Flutter Entertainment plc (FLUT) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Thank you for standing by. My name is Greg, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Flutter Entertainment Q2 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Paul Tymms, Group Director of Investor Relations. Paul?

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Flutter's Q2 update call. With me today are Flutter's CEO, Peter Jackson; and CFO, Rob Coldrake. After this short intro, Peter will open with a summary of our operational progress, and then Rob will go through our Q2 financials and our updated guidance for 2026. We will then open the lines for Q&A. Some of the information we are providing today, including our 2026 guidance, constitutes forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual outcomes or results to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. These factors are detailed in our earnings press release and our SEC filings. In addition, all forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required by law. Also, in our remarks or responses to questions, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations are included in the results materials we have released today available in the Investors section of our website. I will now hand you over to Peter.

Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before we get into the results, I wanted to say a few words about the announcement we made this morning. After nearly 9 years as CEO, this is the right time to hand over to Dan, and I'll be stepping down at the end of September. It's been an enormous privilege to lead this business, and I do so with tremendous confidence in Flutter's future and the team we've built and in Dan's leadership. One thing I've always tried to do throughout my time as CEO is to take a long-term view of how we create value for shareholders. That has sometimes meant making decisions that weren't universally welcomed in the moment because we believe they will strengthen the business over the long term. In 2019 and 2020, for example, we continued to invest heavily in FanDuel at a time when many questioned those decisions because of the impact on near-term earnings. Looking back, those investments proved to be the right thing to do. They strengthened our competitive position and laid the foundations for the business we have today. And we're making the same type of decision again today. We see a significant opportunity to invest behind our leadership in U.S. sports betting and iGaming, strengthening our proposition and positioning the business for future growth. We recognize that this weighs on near-term earnings, but we're convinced it's the right thing to do to maximize long-term shareholder value. With that, let me turn to our results. We've delivered an encouraging quarter relative to our expectations, and I'm pleased with the progress we're making across the business. In the U.S., we've implemented our new leadership structure, made good progress on our sportsbook improvement plan and further expanded our prediction market offering and capabilities. For H2, we'll be delivering an improved value proposition for our customers, a move we believe is critical to strengthening our #1 position in the highly competitive U.S. market, aligned with our new customer first strategy and better positioning the business for market share gains in 2027 and beyond. During Q2, U.S. revenue was 6% lower year-over-year, reflecting a 6 percentage point growth impact from customer-friendly sports results as the Knicks legendary win in June put some cash back in our customers' wallets in time for the World Cup. Customer engagement was excellent throughout the NBA finals and the FIFA World Cup. And even when you adjust for these marquee events, underlying sportsbook trends were in line with our expectations as our sportsbook improvement plan continues to deliver. We continue to see a limited cannibalization impact from prediction markets on our existing customer base in regulated sportsbook states. And we believe FanDuel's operational execution and outperformance, both in recent state launches and during key marquee events, confirms the strong demand for traditional sports betting products when sports content is compelling. We expanded our loyalty program to 70% of customers this quarter, which has helped with engagement metrics with 82% of customers surveyed saying the Rewards Club improved their experience and more than half saying it lifts their betting activity. We also introduced BetProtect+, our best-in-market injury protection feature and enhanced our soccer offering for the World Cup, leveraging the Flutter Edge to offer unique features such as SuperSub. And while FanDuel trends have been encouraging, the market continues to be subdued, and we estimate that the market grew by around 5% in H1. Although we continue to closely monitor the implications of the growth in prediction markets on the broader online sports betting market, we believe the market is yet to rebound from the disappointing NFL performance experienced in Q4 2025. We firmly believe market growth will ultimately return to higher levels with more compelling content driving stronger customer engagement. Though our forecasts prudently assume market growth rates in H2 will be broadly consistent with those seen in the first half. The U.S. leadership changes we recently implemented are working, and we are well positioned to deliver improved performance through a more competitive customer-led proposition. In fact, the encouraging underlying signs we're seeing give us the confidence to increase generosity to customers and improve our value proposition. And while this proactive action will result in a reduction in near-term profitability, investing behind customer momentum is an approach that has consistently served us well. This momentum and the current market dynamics mean now is the right time to move from a focus on margin growth to prioritizing AMPs and growing ARPU. This will position us well to extend our leadership in the U.S. market and capture further share in 2027. Turning now to prediction markets. We view prediction markets as an attractive opportunity. And while we are closely monitoring their impact on the broader online sports betting market, we continue to see prediction markets as incremental to sports betting and iGaming, growing the overall market by capturing new demand. Our own prediction market offering, FanDuel Predicts, allows us to acquire customers ahead of sports betting regulation in new states while delivering incremental economics in the meantime. And while operational progress in H1 was slower than planned, we are gaining traction and have a clear road map for improvement. The integration of the Crypto.com exchange to expand our sports offering ahead of the FIFA World Cup has significantly enhanced our product proposition. And in coordination with CME, we have agreed that all FanDuel Predicts sports and novelty contracts will now be moved to crypto.com while continuing to provide our customers access to CME's extensive financial markets. This new exchange arrangement will ensure we can deliver new products at pace ahead of the NFL season start. Our One App offering is also enabling us to leverage FanDuel's nationwide brand equity, driving both accelerated penetration and marketing efficiencies. We believe we're also uniquely positioned to provide liquidity for combination markets across different prediction market platforms with a market-making offering that can scale rapidly and at low incremental investment. It is very early days, but we would expect to generate approximately $50 million of revenue from Market Making this year, demonstrating both the good progress made so far and the potential opportunity. Turning now to international. We've made good progress in the quarter. We strengthened our market-leading position in Italy and leveraged the power of the Flutter Edge to drive record engagement during the World Cup. As a result, revenue grew 10%, including the benefit of our Snai and Betnacional acquisitions. AMP growth in the quarter was impacted by the closure of our India business last year. Italy continues to deliver exceptional levels of growth across both sportsbook and iGaming, and our revenue performance continues to outpace the market as we extend our market leadership. This was despite the short-term impact from the Snai migration, which we successfully completed back in April. As expected, the migration resulted in a brief period of share loss, but performance recovered strongly in June as customers embrace a significantly expanded product offering with AMPs increasing 30% in June and strong parlay penetration during the World Cup. SEA iGaming revenues were up 34%, driven by new and exclusive content in Italy and an expanded product offer in Turkey. The post-migration recovery in Snai and the strength of our first half performance in both Italy and Turkey give us confidence in sustaining this strong growth in the second half. In the UKI, SkyBet customers are adapting well to the new highly rated user interface, driving a sequential improvement in SkyBet performance, while overall iGaming growth in the UKI remains robust at 7%. The increase in U.K. iGaming tax became effective in April. As a leading operator in the market, we are confident in the delivery of our first order cost savings and in our ability to gain share as other operators begin to react to this increase. In Brazil, good operational progress, including the integration of Flutter's product and pricing capabilities into our local platform was offset by more challenging market conditions driven by government social economic measures. This resulted in Flutter Brazil organic revenue declining year-over-year, in line with the market. We will continue to enhance our sportsbook product offering with further product rollouts enabled by the integration and improve iGaming generosity mechanics in the second half of the year. Brazil remains an attractive long-term opportunity, and we are focused on building a market-leading platform that scales our customer base and delivers strong returns. Our performance in APAC was broadly in line with expectations, with positive performance in key sports offsetting continued softness in racing. And while excellent execution in CEE saw us gain market share in all of our main markets. And finally, we've also announced today that we've initiated the next phase of Flutter's cost transformation, reshaping our cost base to fund our next stage of growth. Rob will cover this in more detail shortly. To close, I'm encouraged by the progress we've made in Q2. In the U.S., we're delivering continued sequential improvement in key sportsbook metrics alongside sustained iGaming growth. The new U.S. leadership team is driving a renewed customer-first approach, and our proactive investments will help place us in the best possible position for growth in 2027. Within International, we are executing at pace and Flutter Edge-enabled product improvements are driving our momentum in the second half. I'm confident that the choices we're making today from investing in the U.S. to expanding our TAM with FanDuel Predicts and Market Making, strengthening our international businesses and advancing the next phase of cost transformation will deliver sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. And with that, I'll hand over to Rob.

