THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION

 

 

1 March 2022

Flutter Entertainment plc - 2021 Preliminary Results

Recreational customers driving revenue growth; FanDuel on track for 2023 profitability in US

Flutter Entertainment plc (the "Group") announces preliminary results for year ended 31 December 2021.

	Reported1			Adjusted pro forma2,3
	FY	FY		FY	FY
	2021	2020		2021	2020		CC4
	£m	£m	YoY %	£m	£m	YoY %	YoY %
Average monthly players5 ('000s)				7,619	6,174	+23%
Group Revenue	6,036	4,414	+37%	6,036	5,264	+15%	+17%
Group EBITDA6	723	772	-6%	1,001	1,231	-19%	-18%
Group EBITDA excluding US				1,244	1,401	-11%	-10%
(Loss)/Profit before tax	(288)	1		620	813	-24%	-22%
(Loss)/Earnings per share (pence)	(236.5p)	29.3p		252.7p	496.6p	-49%
Net Debt at period end7	2,647	2,814	-6%

Operational Highlights: all commentary on a pro forma basis

•      Group: Recreational customers driving revenue growth, +23% to 7.6m average monthly players⁵ ('AMPs')

•      US: FanDuel maintains #1 position due to product leadership; 40% Q4 online sportsbook market share⁸

-      Revenue growth of +113% to £1.4bn ($1.9bn); nearly 50% more than nearest competitor

-     FanDuel sportsbook and gaming business delivered positive contribution in 2021 of $14m

-     Faster adoption rates of sports betting driving states contribution positive after 12 to 24 months⁹

-     Remain on track to deliver positive EBITDA in 2023¹⁰

•      UK & Ireland: Maintained leadership position with 29% share¹¹ despite challenging 4th quarter; Significant progress made on safer gambling initiatives and 'Affordability Triple Step' approach

•     Australia: Excellent 2021 performance; +7 percentage point increase in online market share to 50% since 2019¹¹

•     International: PokerStars stabilised at lower profit levels with reduced regulatory risk; clear strategy for growth in select markets leveraging local and global scale, bolstered by announcement of Sisal acquisition

•     Sustainability: launch of 'Positive Impact Plan' builds on significant progress already made

-     Global sustainability principles combined with local strategies support Flutter's corporate goals

-     Clear targets across key focus areas; customers (Play Well), colleagues (Work Better), communities (Do More)

-     New Play Well target to have 75% of all Flutter customers using safer gambling tools by 2030¹²

  

Financial Highlights:

•     Reported revenue grew 37% benefiting from May 2020 combination with The Stars Group ("TSG") with EBITDA 6% lower reflecting increased US investment and regulatory impacts in International

•     Reported loss before tax of £288m after £543m charge for non-cash amortisation from acquired intangibles   

•     On a pro forma basis, revenue growth of 17% with Adjusted EBITDA of £1,001m, 18% lower than 2020

•     Group ex-US Adjusted EBITDA 10% lower with strong top line growth and operating leverage in Australia more than offset by (i) challenging Covid comparatives, (ii) International regulatory changes (iii) UK & Ireland safer gambling changes and (iv) customer friendly sports results in UK and Ireland

•     Net debt of £2,647m at 31 December 2021 (2020: £2,814m) at a leverage ratio of 2.6 times⁷ (2020: 2.3 times), or 2.1 times excluding US losses

Outlook:

•     Trading in the first 7 weeks of 2022 has been in line with expectations with Group revenue up 2% year on year, reflecting strong comparatives which benefited from very favourable sports results

•     Assuming a normal run of sports results, we expect revenue growth to accelerate as 2022 progresses, reflecting phasing of sports margin comparables and safer gambling measures taken in 2021

•     In Russia and Ukraine, we are continuing to monitor the situation closely. Since completion of our merger with TSG, Flutter has materially reduced its exposure to the Russian online market. In 2021, Russia accounted for £41m in contribution. In addition, Ukraine represented contribution of £19m

Peter Jackson, Chief Executive, commented:

"2021 was another strong year for the Group as we made good progress against our strategic objectives and grew our recreational customer base to over 7.6m customers. Yesterday we launched our new sustainability strategy, our 'Positive Impact Plan', which will see Flutter set a positive agenda for future change. Through this strategy we will build on the significant progress already made in areas such as safer gambling and measure our performance against defined goals to demonstrate how we are responsible leaders in our industry.

