A year ago the end of a winning streak for punters prompted Paddy Power owner Flutter Entertainment to boost its full-year profit forecast for 2025 to $3.3 billion (€2.9 billion) from an earlier prediction of $3.18 billion.
The Irish-based gambling giant’s shares traded at more than $300 on the New York Stock Exchange, aided by news that Flutter had generated $100 million more cash than expected in the three months to June 30th, 2025.
On Thursday, its shares hovered around the $92 mark, two-thirds less than 12 months ago. Earlier this week, its chief executive Peter Jackson announced his departure in favour of Dan Taylor, head of the group’s international business.
The New York-listed gambling group reported that it lost $296 million in the three months ended June 30th.
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Flutter cut its full-year profit forecast to $2.66 billion from the $2.87 billion it flagged in May. It was the fourth consecutive quarter in which the group told investors profits were likely to be lower than expected.
August 2025 was the last time it forecast profits would beat expectations. Looking back, it seems as if its customers were not the only people facing the end of a winning streak.
Flutter bet big on the US following a 2018 federal supreme court ruling allowing individual states to liberalise sports betting.
The Irish company bought local player FanDuel, using it as a vehicle to establish online sports betting in each jurisdiction as they opened up, often taking the biggest slice of the market.
That momentum turned the US into its single biggest division. It accounted for $1.7 billion – 40 per cent – of the $4.3 billion revenue Flutter reported this week for the three months to the end of June.
[ Flutter shares slump as CEO Peter Jackson to leave gambling giant next monthOpens in new window ]
Analysts put the startling turnaround over the past year down to a combination of increased competition and slower-than-expected growth in the US, its biggest market, along with extra tax and regulatory costs in other territories.
So-called prediction markets, led by Polymarket and Kalshi, have emerged as the biggest competitive threat. These businesses allow punters to bet against each other on everything from sports to the second coming.
They have been around for a while, but grabbed some limelight during the 2024 US presidential election, when several punters bet large sums at short odds on a Trump win, running counter to opinion polls.
His win helped trigger a rise in their popularity through 2025, allowing them take market share from established sports betting businesses.
Some analysts argue that Flutter missed a trick, as it already had a business that could have countered this in betting exchange Betfair, one of the businesses that forms part of the group’s Irish and UK division.
Betfair and prediction markets allow clients to bet against each other so are classed as “peer-to-peer” services. However, the betting exchange is a good deal more advanced than the prediction markets, so other observers say it is not comparing like with like.
Despite predictions when Betfair and other betting exchanges launched early this century, they never displaced traditional bookmaking, which customers continued to favour. “They could have peaked,” the analyst says of prediction markets.
Flutter has its own prediction market, FanDuel Predicts, which analysts at Jefferies Equity Research suggest will have a positive impact this year.
The group plans to spend $270 million on FanDuel, which will include improved products and more spending on winning new customers. The investment is part of the reason it reduced its profit forecasts this week.
One analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity, argues that the US betting market has not grown as quickly as many in the business predicted over the past year. “Most people had been very bullish, but the market definitely slowed down,” he says.
It is not clear if that simply means the market is levelling off following the growth sparked by liberalisation, or if consumers were simply reining in spending.
Either way, it added to the other challenges the Irish group faced. But he notes that Flutter still holds leading positions in most states where it trades.
Overall, $39 of every $100 bet on sports in the US is wagered with Flutter, while it has 27 per cent of digital gaming there.
Outside the US, its business faced increased taxes in the UK, a key market, from April, and a ban on online betting in India.
These developments added to costs, but the non-US divisions performed well overall in the three months to June. Revenues in Ireland and Britain, Flutter’s “home” territory, rose 7 per cent.
Flutter’s share price shows investors remain wary. However, some analysts are prepared to believe the worst could be over. “People love to gamble,” says one, “it will come back to growth.”
