inflation and free up cash to invest in revenue-generating initiatives.
The company is already on track to save more than $300 million by next year from the first phase of the cost cutting program.
