Flutter Entertainment plc

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm here with Jonathan to answer your questions following our announcement this morning. Hopefully, you've all had a chance to watch the presentation that we published on our website this morning. I won't repeat what has been said there, but we'll just make a few opening comments. 2020 was a remarkable year for Flutter. We completed our merger with Stars Group in May, and in December, we accelerated our buy-in to the minority shareholders in Fangiole. something we're very keen to do given the scale of the opportunity we see in North America. I'm pleased to say that our business is performing very well. The growth we're delivering is being built on sustainable foundations with significant recreational customer growth in all our key regions. Throughout 2020, our average monthly online players grew 19%, with that growth accelerating during the year. Average player growth globally was 32% in H2. Merger integration continues to progress well. You'll have seen that we have upgraded our cost energy guidance this morning. As we said before, our number one priority is ensuring that the momentum in the business is not negatively impacted by integration work. But I'm pleased that we've been able to identify further efficiencies whilst maintaining strong momentum. Whilst performance in all of our regions has been strong, our ongoing leadership position in the US is particularly encouraging. We now believe the U.S. market opportunity will be materially bigger than we previously estimated, with a TAM of $20 billion by 2025, while the returns profile we have highlighted this morning clearly shows the embedded value we're building in our business. 2021 has started well, and while our retail business is still being impacted by COVID-related closures, the strong underlying momentum in our online businesses is expected to offset this. And with that, I'll open it up for questions. In the interest of giving everyone the chance to ask a question, can I ask that you limit yourselves to two each in the first instance? And then if we have time, we'll perhaps answer any follow-ups you may have.

Thank you. Your first question is coming from Ed Young of Morgan Stanley.

Good morning, Ed.

Good morning, Ed. Morning both. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on your triple-step responsible gambling measures. I'm very struck by... what you've done there. I guess my question is, is that on a global basis or is that largely in your legacy markets? I'm aware your tech platform is pretty across the U.S. Maybe that explains some of it. But are there any differences between your responsible gambling measures and steps across your global businesses, particularly regarding the U.S. given player values and spend that there's to be so high there relative to some of the other markets? And then my second question is around the buyout of the financial minorities. My understanding when that was done originally was that the exercise in the summer will continue to be a fair market value exercise. Obviously, since then, Fox has said... they'd be able to exercise the option at last private mark.

So can you give a view on how you think that process is going to go in the summer?

And if possible, I can add on a part B. Your sort of general view on the Fox asset, a lot of stuff about Vanduul, Vanduul brand, Vanduul returns. Any comment on the returns you're seeing in Fox in the U.S.? Thanks. Thanks, Ed. Well, I might just take them in reverse order. We're pleased with the way that the Super 6 asset has performed, you know, with nearly four and a half million customers on that platform. It's clearly going to be a very valuable database for us to cross that into. I've talked in the past over some of the struggles we're having with the quality of the product for Foxbest which is something which is definitely hampering the ability for that business to get the traction it needs and is a really good reminder for us of what it's like to be one of these subscale operators in America because we sometimes forget the difficulties they face when we look at the fantastic results that the Fangio business is delivering as the number one player there in that market. In terms of the mechanism for dealing with Fox and the rights that we negotiated with them as part of the purchase or the deal we did with the Stars Group, we haven't put anything formal in place this month, but we will on our commitment to give Fox an option to acquire 18.6% of FanDuel at fair market value in July 2021. To be clear on the valuation, Fox will have to pay the fair market value, which is different from the negotiated price agreed between Flutter and Fastball, which reflected the specific circumstances that Fastball found itself in. The valuation will be carried out in the same manner that would have occurred had Fastball still owned the stake. And as a reminder for those of you, two banks will value the business, And if the valuations are within a narrow enough range, the average of the two will be taken. And in the event that there's a wide disparity between the two valuations, the third valuer nominated and agreed by ourselves and Fox will value that asset, whichever the first two valuations is furthest away from the third will be discarded. And then an average of the two remaining valuations will be taken. So that's the mechanism we use. In terms of your first question, look, we think that the approach we've taken to the triple step around affordability is important and it's an important component of the race to the top that we're trying to engineer here in the UK from a safer gambling perspective. We aren't just confining ourselves to thinking about safer gambling in the UK though. You'll have seen, I'm sure, the recent announcements around the changes that we've made in the Irish market with regards to credit cards, as well as the restrictions on advertising. We've decided to do that on an unilateral basis, even without getting any agreement from the other operators in the market. And, you know, taper gambling is something that's very important to us across the market, whether that's in sports bets in Australia or, indeed, in Fandral in the U.S.,

Thanks so much. Very clear on thoughts. Just a follow-up on the responsible gambling ones.

