Paddy Power owner Flutter made major management changes at its US FanDuel brand on Wednesday, saying FanDuel chief executive Amy Howe had left the company and that Flutter veteran Dan Taylor would oversee the US business in a new, beefed-up role.
The changes come a little over two months since Flutter surprised analysts by forecasting 2026 core profit growth of 4 per cent compared to growth of over 20 per cent in each of the previous four years, citing challenges in the US market, where FanDuel has a leading 39 per cent share.
“It’s no secret that FanDuel has underperformed, but looking forward, we’ve got to get the right team in place to support the business,” chief executive Peter Jackson told Reuters.
Jackson said the decision to leave was not Howe’s.
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The world’s largest online betting company nudged its full-year forecast growth down to just 1 per cent on Wednesday, although its first-quarter profit came in ahead of expectations. Taylor, who is currently CEO of Flutter’s international unit that includes established brands such as Paddy Power, Betfair and Sportsbet, will assume the newly created role of President of Flutter Entertainment, taking on oversight of the FanDuel business in addition to his existing responsibilities.
Christian Genetski, currently president of FanDuel, will assume leadership of the FanDuel business following Howe’s exit. Howe became CEO in 2021 as a boom in US sports betting took off following a lifting of a ban there in 2018.
Jackson said in the company’s results announcement that he had been reflecting for some time on how to ensure the company remained agile in the key US market and that the changes will ensure the right structure is in place to do so.
Flutter’s first-quarter EBITDA of $631 million, up 2.4 per cent year-on-year, was above the $614 million expected by analysts, despite it reporting that the marketwide trends that hurt US trading in the fourth quarter continued to the end of March.
It lowered its full-year adjusted EBITDA forecast to $2.87 billion from $2.97 billion in February, citing further unfavourable sports results and the costs associated with an earlier-than-expected launch of FanDuel in Arkansas.
Analysts had pared their forecast back to $2.9 billion before Wednesday’s update from the $3.5 billion seen earlier this year.
Flutter added that it continued to see only a limited cannibalisation impact on sports betting from the rapid growth of prediction markets in the US. - Reuters