In the US, we delivered over $1.9bn in revenue, leveraging our differentiated product proposition to remain the number one sportsbook in the market with a 40% share. Despite our scale we retain a challenger mindset; this year we launched a number of new features to our market-leading same game parlay product, maintaining our competitive advantage in sports. I'm also pleased to see the progress on our path towards profitability; FanDuel sportsbook and gaming business delivered positive contribution in 2021 for the first time, a significant milestone for the brand.

In the UK and Ireland, we stepped up our safer gambling efforts and increased protections for our customers ahead of anticipated regulatory change. We also welcomed Tombola, the UK's leading recreational bingo brand, to the Group in early January. In Australia, Sportsbet delivered another strong performance demonstrating once again the benefits of securing a gold medal position in our key markets.

In International, investments made since acquiring PokerStars have put it on a more sustainable footing and while this has resulted in reduced profitability, the necessary foundations for future growth are now in place. Notwithstanding regulatory changes in Germany, Netherlands and elsewhere, we saw good momentum across key markets such as Brazil, Canada and Georgia. In addition, the announcement of our acquisition of Sisal will further enhance both the quality and shape of our International division.

Overall, I am pleased with the progress we have made during 2021 and believe Flutter is exceptionally well positioned for future growth."

Notes:

¹ Reported represents the IFRS reported statutory numbers. Where amounts have been normalised for separately disclosed items they are noted as Adjusted.

² "Adjusted" measures exclude items that are separately disclosed as they are: (i) not part of the usual business activity of the Group (ii) items that are volatile in nature and (iii) purchase price accounting amortisation of acquired intangibles (non-cash). Therefore, they have been reported as "separately disclosed items (SDIs)" (see note 6 to the financial statements).

³ Flutter's combination with TSG completed on 5 May 2020. Pro forma numbers show the Group's financials with TSG included for a full 12-month period in 2020. Junglee, acquired in January 2021 and Singular acquired in September 2021, have not been included on a pro forma basis. See Appendix 2 for a reconciliation of pro forma results to statutory results.

⁴ Constant currency ("cc") growth is calculated by retranslating the non-sterling denominated component of 2020 at 2021 exchange rates (see Appendix 4). Growth rates in the commentary are in local or constant currency.

⁵ Average Monthly Players represent the average number of players who have placed and/or wagered a stake and/or contributed to rake or tournament fees during the month in the reporting period. AMP numbers do not include Junglee in 2020 or 2021 to allow for better comparability of underlying player growth for International and Group.

⁶ EBITDA is defined as profit for the period before depreciation, amortisation, impairment, gain on disposal, financial income, financial expense and taxation and is a non-GAAP measure.

⁷ Net debt is the principal amount of borrowings plus associated accrued interest, minus cash & cash equivalents plus/minus carrying value of debt related derivatives. Leverage is calculated using pro forma Adjusted EBITDA for the appropriate 12-month period.

⁸ Online sportsbook market share is the GGR market share of FanDuel and FOX Bet for Q4 2021 in the states in which FanDuel was live based on published gaming regulator reports in those states. During Q4 2021 FanDuel was live in 12 states; Arizona (AZ), Colorado (CO), Connecticut (CT), Illinois (IL), Indiana (IN), Iowa (IA), Michigan (MI), New Jersey (NJ), Pennsylvania (PA), Tennessee (TN), Virginia (VA) and West Virginia (WV). During 2021 FOX Bet was live in 4 states; CO, NJ, MI and PA. Market share does not include Arizona for December as the data has yet to be released.

⁹ Contribution is gross profit less sales and marketing expense. This guidance excludes high tax states, such as New York.

¹⁰ 2023 profit projection is based on current timing expectations of regulatory developments and new state launches in 2022 and 2023.

¹¹ Total NGR online market share in the UK and Ireland based on internal estimates. Total NGR online market share of Sportsbet based on competitor reporting and internal estimates.

¹² Global Play Well goal measured as the % of active online customers who use a safer gambling (Play Well) tool in the specified reporting period. Active players are defined as any players who have placed and/or wagered a stake and/or contributed to rake or tournament fees during the month in the reporting period. A safer gambling tool is any tool that a customer has used (or Flutter has applied to a customer) in the reporting period that helps to promote safer gambling. For the purposes of the 2021 measure Adjarabet and Junglee have been excluded. We will look to align with AMP reporting and work on expanding to include further brands as appropriate as we evolve our Play Well strategy.