Thanks, Peter, and good morning, everyone. Q2 performance was ahead of expectations with revenue growth of 3%, reflecting the benefit of M&A and excellent engagement during the FIFA World Cup across the U.S. and international. This was partly offset by an adverse swing in U.S. sports results year-over-year. The increase in U.K. gaming taxes and planned investments in both prediction markets and World Cup marketing resulted in adjusted EBITDA declining 45%. A net loss of $296 million for the quarter versus a net income of $37 million in Q2 2025 was primarily driven by the reduction in segment profitability and one-off historical tax costs of $95 million. These were partially offset by an improvement of $81 million and $171 million in other income, expense and taxation, respectively. Loss per share and adjusted loss per share declined to $1.57 and $0.49, respectively, reflecting these profitability factors and a noncontrolling interest benefit. Net cash provided by operating activities increased by $4 million with the increased net loss in the quarter, offset by the benefit of an increase in other current liabilities, including the impact of U.K. gaming tax increase, historical tax cost provisions and a positive swing in player deposit liabilities. As a result, free cash flow, including financing CapEx and excluding player funds, reduced by 56% year-over-year. We ended Q2 with a leverage ratio of 4.3x. We expect our second half cash generation will drive a reduction in leverage by the end of 2026. We continue to prioritize organic investment in our core business and strategic initiatives, including emerging opportunities such as prediction markets, while also maintaining a clear focus on deleveraging the balance sheet. We expect to return to our target leverage range of 2 to 2.5x in the medium term, consistent with our stated policy with exact timing dependent on the cadence of our strategic investments. Moving now to our group-wide cost transformation program. Phase 1 of our program is delivering ahead of expectations. We are on track to deliver in excess of the previously guided $300 million of savings by 2027 and $200 million of additional cost savings that were announced as part of our U.K. gaming tax mitigation plans also expected to be delivered in 2027. Building on this significant progress, we have initiated the next phase of Flutter's cost transformation. Phase 2 reflects a broader program to reshape our cost base, build a more efficient, resilient cost structure for the long term and protect profitability. Through removing duplication, delivering technology efficiencies and leveraging AI, this cost action will reflect an evolution in how Flutter operates, leveraging our global scale while still maintaining a fundamental local focus on the customer. We expect Phase 2 to deliver an additional $500 million of gross savings by 2029, providing the headroom to absorb inflationary pressures and known tax headwinds whilst freeing up capacity to invest in revenue-generating initiatives. In the U.S., we believe that this will ensure the business is well positioned for its next stage of growth. In International, we expect that the benefits will underpin our 5% to 10% revenue growth algorithm by both protecting adjusted EBITDA margins in more mature markets and enabling investment in growth areas. These actions are also expected to drive a meaningful improvement in cash generation. Our plans are progressing well, and we will be in a position to share more details of our Q3 results in November. Moving now to our 2026 outlook. Early Q3 trading was ahead of expectations, reflecting good engagement in the knockout stages of the FIFA World Cup and slightly favorable sports results. Full year guidance is therefore updated to reflect positive impact of Q2 trading in U.S. and international, expected market-making revenue and adjusted EBITDA benefit of $50 million, additional operating cost savings of $45 million delivered through our efficiency program in the U.S. The impact of confirmed 1-week delay to the 2026, 2027 NFL season start, not previously captured in guidance of $75 million revenue and $50 million adjusted EBITDA, investment to strengthen our proposition and accelerate FanDuel sportsbook momentum, as Peter outlined earlier, and forward FX rates in international. These movements result in a reduction to our full year group revenue guidance of $395 million to $17.91 billion at the midpoint and a reduction of our adjusted EBITDA guidance of $210 million to $2.655 billion at the midpoint. We've also improved our capital expenditure guidance to $815 million to reflect incremental project efficiencies, also resulting in a reduction in depreciation and amortization guidance to $730 million. Additionally, group transaction, restructuring and integration costs will be approximately $500 million, reflecting an increase of approximately $200 million from our previous expectations, primarily due to the initial cost to implement our 2026 cost efficiency programs and tax provisions of $95 million relating to historical India and U.S. sales and use tax exposures. Additional detail on our guidance is available in today's release. Before I close, I'd like to acknowledge and thank Peter. His leadership over the past 9 years has been instrumental in building Flutter into the global leader it is today. On a personal note, I've greatly valued his support and advice since becoming CFO, and I'm incredibly grateful for his partnership. Having worked closely with Dan over the past 6 years, I'm equally confident that we have the right leader for the next phase of Flutter's journey. He knows our business exceptionally well, has played a central role in shaping our strategy, is ideally placed to lead the company as we continue to execute our strategy and deliver sustainable long-term shareholder value. In closing, I'm really encouraged by the momentum we have built through H1 and in particular, during the FIFA World Cup, which give me confidence in delivering our second half guidance. Peter and I are now happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] All right. It looks like our first question today comes from the line of Ed Young with Morgan Stanley.

