Flutter Points to Increased Competition, Marketing Spend for Dip in PokerStars' Q3 Results Flutter Points to Increased Competition, Marketing Spend for Dip in PokerStars' Q3 Results
Key Takeaways
  • Flutter released a third quarter trading update boasting of impressive performance across large parts of its business.
  • A weak spot in the portfolio was PokerStars, which encompasses sports and casino but is approximately two-thirds poker.
  • “In PokerStars, the normalization of the revenue trends that we detailed at our interim results has broadly continued.”
  • PokerStars traffic during Q3 was up 13% on the same quarter of 2019.
  • “We have substantially increased our level of investment in the international business through targeted generosity.”
  • “Events that drive quite a lot of activity around poker are driven by global competitions which different operators get behind.”

Global gaming giant Flutter Entertainment plc, the new owners of The Stars Group, blamed increased competition from the World Series of Poker on GGPoker, plus increased marketing spend, for low online poker results in their quarterly financial results.

On Wednesday, Flutter released a third quarter trading update boasting of impressive performance across large parts of its business.

Reporting in constant currency, Paddy Power-Betfair online was up 14%, Sky Betting and Gaming (SBG) up 26%, and the Australian business BetEasy up 76%, thanks to sporting events returning strongly in the third quarter.

Overall, total group revenue was up 27%, or 30% in constant currency, to £1.33 billion in Q3, with both sports and gaming showing strong gains.

However, a weak spot in the portfolio was PokerStars, which encompasses sports and casino but is approximately two-thirds online poker. The segment was flat year-over-year, though up 5% in constant currency, to £262 million. However, this was propped up by strong performance in casino, up 32%.