Flutter Entertainment - Q3 2023 TU

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to the Flutter Q3 trading update, hosted by CEO Peter Jackson and CFO Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson. Please note this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any time, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Peter Jackson, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Thank you, Courtney. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Q3 trading update call. With me this morning is Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson, our CFO. Hopefully, you've had a chance to review our statement this morning. Firstly, I'd like to talk to you about some important developments for the group before Paul will take you through the Q3 numbers. We've had another strong quarter, with revenue growth of 13%, despite customer-friendly sports results. In the U.S., FanDuel maintained its leadership position and the start of the new NFL season with great momentum, following the lull in the sports calendar across the summer. Ahead of the new NFL season, the team has delivered a multitude of new product innovations to customers to sustain our product leadership in the market.

These include market-leading new products that react to trending action by allowing customers to bet on the most compelling in-play action and expanding our range of player prop markets for in-play bettors, where we continue to offer the widest proposition in the market. We've further enhanced our promotional toolkit by launching Profit Boost Tokens, a mechanic that's proven very successful for Flutter in other markets, providing us with greater optionality for how we reward our players. These innovations have landed well with players, and the pipeline of further innovation remains strong. This has resulted in FanDuel maintaining its market leadership with a 47% NGR share, including a 55% share in September, following the resumption of the NFL, in line with our year-to-date NGR share of 52%. In iGaming, last year, we outlined our strategy to improve our proposition for casino players.

We've been making significant improvements across our product offering and promotional capabilities, which are delivering excellent results. FanDuel is the fastest-growing gaming brand and is now the number two in the market, and we are confident of taking further share. Our U.S. business is in a great position as we head into the key months of the sporting year. FanDuel will be the first operator to deliver full-year profitability, and our continued high level of investment in player acquisition at compelling returns will drive a ramp in profits into 2024 and beyond. In the group outside of the U.S., we've continued to deliver growth in line with our 5%-10% revenue framework, despite some headwinds. In the U.K. and Ireland, the business is performing exceptionally strongly, with our brands delivering new and engaging products to our players.

We've led the industry in taking proactive actions on safer gambling, and we look forward to working with both government and the Gambling Commission on the White Paper consultations. The combination of a highly recreational player base and strong product propositions is driving market share gains. In international, we hosted sell-side analysts in Milan last month to give them a deeper understanding of the opportunity that exists in our international markets, and the slides are available on our website. MaxBet, the local hero acquisition we announced in September, is giving us an exciting platform to grow in the Balkans, repeating our proven strategy of acquiring the best local player and improving its growth and profitability through the Flutter Edge. In Australia, where we remain the clear number one operator, the racing market has continued to be soft, albeit still well ahead of pre-COVID levels.

This softness, combined with increased regulation and taxes, is resulting in a greater revenue impact than we previously anticipated. Sportsbet has a fantastic position in the market, and we are focused on maintaining its leadership for when the market returns to growth. Lastly, on our proposed additional U.S. listing, we have submitted a draft registration statement to the SEC and look forward to engaging with their review process in the coming weeks. We've chosen to list on the New York Stock Exchange and expect this to become effective in Q1 2024. As a consequence, we'll cancel our Euronext listing. We recognize this may impact certain shareholders, and we've provided details on our website, which will hopefully answer all your questions. We'll provide a more specific timeline for the NYSE listing and U.S. listing in due course. And with that, I'll hand you over to Paul.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

Thanks, Peter, and good morning, everyone. As Peter outlined, Q3 was another strong quarter for the group. We added over 1.5 million new players, up 16% year-on-year, which translated into 13% revenue growth. In sports, customer favorable outcomes in Premier League and European football were a 12 percentage point headwind to revenue growth in the quarter, taking it from a 16% to a 4% increase. Gaming is performing exceptionally well, with double-digit growth in all divisions, driven by delivering compelling content to our players and cross-selling sports bet players to gaming. Turning to the divisions, in the U.S., revenue grew 20%, despite a 170 basis point swing in net revenue margin, due to lapping favorable sports results in the prior year....

In Sportsbook, revenue increased 12%, with strong staking growth of 38% being offset by the swing in sports results year-on-year. The product improvements Peter noted earlier are driving significant structural growth win margin increases, up by 80 basis points versus Q3 last year. In Casino, strong delivery against our gaming strategy resulted in 52% revenue growth, taking us to a 23% share of the market. We continue to make significant investments in customer acquisition, driving a 37% increase in new Sportsbook and Casino players in the quarter. When combined with significant operating leverage in future years, we are well set for continued strong growth in both revenue and profitability. In the Group ex-US, revenue increased 5% on a pro forma basis, with good momentum in the UK&I and international, partly offset by a softer Australian market.

