On Thursday afternoon, just four minutes into an earnings call outlining his company’s performance, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson made a point to mention that FanDuel customers weren’t betting on basketball as much as he expected.
Flutter—which owns PaddyPower, BetFair, Sky Betting & Gaming and FanDuel, among other brands—released its first quarter earnings Wednesday. The brand’s first-quarter handle, the total amount bet across all sports, grew in line with internal projections, Jackson said, but success in football and baseball papered over underwhelming numbers from one of FanDuel’s other most important sports.
“We believe this handle softness is specific to the basketball market,” Jackson said, “and we have a number of commercial and product initiatives that will specifically enhance basketball engagement next season.” (A representative for FanDuel declined to provide specifics.)
The comments were mirrored in a letter that Flutter (NYSE: FLUT) sent to shareholders on Wednesday. Asked later in the earnings call about the numbers, Flutter CFO Robert Coldrake told analysts “there was a reason that we called it out,” adding that some high-profile NBA teams—including the Phoenix Suns, Philadelphia 76ers and Dallas Mavericks—missed the playoffs.
“We attribute that to some factors that we’ve seen in basketball in the quarter, including some less competitive matchups over the course of the regular season that results in larger spreads when it comes to the betting,” he said.
FanDuel, the U.S. arm of Flutter, represents about 37% of the company’s revenue, and the results missed consensus estimates on both earnings per share and revenue. Part of those misses were attributed to outcomes from March Madness. In this year’s men’s NCAA tournament, the favorites outperformed, resulting in big wins for casual gamblers.
Jackson, however, was talking about handle—not the impact of favorites covering. And his comments come at a time when the NBA’s national broadcast ratings are being closely watched by a series of vocal critics and fans who are pushing for reform. League-wide ratings were down about 21% prior to its big Christmas Day games, but they rebounded in the second half of the year. Overall, games across ABC, ESPN and TNT were down 2% year over year.
It’s unclear if Flutter’s basketball trend is consistent across the industry, though FanDuel and DraftKings make up the vast majority of online sports betting in the U.S.
Some state regulators do break out betting by sport. Sportsbooks in Nevada, for example, took in about $1.29 billion in basketball wagers in the first three months of the year, down from $1.32 billion in 2024 and $1.44 billion in 2023. (Football handle saw a similar decline.)
The basketball win total for Nevada sportsbooks was $62.9 million this year, down from $75.6 million in 2024 and $82 million in 2023.
DraftKings releases its first quarter earnings after the market close on Thursday, with an executive call on Friday morning.
With assistance from Lev Akabas.