My first question is on the additional $270 million of EBITDA investment you're putting into the U.S. business. Can you give us some color on how we should think about the components on that? Because obviously, on promotions, you've launched a new loyalty scheme. There were some events noise in Q2, but you're already at 540 basis points of promo spend. So some thoughts on that. And then on marketing, similarly, how we should think about the CAC to LTV that you're putting on the incremental marketing dollars you intend to put to work in the current competitive environment? And then my second question, Peter, in your written remarks, you mentioned -- I think you reiterated in your verbal remarks as well about long-term thinking in the business. In your letter, you noted you're convinced Dan shares a similar mentality. I guess given your expectations for a mid-single-digit growing market in the U.S., at least for now, how do you weigh up the argument that some of your international markets might be as or more deserving of incremental investment than the U.S.

Thanks, Ed. No, I think what we have to focus on is the sportsbook improvement plan and the great progress we're seeing on that at the moment in FanDuel. If I think about the growth we saw in Handle around the NBA finals were up sort of 40% year-over-year per game. Actives up 25% year-over-year, 2.3 million customers engaged in the World Cup, 1/3 of which have been reactivated. And in recent trading, I think we've seen record weeks from an MLB perspective. So I feel like we've got good momentum in FanDuel. The sportsbook improvement plan is working. The changes we've made to loyalty, the generosity posture from a product perspective, things like BetProtect and of course, we bought SuperSub here in FanDuel around the world. So there's good momentum in the business. And I think what we've always found before is that when we've got great content, great products, we've invested behind it, and it's helped build a bigger business for the future. And that's what we're intending to do. So we want to invest behind the momentum we're seeing at the moment. Rob, I don't know whether you want to pick up on the specifics.

Yes, a couple of points to add. I mean this is an investment in generosity spend, Ed. So it's a deliberate investment decision. As Peter said, we've made really good progress with the sportsbook improvement plan. In the last quarter, we're really encouraged by the customer response that we're seeing. We're also seeing really good returns on our marketing spend, both on sports and in casino, and that's been boosted by the World Cup, but the paybacks that we're seeing at the moment are excellent. This is a proactive decision that we're making around the longer-term U.S. opportunity. We're really seeing an opportunity to lean in at the moment. It's working well, and we intend to continue that in H2 and exit 2026 with the strongest business possible.