In the UK&I, revenue increased 11% due to strong growth in gaming and expansion in our structural sportsbook revenue margin from greater adoption of BetBuilder products. In Australia, revenue declined 7% despite ARPU growth of 2%. I'll touch more on the outlook for the Australian market later. Finally, in international, our high-growth consolidate and invest markets, which make up 78% of the division, grew 11% in the quarter, and the division as a whole by 5%. Turning now to the outlook for the rest of the year. FanDuel is expected to be the first sports betting net operator to deliver a full-year profit in the US, with adjusted EBITDA of approximately $180 million in 2023, from revenue of approximately $4.7 billion.

This would represent a near 50% increase in revenue year-on-year and a near $500 million swing in profitability. Profitability ramp will continue in 2024 and beyond, driven by significant top-line growth and material expansion of our profit margins. In the group ex-US, Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be approximately GBP 1.44 billion. This expectation reflects the midpoint of our prior guidance range, adjusted for GBP 50 million of adverse sports results and GBP 30 million of foreign exchange movements. The strong underlying momentum in our UK&I and international divisions is offsetting the Australian headwinds, showing the benefits of our diversified portfolio.

While it's difficult to read the market so far ahead, our expectation is that the softer Australian market will continue into 2024, with a single mid-digit decline, which will now limit our ability in the near term to offset the impact of the previously announced Victoria point of consumption tax increase. In India, a very exciting market for the group, where we're well positioned with our Rummy brand, Junglee, the previously announced changes to GST from 18% on GGR to 28% on deposits is expected to result in 2024's profits growing £30 million, less than we had anticipated, and will likely push out the ramp in profitability from getting to a scale position by 1-2 years.

We are also investing in the group capability to ensure we truly harness the power of the Flutter Edge, and this, combined with U.S. listing associated costs, will see growth in our corporate cost base. In summary, we're very pleased with the ongoing growth trajectory of the group, and in particular, the strong player growth and structural margin increases we are achieving sets us up well for enduring profitable growth. The exciting trajectory of growth of our U.S. business is on track to transform the earnings profile of the group, which in turn will provide us with significant financial flexibility. I'll now hand you back to Peter.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Thank you, Paul. And with that, we'll turn it over to questions. As this is a quarterly update, we'll be keeping the Q&A section to around 30 minutes, so we'd ask you to limit your questions to 2 to give everyone a fair chance. If we do run out of time, the IR team are on hand to help with any questions you may have. Courtney, back over to you. I'm just, I'm just waiting to see where the operator is. If you just bear with us, please. Apologies. It looks like the operator's dropped off the line. If we all just stay on here, we're hoping they'll rejoin, and they'll be able to patch the people who've queued up to question through shortly. Sorry.

Operator (participant)

... Apologies for the inconvenience. I'm standing in for the operator. The first line is open for Ed Young from Morgan Stanley.

Ed Young (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Hello. Can you hear me?

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yeah, we can. Thank you for bearing with us, everybody, and apologies for the delay. The previous, you know, Courtney disappeared, so, I'm pleased we're back to normal things. Ed, it's nice to hear from you. I thought we just need to sit here on our own. Do you want to go ahead?

Ed Young (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Yeah, sure thing. So, my first question is on the US. Can you help us understand the Q3, Q4 phasing for US revenue, please? Obviously, your guidance implies nearly GBP 1.3 billion of revenue in Q4. That's nearly double the Q3, and that's a larger sort of quarter-on-quarter sequential improvement than peers are talking to. And if I look versus your closest peer, guidance is back up to being about 25% bigger than, than the midpoint of their guide versus a single-digit gap this quarter. So, clearly, there's some, some very, you know, wonky phasing quarter on quarter. Can you help us understand what's driven that, please? And then, my second question is on Australian racing softness. You referred to it, and you've given the sort of guidance into next year.

