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Punters winning more NFL bets are set to dent FanDuel owner Flutter’s profits

The house always wins — just a little less last quarter.

1/8/25 11:37AM

DraftKings’ biggest rival and the world’s largest online-betting company, Flutter Entertainment, is seeing a short-term hit to its bottom line from customers’ sweetest dream: gamblers are winning too much.

In a surprise trading update on Tuesday, the group (emphasis ours) detailed that:

“The 2024/2025 NFL season to date has been the most customer friendly since the launch of online sports betting with the highest rate of favorites winning in nearly 20 years.”

The “very unfavorable US sports results” are set to cost Flutter Entertainment some ~$390 million in revenue, with the company’s shares listed in London opening down 5% this morning — though the stock has since recovered all of that initial drop, with rival DraftKings also trading higher.

It’s ironic that it should be the NFL — America’s favorite league to bet on — at the heart of Flutter’s current issues, as the Dublin-headquartered group has increasingly placed its own chips on the US market, including abandoning the London Stock Exchange to move its primary listing to New York last May.

Since first combining with FanDuel seven years ago, Flutter has grown rapidly, capitalizing on the changing regulatory landscape in America, which has quickly become the company’s most important region: revenues from the US market now account for 38% of its business, up from just 12% in 2020.

Elsewhere, sports results continued a “good momentum” in the UK and Ireland region (read: punters are still losing on the English Premier League).

Max Knoblauch10/24/25

Premium seats help push airlines higher following third-quarter results

Shares of American Airlines are climbing toward the carrier’s best trading day since August 12, when ultra-budget rival Spirit issued its initial warning about its ability to survive. American’s shares are up more than 7% on Friday afternoon.

Investors’ optimism comes a day after American posted a better-than-expected full-year earnings forecast. In a call with investors, American said that it’s ramping up its premium cabin offerings.

“Our ability to grow capacity in premium markets will be further supported as we take delivery of new aircraft and reconfigure our existing fleet. These efforts will allow us to grow our premium seats at nearly two times the rate of main cabin seats,” CEO Robert Isom said. American CFO Devin May said that nose-to-tail retrofits of certain wide-body jets will bump the number of premium seats available on those planes by 25%.

Extra legroom has been a boon for major carriers, particularly this quarter. Delta Air Lines said its premium product revenue grew 9% in Q3, compared to a 4% drop in economy seat revenue. Similarly, United Airlines said its premium revenue grew 6%, outpacing economy. Shares of both airlines were up more than 3% on Friday.

Carriers with less exposure to first- and business-class tickets like Southwest Airlines and JetBlue didn’t see the same amount of momentum on the day.