And on the international versus U.S. investment?

Well, I think we've always been very focused on investing behind organic opportunities across the business. If I look at the progress that we're making in Italy, in Turkey, in Central and Eastern Europe, the sequential improvements we're seeing in the U.K., these are all benefiting from the investments we're making behind the business. And so look, I think we are focused on delivering the plans, driving growth in international and in the U.S. market. And I think as Rob mentioned, we see good returns on the investments we're seeing here in the U.S. and in international, and that's why we're investing behind both of them.

And our next question comes from the line of Barry Jonas with Truist Securities.

I wanted to get some maybe additional thoughts on what do you think is driving the softer market-wide trends in the U.S. You comment on prediction market cannibalization, but curious with the increasing popularity of combos, if maybe those risks have increased from an OSB cannibalization perspective?

Barry, I think we -- if we look at the success of the NBA Finals and the World Cup where with exciting content, we've seen really good engagement from a customer perspective. I just -- I mentioned the 2.3 million customers, 1/3 of those were reactivated going into the World Cup, seeing active numbers up 26% year-over-year on our NBA finals games. We're seeing very good content from a -- these are big marquee events. And I think it's helping drive engagement from a customer perspective. Clearly, parlays are very popular for us, and we've made a bunch of changes to enable us to drive some improvements from a parlay penetration perspective through things like the World Cup and the NBA, which we delivered on. I think from the question around sort of cannibalization, we have seen, as we stated before, low single-digit impacts on the business. I look at this as incremental TAM. These are -- there are opportunities for us to go and acquire customers in advance of sportsbook regulation passing in, frankly, the sort of half of America that we can't currently operate in. And then there's the opportunity for us to leverage our pricing and risk management capabilities through market making on a national basis. And both of those things are incremental TAM for us. We are going to deliver a step change in our prediction market product as we go into the football season. The launch of the One App, which is going to enable customers nationally to access the tremendous user experience that we have currently available in our regulated states is going to be important. But we're going to see a really big step change in sort of the catalog that's available to customers through the integration and movement of all of our sports contracts to crypto.com.

I think I'd just add as well that if you look at the recent World Cup tournament and when you got really good concept, it really kind of reaffirms the demand that there is out there for traditional online sports betting products. So in June and July, in the U.S., we had our highest respective active months ever, and we're carrying that momentum through now, albeit it's a slightly lower point in the sporting calendar from a phasing perspective, but we're seeing really strong volumes through into the MLB season, which is really encouraging. Of course, still early days in Q3. And whilst that momentum is really encouraging, ultimately, performance in the quarter and the second half will be determined by the football season as we know.

Got it. And then just for a follow-up. North Carolina just recently passed a tax increase for OSB, taking you to 22%, while they also effectively added a 6% tax for prediction market. How does that weigh into your thinking strategically about prediction markets given the state effectively is signing off on it here. Just curious if it makes you want to lean in more or less strategically between the 2 offerings.

There's a lot of questions and working on from a regulatory perspective around sort of prediction markets. Some of these things, the extent to which they can be rolled out will be resolved by the Supreme Court. I mean from a state-by-state tax perspective, there's also a lot going on at the moment. I think we've been pleased with our focus on trying to get new states to open. I think that's an important component that we need to recognize as well. And I think we're excited to see some of the progress we're going to be able to make around both iGaming and sports betting as well.

And our next question comes from the line of Brandt Montour with Barclays.

So I wanted to start off with the market making and get your sense on how that market feels for you guys going into the second half. I think following the prediction markets, it's been out there that these markets are getting efficient pretty quickly. And so I know you guys did $6 million in the 2Q and you've got $50 million for the year. So what are you baking in for the second half? What platforms do you think you'll be most active in? And what can you tell us about the mix between where you're trading in single leg versus combos as a percentage of mix?

Yes. So let me pick up on that one. I mean we're really excited about the opportunity in market making. Actually, Peter and I were with the team in Jersey City last week, and we're definitely seeing volumes continue to increase across the ecosystem, and that gives us an increased level of confidence in the long-term potential of that market. Our ambition here, as we've stated before, is to establish a leading position in this space by leveraging the pricing and risk management and the trading capabilities that we've got and developed over the years with our sportsbook. And we feel that we've got a real advantage in that place in pricing complex and correlated markets. As the combo volume increases, we're better placed to take advantage of that. And we see that as a really attractive and high-margin segment for us. Of course, it's still early days. I think the volumes that we're achieving into the second half of the year are encouraging, and we think this has got the potential to become a meaningful revenue stream for us. But we see how we trade through the second half of the year, and then we'll update forecast into 2027.

Okay. Great. And then a follow-up on the NFL. Could you just flesh out a little bit more details about the delayed start? This is a market that you commonly wanted to invest, obviously, ahead of the start, the time when there's the best customer acquisition opportunity. So what's sort of the playbook with a delayed start? How will you approach -- how will you have to approach that differently?