Could you give us any kind of color about where the current framework sits versus the UK or global market or what ambitions you have to align it? Or is it just not as appropriate at this stage of the market? Or is there any restriction in terms of technology, just in terms of your ambition for where you'd like to get it to and what sort of timeline would be very useful? Yeah, look, there are no sort of restrictions on the technology perspective. But, you know, what I would say is that, you know, the concept of a framework whereby we assess customers when they join us, then we have sort of ongoing, you know, extensive monitoring of our, you know, online customers and then, you know, have some, you know, interactions to help support customers is something which is, you know, is used for us, you know, all around the world. And, you know, actually, you know, we published some stats today, you know, You can see that 40% of our Skydeck customers, for example, already have a deposit limit in place, and within the Paddy Pan Betfair brands, the customers had interactions and then went on to put in place deposit limits or timeouts on their account. So we believe the approach we're taking is working, and I'm sure we'll find ways to continue to improve it in time, but we're pleased that it's helping support customers at this time. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Gavin Keller of GoodBuddy. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Jonathan. Morning, Peter. Morning, Gavin. Just on the US, could you give any comment on CPAs and how they're trending in H2 and into this year? Any comment on CPAs in the US? That's my first question. And my second question relates to the the percentage of net revenue going through cost of goods sold in the U.S., obviously very high or much higher year-in-year, 46% in 2020. I presume that's a function of the relationship between net revenue and gross, and then Pennsylvania making up a much bigger mix of the U.S. business in 2020. Could you just give us any sort of flavor in how you expect that to trend in 21 and 22 based on the state's that you're seeing likely to launch in those years.

Yeah, good morning, Gavin. So, look, in terms of the, you know, the sort of CPA data, you know, we're very pleased with the way that the business is performing. I mean, clearly, you know, we've had a terrific start to 2021. You know, we outlined, you know, the results that we saw around the Super Bowl to acquire 350,000 customers in that week, you know, which is more than we acquired. in the preceding year was something which we're delighted about. And I think for us, the fact that we continue to see such strong growth from some of our existing early states really gives us excitement about how big the opportunity can become for us. I'll let Jonathan pick up on the point around net revenue in the U.S., I mean, the only point I'd add to Peter's comment is, you know, we're not obsessing about CPAs. What we're obsessing about is CPA relative to LTV, and as we see, you know, we talked about the retention rates being 80% better than we see elsewhere in the world. That really does drive LTV, and therefore, you know, we're really happy with the LTV to CPA equation and those sort of paybacks. So, you know, and in states where there's, you know, greater products in terms of both sports betting and gaming, you're happy to see your CPAs go higher because your LPDs are higher. So, you know, I think that's the critical point for us is about paybacks. On the second point, which is around cost of goods sold, I mean, obviously, you know, you get much higher cost of goods sold in terms of sports and casino with, market access fees plus particularly taxes than you do on DFS. So as you see the mix going away from DFS towards sports and casino, you see that going up. You also see that some of these taxes are paid on GGR, so where we've got higher level of bonusing, particularly as states start up, you also see a boosted level. I mean, I think we'll just see what happens with the mix as we go through this year, but certainly I think 2019 is less representative than than 2020 in terms of cost of sales, cost of goods sold. So I'd probably look at 2020 as being a better proxy than 2019, that's for sure.

Perfect. Thanks, Jonathan. Thanks, Peter. Cheers, Gavin.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from the line of Michael Mitchell of Davey. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, both. Thanks for taking my questions. Two in the U.S. if I could. First of all, just in terms of product and clearly the importance of product leadership, in the U.S. is becoming more apparent, both at market level, and I guess in your own numbers this morning, in terms of share gains and customer retention. I just wonder, could you comment on how your current U.S. product compares to an average European product in terms of features, breadth of markets, et cetera, and really what the near term of the 2021 pipeline looks like from a product release perspective? So that's my first question. And then second of all, on your DFS activations, clearly still the key component of the customer acquisition funnel. I wonder, when you think about the reactivation since the return of sports, I wonder if you could just provide some color in terms of how the DFS customer base is evolving when you consider across states that already have live sports betting markets versus those to come in the future. Thank you.

