By Antonina Tupikova · Founder, iGaming Times3 min read
Flutter Entertainment has announced that Peter Jackson will leave as group chief executive on 1 October, handing over to international president Dan Taylor at a moment when US sportsbook revenue has fallen 15% year-on-year and the company's market capitalisation has dropped from $50 billion to below $20 billion in under a year.
Flutter Entertainment announced on Wednesday that Peter Jackson will step down as group chief executive officer on 1 October, with Dan Taylor, currently Flutter's president and CEO of its international division, assuming the top role. The announcement was made alongside the company's second-quarter results, which showed US revenue declining year-on-year for the first time since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was struck down in 2018. Jackson will remain as an adviser through the end of Q3 to help manage the transition before the NFL season begins in earnest.
Jackson joined Flutter nearly nine years ago and oversaw a fundamental transformation of the business, including the acquisition of FanDuel and PokerStars, and the pivot away from a UK-focused Paddy Power Betfair model toward a predominantly US-facing operation. Flutter completed the final stage of moving its primary listing from London to the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year, a process that began in earnest with the group's full pivot to New York and was confirmed when Flutter delisted from London in August 2026. In his departure statement, Jackson cited the US expansion as the defining achievement of his tenure.
Taylor has been with Flutter since 2015 and was appointed CEO of its international business, covering all markets outside the United States, in 2020, before being elevated to the president role in May 2026. He described the opportunity ahead as "significant" and said the priority would be delivering for colleagues, customers, and shareholders while building on existing momentum. No financial terms relating to the executive transition were disclosed.
The quarterly numbers published alongside the announcement were stark. US revenue dipped to $1.68 billion, a year-on-year decline, against a backdrop of US sportsbook revenue falling 15% to $1.04 billion, even as handle edged up to $11.96 billion after declining in Q1. Adjusted EBITDA in the US fell from $400 million to $119 million, and the group recorded a $296 million net loss for the period. Overall group revenue rose by a modest 3%, providing limited cushion against the US deterioration.
Flutter had previously characterised the competitive threat from prediction markets as manageable, but the Q2 figures complicate that position. Prediction markets captured an estimated 27% of US sports betting during the World Cup, and the World Cup final alone became the largest single event on record for those platforms. Whether the sportsbook revenue decline is structural or partly a product of sporting calendar effects remains a live question, but the size of the EBITDA swing suggests costs were not fully flexed in response. Flutter shares fell 6.3% in premarket trading on Wednesday, putting the stock down approximately 68% from its peak less than a year ago and valuing the group at below $20 billion, compared with roughly $50 billion at its high.
The Timing of the Handover Is a Signal in Itself
CEO transitions at major listed companies are rarely unplanned, but the timing here is notable. This is the second significant leadership change at Flutter in three months: FanDuel CEO Amy Howe departed in May with immediate effect, described in contemporaneous reports as having been ousted, with FanDuel president Christian Genetski stepping into that role. A group CEO departure coming so quickly after a divisional CEO departure, and simultaneous with the first US revenue decline since PASPA, points to a board that has concluded the business needs a different kind of leadership for the next phase rather than continuity with the strategy that produced the current position. Taylor's background running Flutter's international portfolio, including the regulated European markets where compliance-led growth and tighter margin management are the norm, may signal a more disciplined approach to US capital allocation than the growth-at-scale posture that defined the Jackson era.
The Prediction-Market Threat Is No Longer a Downside Scenario
The most consequential number in Wednesday's release is not the revenue miss but the EBITDA collapse: from $400 million to $119 million in a single quarter in the US, a fall of more than 70%. That kind of margin compression in a quarter without an obvious one-off exceptional item suggests that the cost base built to support aggressive FanDuel growth is not adjusting quickly to a revenue environment where sportsbook handle is flat and yield is falling. Flutter had been among the operators most publicly sceptical that prediction markets posed a structural threat to licensed sportsbooks, and the company's earlier $300 million investment in prediction markets acknowledged the competitive reality without fully resolving the strategic tension. Congress is still debating whether prediction markets belong under a financial or a gambling framework, as competing bills continue to divide the sector, meaning the regulatory environment that will ultimately shape the competitive landscape remains unsettled. Taylor inherits a business that is better positioned globally than its current share price implies, but one that faces a US market where the assumptions underpinning FanDuel's dominance are being tested in ways the previous leadership did not fully anticipate.
Flutter's Valuation Reset Has Strategic Consequences Beyond the Share Price
A company that has fallen from a $50 billion valuation to below $20 billion in under a year faces constraints that go beyond investor sentiment. Acquisition currency shrinks, talent retention becomes more complex when equity compensation is deeply underwater, and the cost of capital rises at precisely the moment when investment in new product categories, including prediction markets and international expansion, is most needed. US commercial gaming as a whole hit a record $78.7 billion in 2025, meaning the market is growing even as Flutter's share of it comes under pressure. The question for Taylor is whether Flutter can stabilise its US position and fund the next leg of growth from a much lower valuation base. The international business, which Taylor knows well, is profitable and diversified. It is the US operation, the asset that drove the London delisting and the New York relisting, that now requires the most urgent attention.
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