Making its market: Flutter expects market making to contribute around $50m of revenue this year, but its ambitions extend well beyond that initial contribution. Speaking at an Oppenheimer conference this week, soon-to-depart CEO Peter Jackson believes most of the prediction market ecosystem’s economics will ultimately accrue to market makers, adding that Flutter wants a “large” share.
Hard Rock Bet is growing – we know you know! And we want to bring in some more maestros to make beautiful music in our Sportsbook. You need to be among the very best in the industry to be considered for these roles. Are you up to it?
Is it my imagination: Flutter has put a notably ambitious marker down on the market-making opportunity within prediction markets, with outgoing CEO Peter Jackson saying the company wants a “large” share of a profit pool it believes could contain most of the ecosystem’s economics.
Asked at an Oppenheimer investor conference whether Flutter had a target market share in mind, Jackson replied simply: “Large.”
Pressed on what that meant, he added: “More than we have now. We’d like it to be larger.”
Or have I finally found something worth living for? No percentage or addressable market estimate was provided, but his comment reinforced how rapidly market making has moved from an experimental activity to a potentially meaningful earnings stream for Flutter.
The company now expects market making to generate ~$50m of revenue, including $6m recorded in Q2.
That contribution was incorporated into Flutter’s revised US guidance alongside $45m of additional cost savings, although both were more than offset by increased customer investment.
I was looking for some action: The economics appear particularly attractive because Flutter is deploying technology and trading expertise developed for FanDuel rather than building an entirely new capability.
“Progress to date has been very quick and profitable,” said CFO Rob Coldrake.
“We think this is where the majority of the economics will sit within the prediction market ecosystem when you look forward.”
“We’re focused on taking as big a share of that as we possibly can.”
You could wait for a lifetime: Flutter believes its advantage lies particularly in pricing complex, parlay-style contracts involving correlated outcomes, an area where it already credits its technology with giving FanDuel an edge in conventional sports betting.
“We’ve demonstrated our expertise in this area before,” Coldrake said. “This is why we’ve got a pricing advantage on the core sportsbook, and that carries over here.”
To spend your days in the sunshine: Jackson described market making as a way to monetize capabilities others are already attempting to replicate. Flutter sees market participants scraping FanDuel’s prices to support their own trading operations and is considering how to respond.
“I would rather directly monetize it,” Jackson said. “I think that we can make very good returns on it. I think we’ve got the balance sheet to cope with some big volumes.”
He added that Flutter could develop “one of the best market-making capabilities, particularly in combos,” and would “look to try and make a lot of money out of it.”
Is it worth the aggravation? The strategy sits alongside, but is distinct from, Flutter’s consumer-facing FanDuel Predicts operation. Customer acquisition remains the priority for Predicts, particularly in states without regulated online sports betting, but its product rollout has been slower than Flutter wanted.
Predicts revenue was immaterial in Q2, with H2 gross revenue expected to be absorbed by acquisition investment.
It’s a crazy situation: Market making, by contrast, is already profitable. It also allows Flutter to participate in prediction market volume generated by rival platforms without carrying the costs and execution risks attached to acquiring every underlying customer.
Jackson said Flutter sees the two activities as complementary: “One is acquiring those customers in those states in advance of sports betting regulating in the market,” he said.
“The second thing is making money using market making.”
Home field advantage: Flutter also believes emerging restrictions could play to its advantage. Coldrake pointed to CFTC guidance that, in his interpretation, would prevent exchanges from conducting core market-making activity on their own platforms.
Although he cautioned that Flutter needed to see how the issue developed, he described it as potentially advantageous to an independent provider of liquidity.
DraftKings is pursuing similar economics through a more vertically integrated model. Its PM stack encompasses the customer-facing product, brokerage and FCM capabilities, the DKeX exchange and market making.
Hospital pass: Jackson also used the fireside chat to emphasize continuity ahead of Dan Taylor’s elevation to CEO on October 1, portraying his successor as closely involved in the decisions now shaping Flutter’s US recovery rather than someone preparing a strategic reset.
Taylor has led Flutter’s international operations but has spent recent months working more closely with FanDuel.
“He spent the last several months helping to drive and push the sportsbook improvement plan in FanDuel, so getting much closer to that business,” Jackson said.