Can you just talk through exactly what you're seeing in racing and how it's different from your prior expectations? Thanks.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Hi, Ed, let me just quickly just deal with the Australian one, and then Paul will talk to you about the phasing, you know, Paul, sorry, I should say, will talk about the phasing in America. If we look at it in terms of, you know, the market is definitely soft. The marquee events are actually performing well. So, you know, we're pleased with what we saw in the Melbourne Cup recently. Now, AMPs, as we stated, are up, but we are seeing, you know, a decline in the number of bet days and also in ARPU, which is particularly impacting the racing part of their portfolio.

Yeah, I think some of it is that engagement was driven very high through COVID, and, you know, there's been some sort of unwind from that. I think we're also continuing to drive great product innovations in sports, but we haven't been able to land as successfully in racing, which I think is also impacting it. Paul, do you want to talk about that phase?

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

Yeah. So look on the phasing, as you say, Ed, we have continued the guidance for revenue and EBITDA for the full year. If you look at 2022, and you look at that with a sports adjusted basis, i.e., taking out the luck element, it was phased Q3, Q4, one third, two thirds. And then, as you say, that's roughly in line with what the guidance for the full year would indicate. Obviously, it's difficult for you guys to see through those numbers sometimes, but hopefully that helps.

Ed Young (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Okay. Can I just can I sort of follow up? Because if I look at the quarter-on-quarter, perhaps from Q2 into Q3, it's also sort of quite different from peers. So I just want to understand, you talked about NGR share, but is there anything particularly going on with, you think, promotional activity versus peers or anything versus the market that's different? Or, you know, is there anything you'd like to flag on that, on that side?

Peter Jackson (CEO)

I think, Ed, I suspect there's a bit of, you know, looking at ARPU. No one has the same mix as us. There's a sports gaming thing, but Paul.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

NGR, we think, is the right metric to look at and, because that does take account of, generosity coming through. So 47%, NGR, for us, which is up 5%, year on year. And, it's good that now we've got nine states that are publishing that, and we are encouraging the rest of the states to do the same, because I think that's really the metric that matters. And I think that demonstrates our strength. You know, our, our NGR share in, in sports is 50% more than DraftKings, and I think that's the, the key metric.

Ed Young (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Okay. Thank you.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

Thanks, Ed.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Clark Lampen, from BTIG. The line is open. Please go ahead.

Clark Lampen (Managing Director and Digital Gaming Analyst)

Thanks for taking the question. Maybe I can just put a little bit of a finer point on some of the US comments. Just to, to be clear, you're not really modeling in any sort of change in, in share, any real uptick in promo or, anything other than sort of a mean reversion in hold rate to get to that sort of $1.3 billion and midpoint of the guidance. Is that correct?

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

We don't think things are changing exactly. So it's just a reversion to the mean, taking out the sports results from Q3, Q4 last year.

Clark Lampen (Managing Director and Digital Gaming Analyst)

Is there anything baked in for an uptick in sort of competitive intensity around that? And maybe, Paul, I guess if we step back from just sort of a discussion around the end of year, as we think about, I guess, the medium term guidance that you guys have provided for sort of 2024 and 2025, is should we think about, I guess, the conditions being similar, i.e., we're not expecting substantial improvements in or adjustments in share, improvements in the promotion rate or hold rate, things of that nature? Any clarity would be helpful. Thank you.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Well, look, Clark, I mean, we have operated in this market for many years now, and the market has remained incredibly, you know, intense from a competition perspective. We don't anticipate, you know, the back end of this year being any different, and we don't expect subsequently to be any different. We've always been very focused on acquiring as much business as we possibly can do, wherever it meets our acquisition to lifetime value, so dynamics. And we've been very pleased with what we've been able to acquire this year. Yeah. Paul will comment on, you know, how we see some promotional spend, you know, so changing things in the market. But we will acquire as much businesses as we possibly can do whilst ever we meet our hurdles.

I, you know, I believe the market is becoming more rational. I think that's actually a positive thing for all participants.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

So I think you've got a couple of components that drive customers to choose their app that they prefer. The biggest one actually is the functionality, and the FanDuel app wins on all the aspects of functionality. If you look at the latest Ireland Price Check Report, I think it's the first time there's been a clean sweep for any operator, winning on every single metric. I think that will help. We continue to have very strong offers, promotional and generosity offers. We've brought in Profit Boost Tokens now, and they're being well received by our customers. We've got significant further increases in the customers who are using parlays, and parlays are obviously a higher margin product for us.

I think 80% of NBA players so far have used a parlay this NBA season. So that's all heading in the right direction, great product, great generosity, and that's what's delivering the sort of market share that we're seeing. Thanks, Clark.