The delayed start is really just a technicality brand, that's all around the timing of the season and where Labor Day falls and this can move from 1 year to the next. We're not actually changing our investment posture at all here. The start of the NFL season is something that we'll lean into. It's really important for us in terms of reengaging customers. What I would say is that during the World Cup, we actually reactivated a bunch more customers than we were anticipating, which was really encouraging for us. We're actually starting in a stronger position. We're also clearly focused on college football and start that, which is a key opportunity for us to get behind some customer initiatives as we start the NFL. But from a posture perspective, we're not going to be changing our approach massively. Having the Rewards Club live for all customers this year is also going to be really important. So we've already rolled it out to 70% of customers by the start of the NFL, that's going to be available for all of our customers. We're seeing really good traction behind that. So with the college football start in the week before, that's a great opportunity to prime customer wallets, and we hope to see a running start to the NFL season.

Okay. So the NFL schedule delay was not previously in guidance and is today, but this is an NFL schedule, not a Flutter schedule.

Correct. This is NFL scheduling, which was previously in guidance, and we've updated our guidance for it.

And our next question comes from the line of Jordan Bender with Citizens.

So direct casino AMP growth actually looked pretty strong in the quarter. And keeping in mind, you can't grow iGaming revenue 40% forever. Can you just talk about what the sports betting to iGaming cross-sell looks like now? And should we expect the investment into sports in the NFL season to actually help iCasino growth in the back half of the year? And then, Peter, I guess a second question, handle up 31% in July, which was better than your June performance. Just trying to piece together some of your comments around market growth won't pick up in the back half of the year, but you did say MLB is starting to pick up a little bit. I guess just like what does that imply for your actual underlying business outside of the World Cup in July?

Okay. Thank you, Jordan. Look, picking up on the gaming side, we clearly harnessed the World Cup opportunity to increase the football relevant content or soccer relevant content during the World Cup, which obviously helped drive sort of reactivations and cross activation in the tournament. But you've got to remember that the main focus and push for us from an iGaming perspective is around acquiring those direct-to-casino customers. And the Love Island: Unlocked launch we had in June, our new brand ambassador, Ariana Madix. We've seen some really good success from that, the MONOPOLY live exclusive launch. So there's been a lot of great content that we've got supporting iGaming. Clearly, the smaller sports betting business we had coming into the year did impact cross-sell. But as Rob mentioned, we've got a bigger base now. So look, I think we're feeling good about the prospects for the iGaming business. Your question around sort of market growth, we are -- we have seen this strong performance through Q2. We have seen the strong NBA finals. We've been very pleased with the engagement we've seen around the World Cup. We are pleased with sort of how we started into Q3. Look, the football season was tough last year. We think a bunch of that was down to the content, which wasn't as engaging for consumers. There was also obviously some execution issue from our perspective around generosity. But we're planning some great campaigns this year. We're hoping for some very compelling matches and content. And I think we'll see what happens. But look, our forecast assumes some prudent views around market growth in the second half. And I hope we find that the market outperforms that, but we thought it was the right thing to take the growth we saw in the first half and use that for the second half guide.

The other point to mention on iGaming is that clearly, the success of our casino business has been built on direct acquisition, which remains very strong. The cross-sell piece, we've been really pleased with during the World Cup, where the cross-sell actives were actually slightly ahead of our expectations. And if you compare Q4 this year versus Q4 last year, the cross-sell was actually slightly lower than we'd anticipated last year because of some of the execution issues Peter talked about Q4, which means we're quite optimistic about how the cross-sell will perform as we move to Q4 this year as well.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from the line of Trey Bowers with Wells Fargo.

I guess just if we could -- on a pure modeling sense for the U.S. business, could we get a sense of the breakdown of the EBITDA for the balance of the year for Q3 and Q4 and just how potentially Q4 loaded the outlook is from here?

Yes. Let me pick that one up, Trey. So for Q3, we are assuming a roughly breakeven EBITDA with $500 million of EBITDA Q4, which is down from circa $700 million in our previous guidance. So if you roll through the factors there, the generosity phasing in terms of the increased investment that we're making -- you've got the NFL schedule effects, which is in Q3 only. There's also some state launch costs playing into that where we've got the continued Arkansas investment this year. We obviously had Missouri launching last year, which was previously in the guidance. The other thing to call out is we've got some operating cost savings coming through as part of the overall plan in the U.S. We've got about $45 million of operating cost savings in the second half. So those are the key moving parts for Q3 and Q4.

And our next question comes from the line of Jed Kelly with Oppenheimer.

Just going back to the investment in generosity. Should we just think of the U.S. sportsbook, given all the sports, the engaging nature that this is just a lower net win margin market versus some of your other international markets that just might not have the sports steps that we have in the U.S.

Jed, we've seen some improvements as we come into Q2 around our structural margin. And I think I know there have been some questions around that. And I think we would expect to continue to see growth in structural margin. I think -- look, we are seeing strong momentum in the business at the moment. I think we're feeling confident that the sportsbook improvement plan is working. We'll have the loyalty scheme rolled out to the entire customer base when we go into the football season. I think we've started making better customer-focused and customer-first decisions in the business. And I think as we've done in the past, it's time to invest behind that and make sure that as we move into '27, we have a bigger business and a better trajectory for the business. And a bigger business means we can invest in having better products from a customer perspective. And look, I think we can also make sure that we're sort of growing ARPU as well as AMPs. And that's something that's really important for us as we sort of look to grow and expand the business.