Morning, Michael. Look, from a product perspective, I think for those of you who are familiar – with one of our products here in the UK or Ireland. I think you'd be surprised when you saw the product we have in the States. I think it is pretty well positioned. There's clearly more to do, but, you know, we're pleased with the way in which we've managed to sort of integrate things like same-day and parlay into the product rather than, you know, because we sort of own that product, it's fully built into the experience rather than sort of hanging out on the side, which often happens if you acquire this stuff in third parties. There is, you know, there's definitely some more work we need to do from a casino perspective, and, you know, we have, you know, the best casino product in the world as a result of the acquisition of the Starsky. We're really pleased with that casino platform. So we'll be able to improve the casino product in the U.S., which, as you'll have seen from our results, is an important component of the U.S. market. And I think we've been really pleased and surprised, actually, at the extent to which we've been able to drive cross-sell in the U.S. market around the casinos. There's more to do around sports. and casino, the fact that we're getting the business onto our own tech end-to-end and it will be fully there by this coming football season is something which will really help us accelerate our journey. And as a reminder for you, whilst we are running the business on our own global betting platform, the U.S. team have their own version of it. So they're able to make their own bespoke developments to suit their market and But they can steal with pride from other divisions as well, which we think gives us a really powerful platform for driving fast innovation across the business. In terms of DFS, your point around sort of DFS, I haven't got the stats, and Jonathan may know, in terms of the differential between the performance of the DFS-sourced customers after the return to sport as opposed to the franchise ones. I'm not aware of any of the differences. One thing I would point out is we've actually been really pleased at the way in which we've been able to continue to grow and acquire customers onto the DFS platform. Our hypothesis when we acquired Fangio was whilst we thought we'd see good growth in sports betting, we didn't think we'd be able to maintain the contribution and indeed the customer numbers around DFS. But we've been really, really pleased with the way that that business has continued to perform. And, of course, today it's still acting as a very, very significant source of customers for some in the states where we're live. and allows us to attract and acquire customers to the Fangio brand in states in advance of them regulating.

Super. Many thanks.

Thanks, Michael.

Thank you. Your next call is coming from James Rowland-Clark of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone.

I just wondered if I could follow up on the safer gambling measures question from Ed earlier. So in your presentation, you say 40% of PPP customers have signed up to those measures. Is that a high number for the UK? I assume it is.

And do you have any targets about where you'll get to on those measures by the end of this year? And a sort of follow-up would be at what point, or maybe you could remind us at what point you substantially put those measures in place for BBB customers. And my second question is on the US. I think DraftKings said the other day that they're seeing about 50% cross-sell from sports betting to iGaming in their core states. Please, do you know what yours is? And is that an area that you can improve in? You're obviously holding sports betting market share at a very high level, but your iGaming share has slightly fallen.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks, James. Look, to be, you know, I think I've, you know, just make sure I'm sort of clear about the point I made with that earlier. You know, look, in the Sky back business, you know, 40% of revenues are coming from customers with deposit limits in place, which, you know, we're really pleased with. But it's an ongoing, you know, journey, firstly. You know, the extent to which we can encourage more customers to put those limits in place, you know, I think that would be a good thing. And through this COVID situation, we've had to be pretty nimble and change the way in which we monitor and assess customers. And, you know, there have been new guidelines from the Gambling Commission, which we've made sure we've adhered to. I think for us, what's really, really reassuring is that, you know, the Skyvec and Paddy Power Brands are actually very, very recreationally focused. So, you know, typically something like the Paddy Power Brand, you'd be seeing customers spending, you know, for £10 a week or the sky-back bands. And that's what I mean by that's a recreational punter. And I think those customers, clearly the extent to which we can ensure they're available to us all, we'll encourage them to do so. But if we ever get any sniff of them having any problems will force them to do so. So we don't have specific targets. It's something that we're so thoughtful about, particularly around different age profiles of people. But we will continue to evolve and use data to help us assess how best to position ourselves. Jonathan, do you want to pick up on the... In terms of cross-sell rates, I know that DK referred to a 50% general cross-sell rate in their Q4 disclosure, and we'd be seeing something very similar to that across our business, so no discernible difference at all in those cross-sell rates.