Clark Lampen (Managing Director and Digital Gaming Analyst)

Thank you, Bill. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Monique Pollard from Citi. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Monique Pollard (Director of Equity Research)

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for the update. Just two questions from me, focused on the US again. So the first is, when I look at the US for this quarter, you know, the miss versus consensus expectations was win margin driven. And in particular, when I look at the gap between the net win margin, which it's grown 8%, and sort of the normalized gross, or not even the normalized gross win margin, the actual gross win margin, taking into account the poor sports results, it seems like this quarter was really quite promotional, you know, more in line with Q1 key promotion levels in terms of free bets, which tends to be a very promotional quarter, given the Super Bowl. So what I'm trying to understand is a couple of things.

One is, how do you think about promotional intensity in the context of results? So do promotions get scaled back when results are very favorable because you know the customer is already getting that benefit or not? And then, how should we think about that promotional intensity versus peers? You know, is it that you're ramping up promotional intensity because you're facing, you know, market share gains by the number two player in online sports betting, and how will that ramp up in promotional intensity help you to take share back from the number two operator?

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Look, Monique, let me give you some thoughts here, and I'm sure Paul wants to sort of dive in as well. It's important to remember that, you know, there's two things happening in the quarter three period. First of all, there's not a lot of sport. And then suddenly, it's going to be this step up in the launch of the NFL and then you get into the NBA. So essentially, it's a quiet period from a sports perspective, but a very intense period from a sort of customer acquisition and reactivation perspective. And so there is actually a lot of promotional activity in this quarter. So I think it's a much more important quarter actually for customer activation than the Super Bowl would be.

And I think it's just important to bear that in mind. You know, Q4 and Q1 are then obviously the very big quarters from a sports content perspective, which, you know, we always see as playing to our strengths. You know, to be clear, we have not altered our posture in the market as a result of what other people are doing. We've always tended to be very focused on acquiring as much businesses as we ever can do, whatever it meets our return criteria.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

In terms of the margins, there's a few moving parts. I mean, we talked about the win margin because of the very strong Q3 last year. So the shift Q3 to Q3 2022 to Q3 2023 is a hundred and seventy bips. We're growing the structural margin, and that's driven by the continued take up of parlay bets. I've spoken about that before, that's about eighty bips. And then you've got the Profit Boost Tokens coming through, and that's about ninety bips of a headwind at the GGR level. So but the combination of those is what takes us down to that level. Thanks, Monique.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

The final part that Monique asked actually was about how we think about generosity, with regards to, to favorable and unfavorable sports results. And of course, this is a relevant question, not just for America, but for, for any of our businesses.... And, you know, and clearly we do manage our generosity, as, as a function of what we're seeing from a sports results perspective. So, you know, we would have pulled back in the UK when we saw those very favorable results in, in September. You know, correspondingly, you know, earlier on in the year, when actually results were, you know, were difficult for customers, we would have been leaning in and providing more generosity. So it, it's actually, you know, it's a sort of balancing metric for us to- to some extent, to think about.

Monique Pollard (Director of Equity Research)

Got it. Okay, and that's the same in the US, you would say?

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yeah, everywhere I operate, it's, you know, we use that concept.

Monique Pollard (Director of Equity Research)

Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes in from the line of Ryan Sigdahl, calling from Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Ryan Sigdahl (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Two questions for us. Peter, you mentioned the NFL had an uplift on market share, but additionally, FanDuel has historically outperformed even better on NBA, with any metrics you can share on market share business trends since the season started in late October. And then secondly, just internationally, thinking back to other times in history when we've had statistically better win rates for the customer-friendly ones, how quickly can you recoup those? I guess, do you see a bigger and faster reinvestment back into that? Thanks.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yeah. Look, Ryan , I mean, we obviously we're talking about Q3 today, and the NBA is, you know, only started relatively recently. But I am very pleased, though, with how the business is performing. You know, and if you look at historically, our strength is has always been when sports are back on, you know, firing on all cylinders, and you know that we have a really, really compelling product for the NBA, which always, I think, disproportionately favors us. So, you know, we're excited to see what we deliver in, you know, the course of this NBA season in Q4 and Q1. You know, look, the way that we sort of historically have talked about, you know, the impact of, you know, favorable results is, you know, in a degree of recycling.

There are different metrics we've looked at historically to sort of assess how fast those sort of benefits have flowed back. But it's more of an art than a science.

