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Flutter Entertainment’s third-quarter results came in below analyst expectations and the company cut its full-year guidance. But new CEO Dan Taylor expressed optimism about FanDuel’s prediction-market business and the potential for additional U.S. states to legalize sports betting.
Flutter generated $3.87 billion in third-quarter revenue, up 2.1% compared with the same period last year, but below analysts’ consensus projection of roughly $4 billion. The company reduced its 2026 revenue target by $300 million, to $17.61 billion. In the U.S. specifically, FanDuel revenue grew 6% year-over-year, to $1.45 billion. The anticipated appointment of interim FanDuel CEO Christian Genetski as its permanent CEO was not addressed on Wednesday’s earning call.
The company’s third-quarter performance was affected by multiple factors, according to Taylor, including unfavorable sports results and Brazil’s gambling ban.
Analysts at Jefferies said in a Wednesday research note that while the figures were below consensus, “this should be no surprise.”
Even though earnings missed the mark, shares of Flutter were trading up by more than 2% on Wednesday morning. Shares are down more than 60% year-to-date.
Taylor, who became Flutter CEO beginning Oct. 1 after a nearly nine-year run by Peter Jackson, outlined his four “immediate operational priorities” during the earnings call. Among them is capitalizing on the opportunity in prediction markets and driving more value from FanDuel’s international portfolio.
“Our Q3 performance gives me confidence that we are moving in the right direction,” he said.
Taylor acknowledged that until recently, FanDuel Predicts “was not competitive.” But he said the “team has made tremendous progress in the last few months.” FanDuel first launched its prediction-market platform late last year.
“The results we’re seeing are very good,” he said. “We’ve really only been live at scale since the start of the NFL season.”
Taylor said there were 140,000 active users on FanDuel Predicts in October. The platform recorded $119 million in volume during the third quarter, up 102% from the second quarter. The company said volume in October was up 271% compared with July.
Flutter also remains focused on market making, which involves providing liquidity to markets by posting buy and sell prices for event contracts. Taylor said market making is “really at the heart of Flutter’s capabilities,” adding that the company’s market making arm now trades across multiple exchanges, although he didn’t specify which ones (Barron’s reported in September that the company has been doing market making on Kalshi).
“That’s a really exciting near-term revenue and profit generator,” Taylor said.
Despite Taylor’s confidence, J.P.Morgan analysts wrote in a research note Wednesday “it doesn’t seem that market making drove any real upside” for third quarter revenue.
FanDuel Still Believes in Traditional Sports Betting
FanDuel remains bullish on the prospect of traditional sports betting continuing to be its core business. Taylor said “we continue to see a limited impact from prediction markets on the betting activity of our existing customer base, which I believe, and our consumer research affirms, reflects the superior proposition offered by sportsbooks.”
The view comes despite the fact that voters in Nebraska did not pass a pair of ballot initiatives that would have legalized and regulated online sports betting in the state. He said FanDuel was “disappointed” with the results in Nebraska, but that “we feel good” about the prospect of additional states legalizing and regulating online sports betting in the coming years.
“We know there’s a need for the tax dollars, and we know we can deliver the protection for consumers that is required,” he said.
Currently, 39 states and Washington, D.C. allow some form of sports betting. The most recent state to legalize the practice was Missouri in 2025.
Taylor declined to speculate on which states might legalize sports betting next, but said FanDuel feels there’s a “strong pipeline of further state openings” in the future.
FanDuel’s main competitor DraftKings is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Thursday.
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