Thank you very much. Sorry, just to follow up on the safe gambling point, Peter. So is your sense that anyone that's not recreational has already signed up to SD measures or the SD tools of some sort in the UK?

No, we've got, you know, very extensive, you know, checks on customers, whether that's, you know, source of funds. You know, there's lots of enhanced diligence we do on sort of higher staking customers, And I'd be surprised if for the customers who we've got, we haven't had those checks. I mean, ultimately, I think it's important that there are some backstops in place to make sure we capture any customers who are spending too much. And that's, as you know, the third part of our affordability triple step. So there may be some exceptions, but we will learn from those as we pick them up through the third part of our affordability triple step. Brilliant.

Thanks very much.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Simon Davies of Galicia Bank. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. Firstly, obviously, you reported a very strong start to the year. Can you give a rough view as to how much of that is down to abnormal gross wind margins? That's my first. Do you have any more questions, Simon? No.

Yeah. Pete, could you also give a feel for market share in Michigan, how that's performing, and how you see that as a benchmark in terms of market share on newly opening states?

In terms of the strong start, I mean, it's certainly that most of – the majority of this is driven by customer growth. Again, continuing on from Q4, and we talked about some of the enhanced investment we have put into the business, in specific areas to drive customer growth. So you should expect that the majority of that comes from that recreational customer growth. There is also a smaller element which is down to results. I'm not going to comment too specifically on results on a seven-week period, but the majority of it is down to customer growth. Great. And the market share number? I mean, I won't comment on specific market shares on a state-by-state basis, but I think we're very pleased with our opening position in Michigan. We've traded there recently, but, you know, the business is doing great. Great, thanks.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Richard Huber of Newness. Please go ahead.

Hi. Morning, both of you. Two questions for me, both from the U.S., please. I think on the presentation, you were talking about how you wanted to sort of infuse from per diem positions to sort of gold middle positions, and particularly in the U.S. Even you've got sort of 40% share in sports betting and 20% share in iGaming at the moment. What do you consider to be the leading market shares, which you need to keep in order to sort of keep that position? I think in the past you've mentioned that you expect some of those market shares to fall back a little bit. And the second question is, I was wondering whether you can give any sort of color around difference of behavior, customers, their spending behaviors across different states where you're entering in terms of spend per head and duration on your app and that type of thing. Any color on any sort of differences would be great. Thank you. Hi, Richard. Look, I mean, from a view of, you know, I'm pleased that someone watched the presentation. I thought it might have just been my mum. But, you know, look, it is true. We are sort of refining our ambition in America from, you know, from wanting to have a podium position to being on that top spot, you know, the gold medal. We have got that at the moment. You know, let's be really clear. We are number one in America, and I think, you know, to have been able to post a year where our revenues were 1.4 times that of our next-nearest competitor. In fact, we're greater than players two and three combined. It gives us a comfortable top-step position on the podium or a gold medal. So, look, we'd like to stay there. How that evolves in terms of the market shares that we need to have from a sports and gaming perspective, we'll see. I think, as you know, we've never necessarily targeted an absolute percentage of market share figure in either sports or gaming, but what we try to do is to acquire as much business as we can at a very specific and good CPA. We think we have a real advantage around the quality of our DFS business for cross-selling, which gives us customer acquisition advantages and we think the quality of our product is really helping drive improved levels of retention on the business and all those things together with better than expected levels of cross-seller inter-gaming have led us to having higher customer values than we anticipated. So that gives us the confidence and conviction to keep investing hard in customer acquisition You can see the results of that with the figures we released around the fiscal vote. Jonathan, I don't really want to give some color around the different states, but they are all a little bit different with different partners, and that means you get different starting points with them. Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple of points on that. Obviously, there's different spend rates depending on the products that are on offer, depending on the GDP per state, and obviously some of the wealthier states we're seeing you know, greater spend. I think the one thing we're seeing, I think, possibly because there's more marketing dollars going into each state, is an acceleration of the speed of uptake. And actually, in the early states, it's much slower than certainly what we've seen in the most recent states of, you know, Virginia and and Michigan. So I think the adoption curve is getting steeper and we intend to be there at the start and investing aggressively to build those leading positions. I mean, I think it's fair to say when we first came out with the numbers with a market share of around 40% in sports betting, we said, I think, two years ago, we expect this to fall back. I think we said the same thing a year ago. So, look, we'll hold on as long as we can to this position, but we just want to be ahead of, you know, the next competitor. I think just coming back, sorry, to the previous question, in Michigan, I think we are number one with about 28% of handles. just to come back on that one. So, look, I think we're very pleased with where we are. It's a state-by-state battle, and we'll pick and choose our fights very carefully and make sure that overall we remain number one in that market.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Richard.