And medium to long term, we see a very clear path to that margin expansion, as we've talked about previously, Trey. So we've consistently demonstrated across all of our international businesses, our ability to grow parlay penetration and also improve the product mix over time, and we think there's meaningful opportunity to do that in the U.S.

And our next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Curious with the transition to crypto.com for sports from CME, how your JV will work from a contract volume standpoint through non-CME exchanges. I guess specifically, I believe it was a 50-50 economic split with CME. How does that work now with other exchanges?

Ryan, look, we are excited about extending the sports and novelties catalog that we have available for our customers as a result of switching to this new venue for those products, and we will keep our existing financial markets with CME. So the economics for the financial markets with CME stay broadly as they were. I think there's probably a slight positive for us in moving towards crypto.com is a modest economic benefit. But the really important thing here is the step change we're going to see in the catalog for customers. And together with the enhanced sportsbook proposition, look and feel of the One App, I think we're going to have a very compelling proposition available for consumers nationwide.

And our next question comes from the line of Clark Lampen with BTIG.

Peter, I'll echo what some of my peers have said upfront and say thanks and sort of best of luck. I'm glad we're doing this at sort of 9:00 a.m. now as opposed to 3 or 4 a.m. in the past also. My question is on the U.S. iGaming business. In prior quarters, you guys sort of had a soft target for high teens growth. I'm curious if that was adjusted as part of the U.S. outlook. And maybe a sort of second component of this is if we're thinking about revenue margins and cost reduction opportunities for the U.S. business, how would you think about slots versus table games mix opportunities for improving revenue margins and then first-party content moving forward?

Yes. Clark, so let me pick up the iGaming question. So we've always said in our guidance that we expect the iGaming business to grow at high teens for the year. And we expected it to be slightly lower in H1 than H2 given the base of the sportsbook numbers coming into the year. As Peter said earlier, we're really pleased with the momentum that we've got in the iGaming business in the World Cup, the cross-sell actives were higher than we'd anticipated. I think from a content perspective, we're actually going through the plan with the team last week, but we've got exclusive content launches every month from now until the end of the year, and there's some popular franchise stuff in there and some repeats of some of the franchise titles that worked really well for us in the past like Huff N' Puff and the Willy Wonka titles. So we're really pleased with where iGaming is, and we've reiterated our guidance for the second half of the year. And as I said, with the cross-sell piece earlier as well in Q4, anticipating a slightly better cross-sell performance in Q4 than with last year.

And look, we can see that, Clark, as you say, the difference between the table games and slots, we can see a very clear distinction there. The direct casino so the slots growing very strongly. And look, as we said a few times on the call, we're coming into the year with the smaller sports space impacted table games. But look, I think as we've gone through the World Cup, seen that big step-up in performance, the NBA finals, all the plans we've got for the football season, I think we're excited to see what we can do in the second half.

And our next question comes from the line of Joe Stauff with Susquehanna.

I just wanted to clarify a few things on your prediction market strategy at this point. You answered a couple. But -- do you expect to own your own exchange at some point? Can you give us any 2Q volume or user metrics? And the new One App that you're going to launch before the new sports season, will that include a traveling wallet?

Thank you, Joe. Yes, there are -- this is a very fast-moving space. And I mean, there's been news in the last few days around some of the complexities of market making if you own some of the exchange components. So we just got to be thoughtful that we position ourselves as well as we can. And I think we're happy with the strategy that we have. As I said, the One App is going to deliver a real step change in performance from a customer perspective. And in terms of the traveling app, if you have opened a contract app when you're in California and you're here in New York, you will be able to close that contract down. That is something that will be available. So if that's what you mean by, yes, we will have it available for customers. Rob, do you want to talk about the volumes?

Yes. So the volumes are significantly up, but on quite a small base. So we're making really good progress the Predicts numbers are consolidated within our reported financial results, but we're not separately disclosing the volumes at this point in time. I think the catalyst for higher volumes we anticipate will be the launch of the One App. Peter and I were with the team a couple of weeks ago. It looks really slick. I think we're quite excited about the impact that, that will have, and it will be relatively seamless if you're, say, traveling from New York to California. The wallets are separate, but it's very easy to switch between. So I think the product experience is going to be significantly enhanced from where it was. And the key for us is that we're going to have much more liquidity than we previously had. It's going to be a much fuller catalog. I think that's going to be a real benefit to us as we go into the new football and basketball season.

And our next question comes from the line of Dan Politzer with JPMorgan.

Just a clarification on the Prediction market and how you think about the guidance there. I think your guidance now reflects $50 million of incremental EBITDA from market making. And if I recall, your guidance for the full year was $200 million to $300 million of expected investment. So I guess, given that you have this incremental piece, where does that kind of put you in terms of the total investment you expect here for this year?

