Flutter (FLUT) stock soared as much as 8% to an all-time high as the company announced a $5 billion share repurchase program and projected the US online gambling market will grow by nearly 60% more than it forecast two years ago.
The company, which owns online gaming giant FanDuel, projects gambling in North America will be a $70 total addressable market when it reaches its mature state around 2030, $63 billion of which will come from the US. This is a noted move up from the mature market reach of $40 billion Flutter projected for the US at its investor day in 2022. Globally, Flutter estimates the total addressable market will reach $368 billion by 2030.
“We are the number one business here in America with FanDuel, number one in sports and number one in iGaming, and it gives us a lot of confidence around projecting the size of the market,” Flutter CEO Peter Jackson told Yahoo Finance.
Flutter announced Wednesday it expects revenue to increase 14% annually to reach about $21 billion in 2027, nearly double the $11.79 billion Flutter booked in 2023. Jackson noted that with nearly 60% revenue in the most recent quarter coming from outside the US, the company’s global footprint remains a key part of the growth story.
Flutter also recently announced a $2.6 billion acquisition of Playtech Plc’s Italian gambling business.
“The Italian acquisition, that was a transaction that we did to make sure that we became the number one player in Italy,” Jackson said. “We know that when we’re number one in the market, we make a disproportionate share of the economics. We capture more of that profit pool than other players do in the market.”
In the US, Flutter’s FanDuel is currently operating in 26 states, and projects that with its existing business FanDuel can reach $2.4 billion in EBITDA by 2027, compared to the $65 million seen in 2023.
“The existing states, the 50% of the Americans who live in places where they can bet on sports today, that’s a very valuable business,” Jackson said.
Key large states in the US like California and Texas have yet to legalize online mobile gambling, but Jackson believes more states will eventually join the market, providing Flutter with access to about 80% of the total American gambling market.
Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer.
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