The person responsible for arranging release of this Announcement on behalf of Flutter is Edward Traynor, Company Secretary of Flutter.

Analyst briefing:  The Group will host a presentation for institutional investors and analysts this morning at 9:00am (GMT). The presentation will be webcast live on the Group's corporate website (www.flutter.com/investors) and a conference call facility will also be available. To dial into the conference call, participants need to register here where they will be provided with the dial in details to access the call.
Contacts:
Investor Relations:
Ciara O'Mullane, Investor Relations	+ 353 87 947 7862
Liam Kealy, Investor Relations	+ 353 87 665 2014
Press:
Lindsay Dunford, Group Head of Corporate Affairs	+ 44 79 3197 2959
Rob Allen, Group Head of Corporate Campaigns	+ 44 75 5444 1363
Billy Murphy, Drury Communications	+ 353 1 260 5000
James Murgatroyd, Finsbury	+ 44 20 7251 3801

 

Business review ^1,2,3,4,5

2021 was a year of strong progress for Flutter. The Group delivered pro forma revenue growth of 17% driven by an increase in our recreational player base of 23%, with reported revenue increasing 37%. Flutter delivered Adjusted EBITDA of just over £1bn. This represents a reduction of 18% year on year (reported EBITDA reduced 6%). Excellent growth and operating leverage in Australia was more than offset by a combination of factors including (i) increased investment in US customer acquisition as we expanded our footprint to 4 new states, (ii) challenging Covid comparatives, (iii) the impact of regulatory changes in our International markets and safer gambling changes within our UK & Ireland business and (iv) a material swing in sports results, particularly in the UK & Ireland. 

We delivered on our key strategic objectives: In the US we continued to lead, with FanDuel remaining the clear market leader in online sportsbook, delivering a 40% share of the market in Q4⁶. The benefits of our superior product offering and scale are driving our US business towards profitability, with FanDuel's sportsbook and gaming business delivering positive contribution in 2021 for the first time. In our core markets of UK and Ireland and Australia, we retained our gold medal positions and in Q4, we bolstered our offering with the announcement of the acquisition of Tombola, the market leading bingo operator. In International, we have stabilised our poker market share, made good progress in key markets of focus and strengthened our international footprint with the acquisition of both Junglee in India and the announced acquisition of Sisal in Italy. 

We made meaningful progress in improving the sustainability of our earnings. During 2021 we introduced enhanced safer gambling measures across the Group, continuing to re-shape our UK customer base in particular, with the proportion of revenue from higher value cohorts reduced by more than 50% since 2019. The significant investment we have made in PokerStars over the last two years to better position it for future growth is showing encouraging signs of progress. Our continued focus on investment in regulated markets meant that over 91% of Group revenue was generated in regulated markets during Q4 2021.

Refreshed four pillar strategy

The scale and geographic footprint of Flutter has been transformed since we set out our original strategy in 2018. We have increased profitability in our core markets (UK, Ireland and Australia), significantly expanded our international footprint with the addition of Adjarabet, PokerStars and Junglee, added podium positions in additional international markets and grown the FanDuel business to become the market leader in the US today.

We are now refreshing our strategy, including establishing more clearly defined sustainability goals. This refreshed strategy is designed to help us defend our number one positions in existing markets and to ensure that we continue to capitalise on future potential opportunities. Our revised four pillars are to: 

1.    Grow gold medal positions in core markets by maintaining focus on growing our recreational customer base, continuing to extend our product and brand leadership positions and leveraging our local scale to drive efficiency

2.    Invest to win in the US by solidifying FanDuel's leadership position as the #1 sportsbook in the US, improving our iGaming proposition to establish a clear podium position and continuing to exploit the flywheel to maintain leadership

3.    Build on our network and invest for leadership across international markets by continuing to revitalise the PokerStars business, scaling our casino offering through cross-sell and direct acquisition, building a lead in sports betting through our multi-brand portfolio and buying businesses with podium positions in attractive markets which Flutter can further develop

4.    Take early positions to realise future potential in future spaces by continuing to nurture an innovative mindset, identifying adjacent opportunities to reinforce and future-proof our business and taking early positions to broaden our customer base. We are already doing this with our PokerStars Virtual Reality immersive digital poker and casino experience, the best iGaming experience available in virtual reality

The key enablers of our strategy are (i) sustainability (ii) speed (iii) customer insight and data (iv) product and technology and (v) scale. While each is crucial to delivering our goals and objectives, we particularly recognise the importance of being a responsible global leader in the sector, placing sustainability at the heart of what we do through the launch of our new sustainability strategy, our Positive Impact Plan.