Operator (participant)

Okay, thank you. The next question comes in from the line of Paul Ruddy, calling from Davy. Please go ahead.

Paul Ruddy (Gaming and Leisure Analyst)

Hey, morning, Peter and Paul. Just a quick question, just on the U.S., just on the innovation piece. Would you be able to just give us some context on just where you think your product sits, and what the new big blocks of product innovation, you alluded to some of them earlier in the call, are? And maybe just with reference to where you think the competition, set is in the U.S., both the number two operator and maybe the tail operator, and some of what the kind of various gaps you see are. And the second thing is just on India, I think you alluded to maybe a GBP 13 million downgrade from the GST in 2024, or a headwind from it.

Just thinking about the profit, the phasing of that profitability, is it sensible to kind of just think of that £30 million moving as a positive contribution into 2025? You know, or, you know, would you expect a slower or stronger ramp than that thereafter? Thanks.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Thanks, Paul. Look, I mean, I could... You know, this is a great question, in terms of the product advantages, so I can speak for a long time about the long list of advantages that we have in the market. But you know, this isn't just my view. If you look at what iGaming and TrackCon said, as you know, as Paul referenced earlier, you know, for the first time, an operator swept the board with the number one in all categories, and I was delighted to see that was FanDuel. You know, we have always had a leadership position from a product perspective, and it's not, you know, we're not stood still. We're pushing hard on innovation, and we're moving quickly.

But, you know, whether it's things like our live, say, you know, parlays, which you have on more sports with less friction than our other operators, our Parlay Hub, you know, the sort of popular bets, which is sort of a sorted feed of trending picks that we have for customers, the Pulse, which is servicing more compelling, narrative-driven in-play betting opportunities, you know, the Reward Machine that we have in casino. But it's not just those sort of product things we talked to. It's also important sort of, you know, opportunities, things like our Quick Deposit mechanism, which allows customers to top up their balance as part of their bet placement process. You know, we know how important it is to make the site, you know, easy to use, and those types of capabilities are really important.

In terms of account creation, we have a sort of pre-filled fast track sign-up process. You know, so we're investing right across the stack. I don't know whether, Paul, you want to talk about the Indian stuff then. Yeah. So in India, Junglee, a great brand, and we had very high hopes for it, having hit its profit inception point in 2024. But the change in GST is going to push that back. It's a little difficult to tell whether that's going to then bounce back into 2025 in full. We thought in 2024, we would go from sort of a break-even to about a £30 million profit basis. So that could come through in full in 2025.

Might only see half of that, really depends on just how quickly we're gonna adapt there. But it'll come for sure.

Paul Ruddy (Gaming and Leisure Analyst)

Okay. Thanks for the helpful.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Thanks, Paul.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes in from the line of Kiranjot Grewal, calling from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Kiranjot Grewal (Equity Research Analyst)

... Hey, hey, morning, guys. Just two questions from me. Firstly, would like to unpick for the Australian impact heading into next year. I think we already had the warning at H1, but it looks like there's more headwinds in 2024. Can you just share some color on how much of this is FX versus taxes versus underlying performance? And then secondly, within your release, you've outlined some softness in Italy. Are you seeing any market pressures here? And as you enter into Q4, how do you think Italy will perform? I'm just conscious that you're lacking a World Cup period where Italy didn't participate last year. Thank you.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

I mean, why don't I just quickly touch on the points in Italy, and then I'll let-- we'll talk about Australia. Yeah, look, I mean, I think while Italy weren't in the World Cup last year, I mean, so there's obviously a lot of interest and engagement in it, which I think is, you know, is obviously important. You know, Q3 has been much more competitive, but we've maintained our discipline. I think, you know, look, the CSAR team are doing a fantastic job. You know, we're confident we took NGR share in the first half. And, yeah, I think in Q3, we have to remember that September, you know, was also a bad, particularly bad month from a sports results perspective.

We have a sort of disproportionately large sports business compared with our sort of key competitors. But look, I'm not particularly concerned about the short-term fluctuations. I think the team are executing well and doing a good job.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

And in terms of Australia, the underlying performance of the business is good in that our amps are up 2%. We're the biggest business in the market. The racing market, having gone up a lot since COVID, is now going back. And so we're calling that out. So that's what we saw in the Q3. It went back more than we had anticipated in the Q3. Best line of sight for us is that will continue in the fourth, and then if we lap that out into 2024, that's gonna have an impact on the amount of money we'll make from that business line. So it's still a good business for us.

