$873m Brazil hit pushes Flutter to $1.15bn loss

• Flutter’s Q3 group net loss widens 46% to $1.15bn on $873m of Brazil impairments.
• Full-year revenue guidance falls $300m to $17.61bn at the midpoint.
• Dan Taylor pauses buybacks and targets $500m in extra savings by 2029.

Flutter Entertainment swings to a $1.15bn group net loss for the third quarter after writing down $873m on its Brazilian business, which the government’s betting ban forced offline in late September.

The FanDuel owner also trims full-year guidance and freezes share buybacks, as new CEO Dan Taylor sets out his first plan for the group.

An $873m Brazil bill

Flutter’s group net loss widened by $359m year on year, from $789m to $1.15bn, according to its Q3 earnings release. The Brazil write-down accounts for most of that. Goodwill makes up $541m of the charge, and a further $296m is tied to long-lived assets.

Flutter owns 56% of Flutter Brazil, so $537m of the post-tax impairment is attributable to the group. Minority shareholders absorb the rest. That leaves the net loss attributable to Flutter shareholders at $862m.

The group traces the damage to two blows. Socio-economic measures introduced earlier in the year had already slowed trading. Then the Provisional Measure of 25 September provisionally banned sports betting and iGaming, and Flutter switched off its Brazilian operations a day later.

Brazil revenue dropped 31% to $60m in the quarter. Flutter has shut Betfair in the country, paused all discretionary spending and kept Betnacional as its only local brand.

Flutter says it is ready to reopen once the regulatory framework is clear. That clarity has yet to arrive, with the ban surviving a ten-hour Supreme Court hearing that closed without a ruling.

A separate $105m provision for an Australian class action added to the quarter’s losses.

Football bites back

Group revenue edged up 2% to $3.87bn, but adjusted EBITDA fell 25% to $360m. Average monthly players slipped 3% to 13.7 million, with the August 2025 exit from India still weighing on year-on-year comparisons.

The International division took the hardest sporting hit. Customer-friendly results at the start of the European football season cost it roughly $131m in revenue and $86m in adjusted EBITDA during the quarter.

International revenue held flat at $2.42bn. Adjusted EBITDA fell 14% to $435m, with a 280-basis-point margin squeeze driven mainly by the UK’s remote gaming duty rising from 21% to 40%. Flutter has since proposed up to 1,400 redundancies in its UK and Ireland business to help absorb the higher duties.

Beneath the headline numbers, the core markets kept growing. UKI revenue rose 4%, Southern Europe and Africa climbed 13%, and Flutter’s Italian online share reached 32%.

FanDuel pays for share

US revenue grew 6% to $1.46bn, driven by 13% handle growth. Sportsbook revenue rose 4% and iGaming 8%.

Profit went the other way. US adjusted EBITDA slumped to $3m from $51m, as Flutter spent on prediction markets, the World Cup and its July launch in Alberta. Promotional spend climbed to 6.0% of handle and should stay near that level into 2027.

The spending is buying share. FanDuel held 36% of US sportsbook GGR and 27% of iGaming GGR in the quarter, according to Flutter, and took 23% of GGR in Alberta.

Leadership at the US arm is also settling. Taylor has told staff that Christian Genetski will become permanent FanDuel CEO from January.

Taylor shows his hand

Dan Taylor, who replaced Peter Jackson as group CEO on 1 October, built his first results around four priorities.

Dan Taylor, CEO at Flutter Entertainment, said:

“Looking ahead, our priorities are clear: build on our US leadership, capture the prediction markets opportunity, unlock more value from our International portfolio and simplify the way we operate. Delivering against those priorities will require faster execution, tough decisions and disciplined investment. I am confident our actions will make Flutter a stronger business in the long-term.”

In his shareholder letter, Taylor was blunter about the gap between Flutter’s size and its returns:

“We have fantastic brands, deep sector expertise and significant scale, but we are not getting enough from these advantages.”

His fix is a further $500m in gross operating and capital expenditure savings by 2029, on top of existing programmes. Flutter plans to lean on AI, strip out layers and duplication, and simplify its technology infrastructure.

Portfolio decisions are already coming through. Last week Flutter confirmed it is pulling Betfair out of Italy, one of the first such moves made public under Taylor.

Buybacks on ice

Shareholder returns are the first casualty. The share repurchase programme is paused for the foreseeable future, as deleveraging and organic investment move to the front of the queue.

Leverage rose to 4.6x at the end of Q3, up from 3.7x in December 2025. That compares with a medium-term target of 2.0x to 2.5x. Net debt stood at $10.66bn.

Flutter has bought itself time on the debt side. It refinanced its revolving credit facility and Term Loan A, adding roughly $240m of capacity and pushing maturities from November 2028 to May 2032.

Guidance now sits at $17.61bn in revenue and $2.495bn in adjusted EBITDA at the midpoint, down $300m and $160m respectively. The revision captures sports results up to 29 October and the Brazil closure, partly offset by cost cuts.

Predicts finds its feet

FanDuel Predicts recorded 66,000 average monthly players in Q3, up 39% on the prior quarter. Volume more than doubled to $119m, and October volume ran 271% above July.

Flutter credits the nationwide rollout of the FanDuel One App and the move of all sports contracts to Crypto.com. It expects investment in the product to hold at similar or higher levels in 2027.

Fighting the newcomers carries a cost. Flutter says prediction market operators are driving up its media costs, so marketing intensity should stay at 2026 levels next year.

February’s real test

Taylor has promised a fuller strategy update with Q4 results in February. Investors will want evidence that cost cuts can fund FanDuel’s fight on two fronts, against sportsbook rivals and prediction market newcomers, without stalling the balance sheet repair.

Brazil remains the wild card. Flutter still sees an attractive market under the right regulation, but has pledged discipline over any fresh capital it commits there.

Rivals stuck behind the same ban now have a template from the sector’s largest operator: one brand, no discretionary spend and a write-down taken early.