 

Flutter's new sustainability strategy, our Positive Impact Plan

Yesterday we launched Flutter's new sustainability strategy, our Positive Impact Plan. Built on Flutter's responsible business foundations, the Positive Impact Plan brings together the significant progress made globally across our three key focus areas; our customers, colleagues and communities, creating a consistent global approach that supports our overall corporate strategy. This ensures that our divisions get greater access to the insight, skills and capabilities of the wider Group while also being empowered to innovate and respond effectively to their local contexts and deliver local initiatives that have the maximum impact.

The Positive Impact Plan focuses on three areas of sustainability for the future, with clear targets set to:

•    Help customers play well: by 2030 75% of our online customers will use a safer gambling tool (reaching 50% by 2026)⁷

•    Empower colleagues to work better: by 2030 our teams will be representative of the places in which we live and work

•    Work with communities to do more: by 2030 we will improve the lives of 10 million people

Further information in relation to our Positive Impact Plan is available here.

Safer gambling progress in 2021 and launch of the Flutter "Play Well" strategy

During 2021 we further enhanced our safer gambling measures across the Group, investing over £45m in advertising, research, people and training. In the UK and Ireland we introduced several new measures such as a £10 staking limit trial across all our online slots games and brands and a ban on credit card deposits in Ireland. We also continued to iterate our "Triple Step" approach to affordability:

•    New customers: are now subject to tailored monitoring in the initial period post registration, with thresholds dependent on age. SBG introduced mandatory deposit limits in January 2021 for younger customers with this set to be rolled out for all under 25s across our other brands this year.

•    Ongoing monitoring: we made various enhancements to our proprietary technology, in use for a number of years, to track and monitor customer behaviour. We issued approximately 5.3m automated communications to customers encouraging safer gambling awareness and positive play during 2021. Enhanced financial vulnerability checks were rolled out on a trial basis to a proportion of our customers since Q4 2021. A range of spend checks and limits are also applied across all brands with thresholds based on age.

•    Backstops: annual thresholds are being put in place across all brands to ensure that customers are protected where our new customer and/or ongoing monitoring controls do not trigger an engagement. These ensure that at a particular level of spend, customer activity is reviewed with support provided where required.

In Australia we launched our "Take a sec before you bet" campaign in July, encouraging customers to put deposit limits in place and we continue to utilise our proprietary technology to monitor customer behaviour and engage with our customers where we believe interaction is warranted. In the US, FanDuel partnered with the American Gaming Association and announced its partnership with Craig Carton in promoting positive play in the growing US market. 

Play Well strategy

Extending our leadership in safer gambling, our new Play Well strategy builds on the progress we have made in recent years within each of our divisions, bringing it together in an overarching set of universal principles and guidelines. With a presence across a multitude of regulatory environments and cultures, we know there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution to promoting safer gambling. Instead there are universal principles we can employ across our divisions, leveraging global scale, capability and expertise to provide players with the tools, information and support they need to Play Well. 

In 2022, we are introducing locally tailored Play Well metrics, directly linked to colleague bonuses for each of our divisions. These metrics have been developed on a divisional basis to ensure that each business is focused on the initiatives that will support and promote their local safer gambling strategies, taking into account individual markets and contexts, whilst being consistent with our global Play Well principles.

In addition to division specific targets, we have also set ourselves an ambitious Group goal to have 75% of our online customers using safer gambling tools by 2030, with over 50% doing so within five years. (2021: 34.7%)⁷

 

2021 review

US

In the US, our business has significantly expanded in scale during 2021, as we leveraged the 'flywheel effect' to accelerate growth. With revenue of $1.9bn, 47% more than our next nearest online competitor, our advantage is compounding, providing us with the additional firepower required to continue to invest heavily in both product and customer acquisition. Since launching our first online sportsbook in the summer of 2018, we have now acquired over 3.9 million sports betting and gaming customers. At our 2021 interim earnings announcement we outlined the key drivers of our success in the US and during the second half we made further enhancements across a number of these areas.

Product

We continued to innovate on product by expanding the breadth of our proprietary and market leading Same Game Parlay™ ("SGP") product. We now provide players with the ability to (i) combine SGPs on multiple different games into a single bet, (ii) place a SGP in-play on certain sports, and (iii) place a SGP on college football. We have now completed development of in-house pricing for college basketball, increasing the proportion of our handle that is priced in-house to 80%. The combination of better pricing accuracy and a greater proportion of handle coming from higher margin parlay products means that we generated 340 basis points more in gross margin than our competitors during Q4 (Q2: 300 basis points higher).