It's still well ahead of where it was back in 2019, but yeah, it is going to be a profit headwind in 2023, and then a continued profit headwind in 2024, as we called out.

Kiranjot Grewal (Equity Research Analyst)

Super. Thank you.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

Thanks, Karen John.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes in from the line of Joe Stauff, calling from SIG. Please go ahead.

Joe Stauff (Senior Equity Analyst of Gaming & Casinos)

Thank you. Good morning. Two questions, please. Paul, yeah, you mentioned the 80 bps in Q3 structural improvement in the U.S. Is that maybe the right expectation of structural hold improvement going forward, whether it be Q4 and 2024, I guess, based on the analysts meeting it would be, you know, a range of 50-80? So if you can comment on that. And then number two, if you were to maybe just comment on the competitive environment in the U.K. and I, you know, you guys are taking share. And I was just curious, maybe from the side of the pond, about how many other operators you see that are adjusting properly in front of the White Paper versus not?

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Morning, Joe, and thank you for getting up so early. I mean, let me just quickly touch on the UK point, and then we'll talk about the margins and hold weight. If I look at the market share data, you know, and look at this, you know, Q3, among the tier one operators, basically the market was sort of flat, so +1%, and we were up 11%. So, you know, we're clearly taking share, and I think the team are doing a tremendous job. We got ahead of the changes from a White Paper perspective, you know, early last year, and I think it stood us in very good stead through the course of last year and this year. But we're also making some very considerable product enhancements.

You know, the stuff we're doing with the Acca Freeze for Sky Bet, you know, the Bet Builder product for Paddies. You know, we've also seen very significant growth in gaming in the UK. And a lot of that is driven through, you know, product changes we've made as well, such as the introduction of live products on the Sky brand, which have proved to be very popular amongst that really recreational customer. So, you know, we're undoubtedly performing well and taking significant share. Yeah, and I think, you know, we're pleased, you know, that other operators are, yeah, also implementing these changes. And I think, you know, the whole market in time will have to get there.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

And in terms of the margin improvement, Joe, yeah, look, really pleased with the 80 basis points improvement. This is about the quality of the product, which has been significantly enhanced. We talked to the Capital Markets Day last year about getting to a 12% level there. We're already at 11.5%, so the rapid improvement and still some way to go. But we're not giving quarter guidance on that, but really pleased with the performance. Thanks, Joe.

Joe Stauff (Senior Equity Analyst of Gaming & Casinos)

Understood. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes in from the line of Alistair Johnson, calling from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Alistair Johnson (Equity Research Analyst)

Morning, guys. Just two from me, please. Firstly, on the US, I appreciate you haven't guided on 2024, but given what you were saying about not altering your posture based on what your competitors are doing, does that also apply to your marketing investment next year, given we've heard DraftKings talking about lowering marketing costs in absolute terms in 2024? And then, on Australia, is it fair to interpret your comments on maintaining market share as meaning you will invest in customer acquisition, potentially at the expense of short-term EBITDA? And what gives you the confidence that sort of, that's the right approach, and that the market will come back in the long run? Thank you.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yeah, so I mean, I'll give you some quick thoughts on it. Look, you know, I mean, we, you know, set out the leverage opportunity for the business from a marketing perspective, you know, at the interim. So, you know, we don't feel the need to necessarily to be pulling around those levers. We've always, ever since we started the business, been very disciplined in how we spend our marketing money to make sure that we acquire as much business as we, you know, possibly can do whilst meeting our return criteria. You know, whilst we get that profit ramp into 2024 and beyond, you know, we're going to be able to continue to play the same game.

We won't feel, you know, I don't think we feel any pressure to deviate from that course. And, you know, the way I think about the business in Australia is, you know, we actually have to be really careful that we don't try and sort of over-monetize the business and cause problems in the longer term. You know, we have, you know, a great business in Australia. There is some softness in the market. It's still significantly bigger than it was pre-COVID. I think it's important that we continue to, you know, invest in the market to take advantage of the growth when it comes.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes in from the line of James Roland Clark, calling from Barclays. Please go ahead.