Thank you. So just to remind people on the telephone, if you wish to ask a question, please key star 1 on your keypad. So that's star 1 on your keypad. Your next question is coming from the line of Joe Thomas of HSBC. Please go ahead.

Good morning. A couple of questions, please, on the regulatory side of things. One is Germany and the mention that you made about the potential turnover tax there. I just wanted to understand if that had any mitigating actions in it and what mitigating actions might look like in response to such taxes were they imposed within Germany or, frankly, elsewhere? And the second thing was just mindful again of this affordability issue. I'm just wondering if there's anything you can help us with in terms of the skew of sports betting customers, you know, sports betting towards the particularly higher spending elements in the industry today. it's obviously skewed, gaming is skewed towards high spending elements. I'm just wondering to what extent that's also reflected in sports.

Okay, Jay. Jonathan, do you want to take Jay's first? Yeah, I mean, in terms of Germany, there's a range of, we need to take. First of all, we'll continue our lobbying efforts in advance of the decisions around, I think, the 1st of July timing. We're not overly hopeful that we can change this because obviously the tax is greater than the revenue generated. We need to be very careful in understanding exactly how this is defined when it's put into legislation to really understand precisely what the tax relates to. And, you know, we also need to look very carefully at the different products which we have within our portfolio and, you know, the different poker products we've got for, you know, tournaments versus just, you know, live games. And obviously then consider whether there's ways to mitigate that. The issue I think, Joe, becomes where we've got an offshore competitor who will offer greater value to, So any of our mitigating actions will have to be put into that context. And I think we already see some shift in player activity when one looks at Google searches offshore, and we would expect that to grow reasonably exponentially as if this tax were to come in. And, Joe, look, in terms of your sort of questions around sort of affordability and the SKU, we clearly, with Paddy Power and Skybet, have the two components. market leaders from a recreational perspective in the UK from a sports betting perspective which we think sets us up really well in the UK market. We're really pleased with the way in which those businesses continue to take share in 2020 and indeed you just need to look at what happened with the customers who are migrating from retail to online. These are customers who are habitual pretty small staking customers We do have 5% of the shops with the Paddy Cow brand, but we believe we captured 40% of that business when those customers went online. And we think the better value, things like generosity that we offer those customers will keep them on our platform even when shops reopen. So I think we are a very recreational business. It's true in the U.K., and as it is in Australia with our sportswear business. And I think that's an important area of focus for us to keep growing those average monthly players. And that's why we shared the figures with you and why we're so pleased with the performance that we saw in last year. And as John has shared with you, that's what's driving this year's performance as well.

Okay, great. Thank you. Your next question is coming from James Wheatcroft of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good morning to you both. Given the scale and scope of the U.S. business, what prospects are there perhaps potentially for a dual listing in the U.S.? Are there any circumstances when you would consider spilling out the sound of your business, firstly? And secondly, in terms of U.K. regulation, do you have any thoughts on the direction of travel and maybe the timetable for the front of the U.K.? ?

