Flutter hits Wall Street, mulls permanent relocation

The Dublin Stock Exchange is continuing to lose its appeal for big companies, and most recently with gambling behemoth Flutter Entertainment launching on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and announcing its intention to make Wall Street its main listing.

Presently, the company is maintaining a dual listing with Flutter Entertainment also listed on the London Stock Exchange, another market that has been similarly seen as a less favorable place to list if you are in the gambling industry these days.

Most of this has to do with investment appetites, as the United States seems to have a lot of fresh capital that the company wants to tap into, but also because of the fact that Flutter Entertainment owns FanDuel, one of the dominant forces in the US iGaming and sports betting markets which are undergoing rapid expansion and liberalization.

A strategic review has already indicated that there is a lot of promise in the market in the United States, with investors happy to stump up and allow the business access to fresh capital.

Before a primary listing may be determined, Flutter Entertainment will have to put this to a vote at its annual general meeting due on May 1, 2023. Should everything go as intended, though, Flutter Entertainment ought to be able to finalize primary listing at the NYSE before the end of the second quarter, or in the third quarter at the very latest.

Peter Jackson, Chief Executive Officer at Flutter Entertainment, has welcomed the opportunity to see his company move aggressively on the market in the United States and hailed the significance of the operation, as it enables Flutter to gain access to "deeper capital markets."

"We believe a US primary listing is the natural home for Flutter given FanDuel’s number one position in the US, a market which we expect to contribute the largest proportion of profits shortly," Jackson noted.

Flutter Entertainment is in fine fettle as well, as the company’s Q4 2023 results have indicated a strong commercial momentum, bolstered not least by a strong uptake in consumer activity across the country. Although FanDuel has lost a bit of market share in the latest results to its main rival, DraftKings, the company is still neck-and-neck in the race in the United States.

Flutter’s sports betting operations will face some pressure, though as Fanatics and ESPN Bet, two new entrants in the regulated gambling market, made their debut last year.

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