James Rowland Clark (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi there, two follow-ups please, from my side. The first is just on recycling. I don't know if you ended up giving any color on what you're seeing in terms of recycling after the customer-friendly results in the last two months. It seems like the UK is seeing a slightly higher rate of staking in the last couple of weeks, so any color there would be helpful. And then also on the UK, on regulation, I know you just mentioned how you implemented safer gambling measures earlier than the rest of the market, and you're pleased that everyone is sort of trending to where you are. But are you confident that you don't have to make any further changes ahead of the White Paper? Thank you.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Thank you, James. Yeah, look, I think, in terms of, you know, providing color on the impact of, you know, favorable results, you've probably just done it, right? You know, there is inevitably going to be some sort of impact, you know, on staking. You know, and we'll see that. We should also remember, you know, results swing two ways, and, you know, we have had, you know, I think, you know, to year to date, it probably gives us some sort of, you know, reasonably expected result.

As it pertains to the sort of UK market from a regulatory perspective, you know, I think it's important to say that whilst we, you know, step forward early, to put in place a, you know, bunch of changes, you know, we do continue to iterate and improve our safer gambling measures. So, you know, this isn't a sort of once and done thing we did last year. We're continuing to make changes. You know, I think we also were very thoughtful about the guidance that we provided to the market at the time. And we guided to a sort of, you know, GBP 25 million-GBP 50 million in impact on an EBITDA basis.

That was, you know, predicated on, you know, on, on, our best view at the time of what we thought would happen as a result of the White Paper and consultations, and we still stand by that today. You know, we haven't seen anything that would cause us to, to deviate away from it.

Thanks, James.

James Rowland Clark (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes in from the line of Simon Davies, calling from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Simon Davies (Head of UK MidCap and Online Gaming Research)

Yeah, morning. One point of clarification, but do you think in terms of the UK market and regulatory costs and safety standards, that you are at the top end of your peer group, or do you still see some catching up in certain areas? And do you see any further regulatory headwinds in the UK in 2024? And secondly, just on Australia, do you think this is an issue of competition or the weaker consumer backdrop? And if it's the weaker consumer backdrop, are you concerned that we may see some signs of a further slowdown elsewhere in your more mature markets?

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yes, so Simon, I think we've been pretty clear in terms of the fact that we're leading the way to the top from a UK perspective around the safety standards. You know, we took a lot of pain last year, and, you know, look, if you look at our, you know, performance of businesses there, I'm very, very proud of what the team are doing. You know, up 11%, the market quarterly flat. Some of that is undoubtedly the fact that we got ahead of the changes and other people are relatively catching up, which would infer that we are ahead. And, you know, and the other part of it is because of the strength of our products. So, you know, I think we, you know, we're in a very good position.

The team are executing really well in the UK, and I'm very proud of what they're doing. Paul, I don't know if you want to talk about Australia?

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

Yeah, and if you look at Australia, our business is still performing well from a competitive standpoint. If you look at the racing market in particular, it went up a lot with COVID, and I think really what we're seeing is still the COVID reversion. It's a little slower than we would think, but it's still a very good business, and we're still leading there. And sports is up-... But rating is tough as we revert back to a level that is still ahead of 2019, but lower than we've seen in the last few years.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yeah, well, Simon, the other thing I just build, building on your question about whether this is a, you know, what, what are the drivers of this, whether it's a macro and whether there could be any impact elsewhere. You know, the business that we, we look very closely at is, is Tombola in the U.K., and we're seeing absolutely no signs at all of any stress from a consumer perspective there. So, yeah, I, I don't think this is a consumer stress thing necessarily in, in Australia. I think there's a bunch of other factors which we, we discussed, and we're seeing no, no indication of that in, in the U.K. or any other markets.

Simon Davies (Head of UK MidCap and Online Gaming Research)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes in from the line of David Brohan, calling from Goodbody. Please go ahead.

David Brohan (Gaming and Leisure Analyst, Head of Gaming)

Morning, guys. Just two quick questions. Firstly, on Brazil, just curious what your latest expectations are there, in terms of timing and regulation. And then just on the additional investment into Flutter Edge, could you give us a flavor for what that investment actually looks like? Thank you.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yeah, look, trying to put a pin on the date of Brazilian regulation is a thing that's tripped me up many times over the years, so I'm probably not gonna try and fall for that again, David. But look, you know, we're hopeful it'll be coming soon. You know, we're very pleased with the performance of our business in Brazil. You know, we're growing, and I think that you know that we're excited to see what we can do, you know, as that market regulates.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

In terms of investment into the central cost line, this is partly around the Flutter Edge, so it's building our capabilities in, say, HR systems, so we can give the best data to our teams, partly around the procurement, so that we can drive ongoing efficiencies, finance systems, et cetera. So yeah, structural improvements in our capabilities, and it's also partially as we move to having a U.S. listing, there's a few more requirements on us around Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, et cetera, from having, from being under the SEC's regulation. So just building out some capabilities around that.

