Flutter Entertainment plc

Good morning and welcome to the Flutter Entertainment PLC 2023 interim results call. There'll be a chance to ask questions later on, but first I'd like to hand you over to Mr. Peter Jackson, CEO of Flutter. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Paul Timms and I for this call this morning. As noted in the presentation, which hopefully you've all had a chance to watch, Paul Tims is standing in for Paul Edgecliff Johnson, who's out of the office this week due to a family medical emergency. Before we go to questions, the first half marks a pivotal moment for Flutter. Our US business is now structurally profitable. We've found you're delivering an H1 adjusted EBITDA of $100 million, including a Q2 EBITDA of $153 million. This has occurred six months earlier than we were forecasted when providing this guidance back in August 2021. And as outlined then, our U.S. customer base is now a sufficient scale to more than offset the cost of future customer acquisition. This effect will continue to compound and drive significant profit growth, which in turn will transform the earnings profile and financial flexibility of the group. FanDuel attracted over 2 million new players in the half, which drove revenue growth of 63%. We maintained our position as the number one online sportsbook operator, with a 47% share of the market, and grew our iGaming share to 23%. And outside of the US, pro forma revenue grew 8%, and EBITDA was up 4%. In the UK and Ireland, we grew amps and revenue by 10% and 13% respectively, as our recreationally-focused brands took significant share due to product enhancements and new gaming content. In Australia, while we have successfully retained our COVID-enlarged customer base, our expectations of market growth in H2 have moderated somewhat due to reduced spend levels. International is also a growth inflection point, underpinned by the strong performance of our consolidated invest markets, which grew revenues by 19%, and represent 77% of the divisional revenue. The second half has started well, and we remain focused on delivering against our strategy and capitalizing on the significant opportunity ahead, both in the second half of the year and beyond. And with that, I'd like to hand it over to George for questions. And I'll ask if you can limit it to two questions per person, please.

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on the telephone keypad. Please also ensure your meet function is not activated in order to let your signal reach your equipment. Our first question is coming from Paul Ruddy of Davie. Please go ahead.