In gaming we are increasingly focused on improving our overall customer proposition to establish a clear podium position. Following a period of significant focus on sports we have scaled up our gaming team by adding nearly 100 colleagues, including the addition of gaming experts from around the Group. We continued to make incremental product improvements by enhancing how we communicate with and reward casino players, while also making gaming more accessible for sportsbook players.

The FanDuel brand

The FanDuel brand continues to resonate strongly with sports bettors. We have the leading share of voice in the market, with a focus on ensuring high levels of brand visibility throughout the year, not just during seasonal peaks. We have recently added and/or extended several key partnerships, including the NFL, NBA and with Pat MacAfee, locking in important assets for multiple years. We invested over $1bn in promotions, sales and marketing across our US business in 2021.

These competitive advantages have enabled us to consolidate our combined overall leadership position in the US online market, a market which has grown by over 120% since Q4 2020:

•    Our sports-betting share in Q4 was 40%⁶

•    Our online gaming share in Q4 was 20%⁶

•    Our overall online market share in Q4 was 31%⁶

This leading revenue share is moving FanDuel closer to a position of profitability. In 2021 FanDuel became the first large scale online brand to generate a positive in-year contribution from sports betting and gaming in the US. FanDuel generated contribution of £9m ($14m) in 2021, with the positive contribution from more mature states (such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois) more than offsetting the material investment in large states newly launched in 2021 (Michigan, Virginia, Arizona and Connecticut).

 

Encouragingly as we expand into further new states, we are seeing faster adoption rates for online sports betting. This results in bigger initial losses in the early months post a state launch as we acquire more customers. However, when combined with better retention rates and our product mix advantages, we now expect new states to generate positive contribution after 12 to 24 months post launch, in contrast to the 18 to 30 month guidance we provided in 2019. Such guidance excludes a higher tax state such as New York.

Based on our current expectations relating to the timing of new state regulation in 2022 and 2023, we remain confident that our US business will be EBITDA profitable in 2023. The timing of regulatory developments and new state launches can be difficult to predict and any variance to our expectations across these two years could affect the timing of profitability being reached, particularly if an unexpected large state such as California launches in 2023.

Our online sportsbook is currently available in 14 states following successful launches in New York and Louisiana in early 2022. In New York, we have already acquired over 400,000 new sports betting customers since launch.

UK & Ireland

In 2021 we maintained our leadership position of the UK and Ireland online markets with a 29%⁸ market share (2020: 29%), driven by a focus on recreational customer growth. Our total AMPs increased by 25%, resulting in online revenue growth of 3%. The relative lower rate of revenue growth reflected several key factors including challenging Covid comparatives, adverse sports results and a general slowdown in the UK online market, particularly in Q4. 

Despite a more challenging environment we continued to innovate on product. During the year we leveraged Group technology, pricing and risk management capabilities to launch "Popular Betbuilder" on our Paddy Power sportsbook. On the gaming side we saw good retention driven by the launch of Sky Vegas live, the roll out of PokerStars gaming content across both Paddy Power and Sky Vegas brands (via the Group Gaming Network) and the continued benefit from our daily prize mechanics across all three brands. 

An unprecedented run of customer-friendly sports results in 2021 cost the division £232m in revenue year-on-year (before adjusting for recycling), £149m of which was in Q4 alone. In addition, relaxation of Covid-related restrictions led to customers spending a greater proportion of leisure time on other activities. A combination of the factors above resulted in us observing materially lower levels of customer recycling (than we have seen historically) during the fourth quarter.

Safer gambling improvements in 2021, together with the other changes implemented in recent years, have resulted in our player base becoming more recreational. For example, since H2 2019, we have reduced revenue coming from higher value bands by more than 55%. While it is challenging to quantify exactly what the cost of new safer gambling measures have been (because we cannot be definitive on how all player behaviour has changed in response), our best estimate is that the total revenue impact in 2021 alone was in excess of £90m. While we recognise that the improvements we have made, and continue to make, will impact near term growth, they will better position the business longer-term. As we assess the outlook for longer term customer economics, we are also reviewing the cost base of the business to ensure that it is appropriate going forward.