Yes, you're right on the market making, Dan, as I said earlier, we're quite excited about that opportunity, and that's definitely increased quite a bit from where we were previously. With regards to the investment on Predicts, what we've done as a business in the last couple of quarters is really integrate Predicts with the sportsbook proposition. So we're no longer breaking out the investments separately. If you think about the cadence over the course of this year, our focus, as we said at Q1 was leaning more into making sure that we've got the right product experience, which we really feel like we're doing with the One App and some of the changes that we've made with Crypto.com being plugged in. From a cost perspective, then this gives us this synergistic benefit that we've been looking for across the sportsbook and Predicts where we feel that we can really get national scale and leverage on our marketing spend, which is very helpful for us. In terms of the economics of how that then pays back over time, that remains relatively consistent, we think, with how we've previously described them. We need to see how the new product lands in the second half of the year and the traction that we get on the One App before we determine what the investment profile will be into the next year. But certainly, the synergistic benefits that we will get from having a broader sportsbook proposition, we think will stand us in very good stead.

And our next question comes from the line of Monique Pollard with Citi.

It was just if I could come back to the investment that you're putting in, in the second half to accelerate the FanDuel sportsbook momentum. So if I understood correctly, Rob, that investment is all centered around generosity. So I think that's an additional sort of 1.4% of last year's 2H handle that you're putting into promos. And promos last year in the second half were already 5.6% of handles. So I guess we're going to go -- I'm just trying to make sure I understand this correctly. We're going to go to like 7% promos as a proportion of handle in the second half. So sort of what kind of customer paybacks, et cetera, are you expecting on that? And is that -- do you see that as a sort of one-off in the second half? Or might that continue as we go into the first half '27?

Yes. So let me start on the numbers, Mini. We won't be at 7% of annual incentive generosity in the second half of the year. We are increasing in terms of our overall position. So it will be closer to 6%. That's an increase on where we were last year. We previously anticipated that the profile would be slightly lower as we got traction around the Rewards Club, et cetera. But as we've said, this is a deliberate investment decision based on sportsbook momentum that we've currently got in the business. And a lot of that has been generated by this approach that we've taken in Q2, where we've been leaning in a bit more. We could have delivered higher EBITDA this year by investing less, but we don't think that's the right thing to maximize the long-term shareholder value. We're seeing great opportunity to invest behind the customer proposition, and that's coming through in current momentum. Even if you look at the last couple of weeks trading across MLB, I think last week, we had our record week ever in MLB. We've got a huge number of reactivated customers on the platform. We're really happy with the apps that we've got in the ecosystem as we head towards NFL. So the investment is a proactive one. It puts us slightly ahead of where we were last year in terms of customer generosity as a percentage of handle. And we will review the spending as we always do as we go into next year. We're constantly looking at paybacks and the ROI that we're getting. But if you look at those returns that we're getting at the moment, they are looking very attractive, and we'll continue to lean in.

Many, the one thing I'd just add is that we know we didn't execute on our sort of generosity strategy as well as we could have done last year. And I think we're in a much better place now I think with this investment, with a better execution, with the loyalty plan, we are seeing improvements around our ability to drive and grow ARPU, and that is an important focus for us alongside the growth as well.

That's very clear.

And our next question comes from the line of Charlie Muir-Sands with BNP Paribas.

Firstly, just with respect to the incremental cost savings program, you've obviously updated the restructuring cost charges you anticipate to incur in 2026. But is it fair to assume that there will be ongoing cash restructuring charges through '27 and perhaps '28 to deliver that 2029 saving? And linked more broadly to that, has the Board given Mr. Taylor kind of a wider remit to review the corporate structure and strategy of the business? Or should we see this as the evolution of the strategy from here and no likely further major changes to come soon?

Let me start with the cost investment and how we're thinking about it and maybe Peter can pick up on the second part of your question. So a couple of things to mention. Firstly, from our initial cost transformation program that we launched in 2024, it's important to note that we're actually tracking ahead of that. So we've delivered all of the key component parts largely in terms of the activities. We've got the new UKI operating model in place. The SkyBet migration is complete. The PokerStars transformation is going really well and it's in its final stages and the Snai migration went really well earlier this year. So really pleased with that. With regards to the incremental $500 million that we're talking about today, this really builds on that progress that we've made and reflects the next phase of how we intend to operate. This is about simplifying the organization. It's about leveraging our global scale more. It's about accelerating the use of technology and AI and continuing to remove duplication across the group. If you look at our SDI guidance for this year, we've got $100 million of cost badged against this, which is in conjunction with the U.S. and the start of this program more broadly across the group. Of course, there will be some additional one-off costs into '27 and '28. Typically, when we look at big restructuring programs, you look at $1 of cost for $1 of run rate savings. We actually think it will be lower on this because of the nature of the savings and the fact that a lot of them will be tech and AI driven. So we think the cost will be lower. But yes, there will be some incremental costs into '27 and '28.

Charlie, in terms of your question around Dan and strategy, look, Dan has been very involved in all of the strategy work that we've done as a group over the years and execution of the plans of the business. It's clearly very supportive of all the stuff that we're announcing today as well. So I think you'd expect to see a continuation of the strategy and the execution against it as he picks up the reins from the 1st of October.

And our next question comes from the line of Ian Moore with Bernstein.

