Harry Kane unable to put a dent in Flutter Entertainment's big progress

Flutter Entertainment chief executive Peter Jackson did not necessarily share England football fans' hopes of a Harry Kane goal in last month's Euro 2020 final as it would have put a dent in their progress, his company revealed in its interim results unveiled on Tuesday.

Flutter's performance for the first half of the year had "exceeded our expectations" Jackson said, a view shared by the City as the company's share price was up nearly eight per cent at 13,950p at close of trade on Tuesday.

Jackson said Euro 2020 broke a number of records for the parent company of Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Bet, but there would have been "a pretty material impact" if England had lifted the trophy.

Peter Jackson: Perfomance had 'exceeded our expectations'

However, he added that the shift to products such as same game multiple bets had been a major change and said: "The most expensive thing for us would have been if Harry Kane had scored and if he had scored two goals that would have been really quite difficult for us.

"In total we had around half a billion pounds staked across the group on the competition and we had more than four million customers worldwide and more than three million customers in the UK.

"The result was an incredibly friendly one from a bookmaker perspective so we made some money as well."

The gambling industry giant, which merged with The Stars Group in May last year, said group revenue had nearly doubled to £3.05 billion and grew by 30 per cent on a pro forma basis (a comparison based on including The Stars Group's results for the full first half of 2020), driven by a 40 per cent increase in average monthly players.

Profit before tax rose by 221 per cent to £77 million compared to the equivalent period in 2020, which was affected by the emergence of Covid-19, while adjusted group ebitda (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) was down 12 per cent to £597m on a pro forma basis and down two per cent to £684m excluding the United States.

Nevertheless, Flutter's FanDuel brand in the US was described by Jackson as the number one sports betting operator "by some distance", with overall revenue growth of 159 per cent to £652m.

Flutter expects its US arm to generate positive earnings in 2023Credit: Layton Thompson

The US division made an adjusted ebitda loss of £87m, but the company said it expected its US arm to generate positive ebitda in 2023 based on its expectations for more states opening up their markets.

Paddy Power's betting shops were closed for much of the period, with June the first full month of trading since September 2020.

Revenue that month was around 80 per cent of the June 2019 figure, although there was a marked difference between the UK, where revenue was up seven per cent compared to 2019, and Ireland where revenues were half the 2019 levels, reflecting the differing restrictions in place.

Jackson said Flutter was pleased with the way betting shops had been performing and revealed the company was in the process of "opening some additional units this year".

Asked whether Flutter might be interested should any shops become available following the sale of William Hill's non-US business, Jackson added: "We are not going to be looking to acquire hundreds of shops but if there is a small number that fit the locations we want to open up in we will do."

Flutter said that it expected earnings for the full year outside the US to be between £1.27bn and £1.37bn assuming there was no further disruption to the sporting calendar and to retail betting caused by Covid.

Analyst Gavin Kelleher of Goodbody said he expected Flutter's results to be "very well received by the market" and added: "Flutter has seen phenomenal user growth over the last 12 months, with average monthly players rising 40 per cent year-on-year. This is extremely impressive and should underpin strong growth across the group in the medium term."

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