The UK Government's review of the Gambling Act is ongoing and we are hopeful that we will get improved visibility on the future shape of the industry in Q2 in the form of the government's White Paper publication. While this document should provide some clarity on the shape of future changes, we believe that the impacts will ultimately be phased over the coming years. In Ireland, the legislative process to establish a gambling regulatory authority has commenced which we welcome.

Australia

Sportsbet delivered another excellent performance, clearly displaying the benefits that can be derived from attaining significant local scale. In 2021, Sportsbet had over one million AMPs, an increase of 60% on 2019. This has resulted in a 7 percentage point increase in online market share in this period, to 50% in 2021⁸.

We continue to win in our key battlegrounds of product, value and marketing. In Q4, we launched 'Bet returns for SGM' which combines the great customer experience of our personalised generosity offering with our market leading Same Game Multi product. This followed our highly successful "Bet with Mates" product which launched in H1.

In H2, over 60% of the Australian population experienced the reintroduction of Covid related restrictions (which had been removed for most of H1). As trading conditions normalise in 2022, we will continue to invest in offering outstanding value for money to retain leisure spend from migrated players. As outlined at our September investor day (here), the medium-term outlook for Sportsbet remains compelling; with growth likely to be driven by the growing financial maturity of our existing player base as well as the continued conversion of non-betting sports fans and retail gamers. Sportsbet continues to provide a template for what can be achieved in other International markets as we look to leverage the Group's scale. 

International

As expected, the easing of Covid restrictions during 2021 resulted in a reduction in revenues in our International division, with the normalisation of customer engagement following elevated levels in 2020. In addition, the pro-active compliance measures we introduced following the TSG merger and the adverse changes to regulation in both Germany and the Netherlands created headwinds for the business. Positively, underlying growth in key markets of focus such as Brazil, Canada and Georgia during 2021 has been encouraging.

At the time of the TSG merger we identified various improvements required to position the business for future success and to correct for historic underinvestment in certain key areas. While much of this investment was foreseen, a number of unexpected headwinds have materially impacted revenues (e.g. adverse FX movements, Dutch regulation, and alignment of PokerStars' standards of compliance with those of Flutter). As such, the last two years has seen a significant reshaping of the International division. We have materially reduced the division's risk profile, albeit at a lower level of profitability. We have developed a clear growth strategy with an emphasis on key geographical markets, supplemented by the acquisition of Junglee and the recently announced acquisition of Sisal.

We significantly increased investment in order to revitalise PokerStars and have rebased the business, delivering:

•      A stabilised poker market share via an improved customer proposition and the launch of our new PokerStars reward scheme in October, which resonated well with customers. Stabilising our poker customer base is crucial for cross-sell into casino.

•      An improved product mix through investment in direct casino acquisition with the launch of our "Epic Downtime" PokerStars Casino campaign. We continued to broaden our gaming content, leveraging our three Flutter in-house gaming studios. Over 45% of Q4 PokerStars' gaming revenues came from casino products (Q4 2019: 35%).

•      An improved regulatory profile with 63% of International revenues generated in regulated markets in Q4 2021 compared with 48% in H1 2019. We believe that reducing exposure to higher risk jurisdictions, even if that means delivering lower levels of profitability in the short-term, is the right approach to put the business on a more stable footing for future growth.

While the investment required to rebuild capabilities and brand strength has been extensive, our strategy is showing progress. On an organic basis, stripping out the adverse impacts of regulatory changes, the International division has delivered compound annual double digit revenue growth since 2019. Progress in our key markets has been as follows:

•      Italy: recently announced acquisition of the Italian omni-channel operator Sisal, owner of Italy's number one online brand, which will propel Flutter into a leadership position in Italy

•      Georgia and Armenia: market leadership positions in both countries due to Adjarabet's exceptional performance, with EBITDA almost doubling year-on-year

•      Canada: PokerStars brand strength evident with high brand awareness as the market moves toward regulation

•      Brazil: Betfair drove triple digit AMP growth following our step up in marketing investment in H1

•      India: added podium position via Junglee which has performed well, with AMPs in Q4 doubling year-on-year amid a more positive regulatory outlook

As we look to the future, we will focus on building leading positions in focussed markets organically or through acquisition where we find businesses with strategic moats around them. These markets of focus vary in terms of maturity but over the next five years we expect them to have an addressable market size of approximately £26bn. Given Flutter's scale and superior capabilities, we believe the International division is in an excellent position to capitalise on the opportunities across these markets.