Hi, James. Look, in terms of that, your last session, the point around the timetable in the UK, I mean, we're all aware of what the government's published timetable is. I don't know whether the ongoing COVID pandemic will potentially derail us or not. But we're preparing to submit all of our evidence to them. And I think we're really pleased with the approach that the government seems to be taking around this. evidence-led approach and we'll do everything we can to engage with them and share with them the insights that we get from what's frankly a very good ability to review what's going on across the UK market. In terms of the US, as you say, the scale and scope of our US businesses is very impressive. We believe we have. the premium asset in the US market and we're very proud of that. We've worked hard over the last few years to build out that capability and we are number one in America and there's not many British businesses that can state that. And I think the way we should be able to build out those capabilities in America is by really leveraging a lot of our group capabilities to support America. It's not just the funding that we've been able to give to the team in Fangio, which has obviously been a very important component of our ability to drive customer acquisition hard. Hundreds of our colleagues from around the world have helped support and build out and develop the Fangio business, whether that's with expertise, from a sports betting, from a marketing standpoint, or the fact that we're sort of using our global risk and trading capability, which has got 650 people pricing products globally, which is a very important component of why we have the best products in America. The other point I'd also highlight is the Americans are leveraging our global betting platform, which is a very important aspect of our strategy. The fact that we have many of our divisions using the same platform, which allows us to share development across the group, but at the same time also push decision-making down close to the customer end, I think is really important for us.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from the line of Kieran George-Graw of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Just two questions from me. Bessie, could we get a little bit more on the performance of the other U.S. brands from the Fox and the TVG and how they've done over 2020? How valuable has that cross-sell been between the brands? And then secondly, Australia's performing incredibly well despite pure lockdown restrictions. Should we be thinking of more resilient performance in Australia versus that that was being guided towards the end of 2020? Thank you.

Yeah, look, I commented on Fox earlier in terms of how pleased we are with the way in which we've acquired so many customers onto the Super 6 platform. And I think that's been a very important component to that business and will set up that business well for the future. To have nearly four and a half million actors on the Super 6 is tremendous. The TVG business has performed well during the course of the year. We've benefited from the shift of a lot of business from retail to online, and that's helped grow that business very successfully. And we're really pleased with the market share performance. at that business. It's not yet integrated fully into the Fangio ecosystem. As and when it is, I think we believe that we'll get some considerable cross-selling benefits from it. But at the moment, that's more so tangential. In Australia, you're right to highlight the fact that they come out of this lockdown ahead of the rest of the world. and we're watching very carefully what happens as customers there are able to go back and enjoy some of the channels that they weren't able to previously, most particularly retail. Early evidence seems to be that customers are enjoying the generosity and superior product that they're getting on the sports bet business. And doubtless there's going to be some shift in spend away from from wagering into other forms of leisure activity. But we're really pleased with the way in which the Australian team performed in 2020. To have migrated a Betty's business in less than 90 days is incredible, and a full lockdown, and the way in which the business is currently trading, we're very comfortable with. And the only point to add on Fox Trade is obviously those 4.4 million are spread across the U.S., a lot of states, so we can only mine that base in terms of sports betting in the states in which, you know, Fox Bet is live. So that restricts the ability to cross that at this point. But obviously, you know, it's a great funnel, but it's a relatively long-term funnel.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Christine Zhu of RBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, yes, good morning, both. I have a couple of questions on the U.S. as well, if I may. Firstly, you mentioned in the presentation that you're refining your state opening playbook. So I just wondered if that's changed at all recently, any surprises or learnings from recent openings, or is it mostly, you alluded earlier to the quicker adoption in native states, is it mostly that, or is there anything else as well? And my second question is just regarding the 1.8 times retention rate in the U.S. versus the U.K., I suppose as the market matures and other players probably improve their product, do you think that there are any structural reasons why U.S. consumers might be stickier in the longer term than European counterparts? And I guess the period I'm referring to more outside Fangio-specific positives in terms of keeping customers engaged. Thank you.