Team player: That involvement is particularly relevant after Flutter reduced its FY26 US guidance and committed substantially more investment to rebuilding FanDuel’s momentum. Jackson said Taylor backed the decision to sacrifice near-term profitability in pursuit of a stronger trajectory entering 2027.
“Dan and I are very closely aligned, as we are with Rob [Coldrake],” he said. “I think this decision to invest behind the success we are seeing in FanDuel at the moment is the right one.”
Jackson acknowledged that he was “taking it a bit on the chin” from investors over the increased spending, but described the opportunity to invest behind FanDuel’s improving performance as “a great gift” for Taylor.
“I think you’ll see Dan and I are very aligned,” Jackson concluded. “He may talk a bit faster than me, but I think we’re trying to achieve very much similar things. And I look forward to seeing him be the most successful CEO the business has had.”
Dig Deeper with E+M PRO: Read our full analysis of Flutter’s Q2 earnings, including the increased investment behind FanDuel and FanDuel Predicts plus the analyst reaction. For more on why market making is becoming one of the sector’s most consequential battlegrounds, revisit ’Make it wit chu’.
Grandstand (Nasdaq: GRSD) is the intelligence layer of sports, gaming and entertainment, building the brands consumers trust, the data partners act on, and the technology the industry runs on. Leveraging proprietary technology and a diverse portfolio of premium consumer brands, including Gambling.com, Casinos.com, OddsJam and OpticOdds, Grandstand connects operators to high-value players across global markets.
Positioned as the intelligence layer for sports, gaming and entertainment, Grandstand is an engine of growth and profitability, backed by a two-decade track record of driving results for partners across sportsbooks, casinos, fantasy platforms and beyond.
Visit our investor page to see why Grandstand is the platform behind the industry’s most successful operators.
Roll with it: Grandstand has launched Rollcard, a Visa debit card designed for high-value sports bettors, casino players and prediction market traders. Issued by Cross River Bank, the card links to a dedicated, FDIC-insured deposit account, allowing customers to separate their playing bankroll from everyday finances.
Rollcard offers cashback on qualifying sportsbook, casino and prediction market spending, alongside daily card-spend limits of up to $1m per business day.
CEO Kevin McCrystle said the product addressed the friction serious players face when managing their bankrolls.
The launch extends Grandstand beyond its media, data and advertising operations into fintech infrastructure, using the audiences of brands including Gambling.com, OddsJam, OpticOdds and RotoWire to support customer acquisition.
Entain has launched Seven, a UK free-to-play football app developed by its Angstrom analytics business. Users select seven players each gameweek and win prizes when picks score the first or last goal, with a £100,000 weekly jackpot available. Winnings are awarded through Ladbrokes. Initially focused on Premier League football, Entain sees potential to expand the app into other markets and sports.
Evoke reported flat H1 revenue of £887.5m, or 2% growth on a like-for-like basis excluding the impact of its smaller retail estate. Adj. EBITDA fell 10% to £150.2m as gaming duties increased by £46m YoY, although marketing efficiencies, promotional improvements and cost savings offset more than half that headwind.
The group posted a £70.2m statutory loss after tax. UK & Ireland online revenue rose 4%, including 7% gaming growth, while international revenue declined 2% despite increases of 21% in Italy and 13% in Denmark.
Retail revenue fell 3% after shop closures but increased 4% like-for-like.
Evoke generated £85m of underlying free cash flow, while leverage rose to 5.6x and liquidity stood at ~£150m.
Trading remains in line with expectations, but no guidance was issued because of Bally’s Intralot’s recommended acquisition.
The transaction remains on schedule to complete in Q426 or Q127, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
Evoke will host an earnings call later today. An E+M PRO Earnings Extra edition will follow.
Plus500 is targeting prediction markets through DTC, B2B and B2B2C channels, leveraging its US trading and clearing infrastructure. Its Plus500 Futures platform added prediction markets in February and CFTC-regulated sports contracts in June, with CEO David Zruia calling sports the category’s most engaging segment. Non-OTC revenue rose about 30% to $70m, while group revenue increased 12% to $462.9m, EBITDA reached $187.5m and net profit rose to $151.9m in H1.