I guess just harping on kind of what Monique was asking about earlier, the -- I guess, the incremental investment that you're putting into the generosity in the second half. Obviously, given -- I guess, Dan mentioned this a little bit earlier, but given the kind of missteps with managing generosity last NFL season, as you look into this NFL season with this incremental investment, what would success kind of look like 12 months out as you're reengaging customers going into the next NFL season or said differently, like what specifically is different about the setup into this NFL season versus last year?

Thanks, Ian and I think you've answered the question to some extent yourself, right? So we -- the missteps last year, we didn't apply and approach the generosity strategy as well as we should have done, particularly in a very high-margin sort of environment. We weren't there consistently for our customers. That is something we are addressing through the loyalty program, and I'm excited about the traction we're getting from that, the improvements in average player days, which, of course, translates into ARPU and what customers are telling us about their perception of our generosity as a consequence. We are investing more as we go into the second half. I think it's the right thing to do to take advantage of the momentum we have in the business. The test for us will be, as we come into 2027, do we have a bigger business with a better trajectory than we had anticipated. And that's what we're planning for. And we know that if we got better momentum, higher revenues in the business, it enables us to invest more behind delivering great product experiences for customers, and we'll be able to really take advantage of the loyalty program and other features and offerings for them.

And our next question comes from the line of Chad Beynon with Macquarie Group.

Peter, thanks for everything up to this point. Just with respect to U.S. iGaming and sports betting regulation, I know the main iGaming law, I think, just took effect for 2027 launch partnerships with the tribes is the way that, that was written. How are you looking -- I know it's early and a lot of this will come in the beginning of '27, but how are you looking at prospects for iGaming or sports betting legalization in '27?

Yes, when we talked at the Capital Markets Day, we said we would hope to have one new iGaming state by '27 by the end of '27. And look, I think we're optimistic. I think Virginia has probably got furthest of any of our target states. I think there's some interesting opportunities around D.C. But then there's a bunch of them where we're hoping to build traction, whether it's Ohio or other places we can mention. So look, we think it's going to happen, and there's some real pent-up demand for us to be able to deliver the income and product experience to customers in those states.

And our next question comes from the line of Paul Ruddy with Davy.

Quick question on international, if that's okay. Just firstly, on the UK&I, just how has the market progressed since the introduction of the iGaming tax? Have you seen any evidence of kind of change in competitor behavior and general thoughts on mitigation? And maybe just secondly, then on Brazil, just Brazil still seems to be rather bumpy, thoughts on continuing to invest there and when that market might start to improve for you?

Thank you, Paul. I think the important point that we sort of flag is the sort of sequential improvement we're seeing in Sky Gaming. I think customers have adapted to the new interface post migration. And we've had a very strong World Cup for all of our brands in the U.K. Look, I think we've obviously guided to our first order mitigants in the market. And I think we're adapting our approach around that, probably taking a little bit more focus on headcount savings rather than marketing because we want to maintain our posture in the market. We do think we're beginning to see some of our competitors pulling back as we anticipated. And so look, I think the second order mitigants are going to be significant, and we'll be well positioned to capitalize on those.

Yes. In Brazil, Paul, we're still really excited about our potential in this market. I think there's a number of improvements that we implemented across the first half of the year. We've got our product and pricing capabilities now, including BetBuilder in Brazil and the uptake on that has been very strong. We've improved the iGaming proposition and improved the generosity metrics around that. So we're feeling quite confident about our product and how we set up into '27. There is quite a moving piece with regards to the regulatory backdrop in Brazil, and that's somewhat stifling the overall market growth. But within the context of that market, I think we're happy with our performance, and we're still encouraged about the medium to long-term opportunity there.

And our next question comes from the line of John DeCree with CBRE.

Peter, I'll pile on the congratulations. You've got quite a career at Flutter. Maybe kind of looking ahead, this is probably a prediction market TAM question. But when you kind of look at the comparable, the Betfair Exchange in the U.K. and the U.S. and in states where predictions and sports coexist under a less vague regulatory environment, do you see anything in the U.S. or U.S. consumer where predictions could be a much bigger piece of the overall sports pool than you see in the U.K.

Well, John, if we look at the U.K. or other markets like Italy or Brazil where the Betfair Exchange coexists with other sports books, we find that the exchange has a pretty small market share. And that's primarily because of the inability to offer sort of generosity through an exchange platform. Of course, the person that needs to provide the generosity is effectively the market maker and they can't be confident they'll get the next bet from a customer if they've offered them some generosity back. And so I don't see that structure being any significantly different here in America. So I think the extent to which you have [indiscernible] coexisting with regulated OSB, I would expect to see the regulated OSB continue to take the vast majority of the business. Clearly, there are some niche areas, shops and stuff like that where they will be more likely to take their volumes to the Predicts type platforms. But as we know, they're not things which the traditional bookmakers can make money from anyway.

And ladies and gentlemen, we are running long. So we will conclude the Q&A session today. I would now like to turn the call back over to Peter Jackson for closing comments. Peter?

Okay. Thank you very much, Greg. And look, I'm sorry, we've overrun. You'd have thought that having done this 35 times, we would have got the hang of it by now. So with apologies to those of you who we didn't get to, the IR team are around and here to take any of your questions. Thank you very much, everybody, and I appreciate your support over the years.

Thanks, Peter. And ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect. Have a great day, everyone.