Morning, Christine. Look, in terms of your point about refining the reference remains of refining state openings, We think we're getting better at it. The more we practice, the better we get, whether that's with opportunities to try and pre-register customers or make sure that we have all the rights of local influencers and partners signed up to make a splash when we go live. Those are all things which are important components of our strategy. Clearly, we're not going to give away too many of our trade secrets, but we think that as time has gone by, we've got better and better at launching live and safe. In fact, the fact that we own our platform end-to-end allows us to offer differential opportunities and deals for customers. Some of the Spread the Love campaigns and things have been very successful for us. as time's gone by in new state openings. And obviously the only thing to add there is we are looking at making – improvements to our product and platform over 2021. We'd expect to be migrated across from IGT onto the global betting platform by the start of the next NFL season, which will give us greater depth of markets, greater resilience, greater speed for the customers. And on top of the new account and wallet, which was launched in 2020, we think that'll set us up to hopefully be able to prosecute our advantage in terms of product on the sports betting side. And Peter's referred to some that we'll be making on the casino side. And then, look, in terms of the differential performances from a retention perspective, the market's pretty well competed already. I mean, I don't think there's anyone who's operating in America who hasn't gone out aggressively and said they want to take the market share. People are throwing a lot of promotional generosity around. So it is well-competed. I think the one major difference in the U.S. compared with what we see in a lot of markets in Europe is the number of hoops and hurdles you have to get through from a registration perspective. People having to supply their social security details, which we think could lead to people having a smaller number, sort of active customers having a smaller number of products than we see in other markets. And so, you know, that may be one of the things that's helping improve and drive the potential rates. But I think the biggest impact actually is that we've got the best products in the market. And what we've seen time and time again, whether that's with, you know, our business in Skybet or Sportsbet or the changes we've seen in Paddy Power, indeed the investments we're putting into Coca-Stars, is you've got to have the best products in the market. And we think we've got the best products in the market with Fangio, you know, the The same game, Parley products is, you know, pretty unique in the market, certainly the way it's integrated. We've got the best breadth and depth of products. You know, we've been operating, you know, a couple of, you know, we're now operating two states on our own, a full end-to-end tech stack, which gives us much bigger sort of, you know, resilience and advantages compared to using third parties. And, you know, so we think all those things are important components to sort of continue to drive the retention rates as high as they are.

Brilliant. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Ivor Jones of Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning.

I just wanted to ask about the implications for the exchange of what you said about the international business taking PokerStars as its principal brand.

Obviously, exchange didn't grow nearly as strongly as sports in the second half of last year.

Is this a legacy product now in runoff globally to be overtaken by fixed odds betting?

How important is the international part of that, the ex-UK part of that?

And secondly, is it possible to have a gold medal position in Australia if Flutter doesn't own a tab court wagering business? And what are the implications for the group if a more capable international business does own that tab court business in the future? Thank you.

So, yeah, morning, Ida. Look, it's a good question around the impact on the exchange. There are some of the technical reasons why, you know, the growth is a bit slower in the second half of the year. But, you know, the fact that we are focusing on the Poker Stars brand in international markets doesn't mean that we are not going to continue to push Betfair, you know, where it's appropriate to do so. I think, you know, we referenced in the presentation that, you know, whether that's sort of Latin America or Spain, you know, the Betfair business has some good traction and will continue to use it there. I see no reason why, you know, we can't continue to invest into the exchange business. It's something that we are doing, you know, right now and there's enhancements that are due to be launched to improve the quality of the products on the exchange, which, frankly, has lagged behind a little bit. I think if we actually stripped out some of the switch-offs we'd undertaken in the exchange prior year, the underlying performance was actually quite good in the second half of the year. So I certainly wouldn't characterize the exchange as a sunset product. It's something which we know is very important and we're investing in it and we'd like to continue to see that business grow. Look, in Australia, we started out as the challenger. The business has gone from strength to strength year after year. We continue to grow incredibly well. We offer brilliant experience. We've got a fantastic brand and customers seem to continue to enjoy betting with Sportsbet. And so gold medals are important to us and having that top position On the podium, I can't comment on what may or may not happen to the tab in Australia, but we're really pleased with the way that Australia, you know, Sportsbet performed last year for us in 2020. I think the team did a terrific job in execution. I think, you know, to have done that integration in less than 90 days and everyone was working from home, I think was astounding, particularly with all the product enhancements that they did. delivered for the sports betting customers, you know, the interaction of streaming and things. So, you know, I'm really pleased with where we are in Australia and we're investing hard to keep our business growing. John, I don't know if you have anything to add on either of those. No. Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, look, thank you very much, everybody. Unfortunately, we are sort of coming up against it now from a time perspective. I very much appreciate all your questions. Sorry we were having to do this on the phone yet again, but at some point we'll see you in 3D, hopefully in the summer. Thank you all very much. Bye, Phil.