High Roller: Q2 revenue fell 52% to $2.8m following market exits, a tighter marketing strategy and its shift towards prediction markets. Adj. EBITDA deteriorated to a loss of $1.8m. High Roller also advanced its planned US ROLR launch, securing National Futures Association membership and registration as a guaranteed introducing broker through Crypto.com’s infrastructure for its event-contract trading platform.
Catena Media: Q2 revenue edged down 1% to €9.5m as organic-search headwinds persisted, while adj. EBITDA fell 11% to €1.2m. Catena said it is investing in a fully automated marketplace connecting publishers and advertisers, as it aims to reduce its reliance on search traffic. The company also announced it intends to launch a voluntary tender offer in the near future in respect of its existing hybrid capital securities.
Galaxy Gaming: Q2 rose 5% to $7.9m, as record recurring revenue increased 8% and represented 99% of the total. Digital revenue grew 11% to $3.1m. Adj. EBITDA climbed 11% to $3.5m and leverage fell below 3x. Galaxy repurchased 330,758 shares post- quarter end following termination of its proposed Evolution merger deal, for which it received a $5.2m termination fee.
DoubleDown Interactive: Revenue rose 11.2% to $94.3m in Q2, driven by acquired social casino operator WHOW Games alongside solid growth in the core business and continued growth at iCasino subsidiary SuprNation. Adj. EBITDA increased 17.2% to $39.3m. DTC revenue surged to $40.5m from $10.7m and represented 52.4% of social casino revenue.
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Who are you? LuckyDraw is the first full white-label B2B prize draw platform. “We let operators add a fully branded prize draw, instant-win and raffle vertical that sits natively inside their existing ecosystem,” says CEO Yaniv Spielberg, who co-founded the business earlier this year with CFO Ronen Kannor.
“It integrates like a game studio through an iframe, so there is no heavy build on the operator side,” Spielberg adds.
The point of the platform is to give operators a new tool for acquisition, engagement, retention and monetization, all running off their own brand and their own player base.
“Everything is managed through a comprehensive back end where the operator controls the mechanics, the prize pools, the entry models and the economics of each draw.”
What’s the big idea? Prize draws are having a renaissance, says Spielberg. “You have plenty of operators running casino, sportsbook, or both, but the prize draw sites are always their own separate destinations, and they keep growing in popularity,” he adds.
To put the scale in context, Spielberg says the UK market alone is now worth around £1.3bn a year with 7.4 million active players.
LuckyDraw closes the gap, he says. “We let any existing operator add prize draws, raffles and instant wins to their casino or sportsbook as a new vertical, simply and natively.”
“The operator manages everything about the product through one back end: RTP, ROI, volatility, win ratio and the rest of the economics, the same way they would manage any other game,” he adds.
The real differentiator is in what a player can win. “With sportsbook and casino, players put money in and can only win money back. With prize draws, they can win anything the operator can imagine: cash, digital goods, physical goods, experiences, merchandise, and more.”
“That opens up engagement mechanics and prize narratives that the other verticals cannot offer, and it gives operators a fresh reason for players to come back.”
Funding backgrounder: LuckyDraw is founder-led and funded and has raised a small SAFE round from strategic angels.
XST Capital Group is the premier investment bank dedicated to serving the fastest-growing companies in the digital gaming sector. Led by Founder Joel Simkins, XST’s team of bankers and advisors helps high-growth platforms with M&A, capital raising, and strategic initiatives. If you’re building or scaling, partner with the firm that delivers for the next generation.
Adding partners: ProphetX has been busy adding partners for its sports prediction offering. First, comes the deal with EPICK Fantasy to integrate predictions. Second, ProphetX has partnered with sports-tracking and social-analytics platform Pikkit. Similarly, the integration is scheduled ahead of the NFL season and will initially cover the NFL, NBA and international football, with more products to follow.
Bigger unit: Product design and development provider for the betting and casino industry, The Unit, has reached another major milestone in its international growth with the opening of its new development hub in Chișinău. The new office embodies The Unit’s rapid expansion, replacing the original 125 sq. m. premises opened in 2024, which quickly reached capacity as The Unit’s Moldovan team continued to grow.
Aug 13: Entain, Grandstand, Rank, Bragg
Aug 19: Raketech
Aug 20: Better Collective (earnings)
Aug 21: Better Collective (call)
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