David Brohan (Gaming and Leisure Analyst, Head of Gaming)

Okay. Perfect. Thanks.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

Thank you, David.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes in from the line of Joe Thomas, calling from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Joe Thomas (Research Analyst)

Good morning, Peter. Good morning, Paul. So the two from me are, firstly, on India. I'm just wondering, you talked about the ongoing hits from taxes. The Indian government has also been chasing some operators for back payment of taxes. Now, I know you've said in the past that there's no merit to those claims, but I just wondered what the status is there, and how the thinking is progressing on that, and if there have been any developments.

And then secondly, just following on from that point on Brazil, there is a lot of change in the Latin market at the moment, and sounds like on balance could be, there could be some negatives in the short term, as taxes go up and perhaps some games are banned. But I'm just wondering how you're thinking about sort of headwinds or tailwinds into next year, as you think about the profit outlook. Thank you.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Well, morning, Joe. Look, we’ve had no demand in terms of back taxes for our Junglee business. You know, I mean, I think there’s a case that’s going through the courts at the moment. We have no update on that at this stage. In terms of Brazil, well, you know, I think there’s always some questions and uncertainty around the extent to which gaming will be regulated, as you know, in addition to sports. I don’t know whether that’s what you’re referring to, but look, we don’t see Brazil as being a headwind next year. We’re excited about our position in the market. I think the team are executing really well on the ground.

And, you know, and I think from a sort of, you know, broader, a broader basis, you know, there are some exciting developments across Latin America, which, you know, of course, we're, we're watching. You know, look, we're, we're at double digits in Brazil in, in Q3. The team are performing well, and are, you know, I'm excited to see what they do, you know, the balance of the year into next year.

Joe Thomas (Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our final question comes in from the line of Andrew Tam, calling from Redburn. Please go ahead.

Andrew Tam (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning, guys. Just a quick question on US iGaming. Just wanted to understand what you see just in terms of further price improvements, given obviously, you know, other competitors are taking even more share, notwithstanding the fact that you have taken share year on year. Is there gaps in terms of what you're doing relative to peers, in terms of generosity? Are you maintaining discipline there? And also, could we get an update just in terms of

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Yeah. I lost the, you asked me, you said to get an update on something, Andrew.

Andrew Tam (Equity Research Analyst)

Could we just get an update on cross-sell rates from sports and from OSB?

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Okay. Thank you. Look, I mean, I think if you, if you look at what we've been doing in the US, in the casino space, we stated at the Capital Markets Day that we saw this as a three-phase sort of plan. The first phase was to fix some of the things that were sort of broken. You know, we didn't have a focused brand marketing team, you know, a bunch of other things. So we needed to address that, and that was what we, you know, were doing last year. We saw ourselves getting to product parity this year. You know, that's and also making some enhancements to some of our promotional capabilities. So, you know, you'll have seen us bring in things like the Reward Machine and, you know, we definitely expanded our range of content.

Then we always anticipated that next year would be the year when we moved ahead from a product perspective. If you look at what we have managed to accomplish, you know, we've been really pleased that we've been able to grow the business in the direct casino space. So, you know, we've taken share, we're the fastest growing brand, and we're now the number two operator. And so, you know, frankly, we got there faster than we thought, and we got there off the back of sales in the direct casino space. We still have a very strong performance in terms of cross-selling into sports. You know, it's better than we had originally anticipated.

It's now sort of, you know, around sort of, 50%, which I think, you know, is strong if we compare that with our European businesses. But you know, a lot of the growth that we've been seeing has actually come from the direct-to-casino space. Look, I think the team have done a brilliant job. We've, you know, for where we are, we're delivering better results than we're anticipating. We've got lots of exciting things still to come in casino, which we know will enable us to take further share.

Thanks, Andrew.

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson (CFO)

Thanks, guys.

Peter Jackson (CEO)

Okay, I think that was the last question. So I'm with apologies to those of you waiting with trepidation, early on in the call, wondering if the operator is going to come back and patch any of you through. I apologize for that. I'm glad we managed to get it fixed and working again. So thank you for your patience, and I look forward to catching up with you all soon.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets.