Flutter Entertainment plc

Good afternoon and welcome to the Flutter Q3 Trading Update hosted by CEO Peter Jackson and CFO Rob Koldrake. Please note this conference call is being recorded and for the duration of management's opening remarks, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions thereafter. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host today, Paul Timms, Flutter Director of Investor Relations, to begin today's conference.

Paul? Hi, everyone, and welcome to Flutter's Q3 results call. With me today are Flutter's CEO, Peter Jackson, and CFO, Rob Koldrake. After this short intro, Peter will open with a brief summary of our operational progress during the quarter, and then Rob will run through the Q3 financials and our updated 2024 guidance. We will then open the lines for Q&A. Some of the information we are providing today, including our 2024 guidance, constitutes forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual outcomes or results to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. These factors are detailed in our earnings press release and our SEC filings. In addition, all forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as required by law. Also, in our remarks or responses to questions, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations are included in the results materials we have released today, available on the Investors section of our website. And I will now hand you over to Peter.

Thank you, Paul, and I'm delighted to be taking you through our excellent Q3 performance today. Performance in Q3 was very strong for the group, and once again, ahead of market expectations. We delivered AMP and revenue growth of 16% and 27% respectively, and EBITDA was 74% higher. This was driven by continued execution against our strategic priorities. And when I take a step back from this performance, it is clear that the business is very well positioned for future growth. The NFL season is off to a great start for Fangio, helping drive Handel 36% ahead in the quarter overall, with handle growth of 23% in those states launched pre-2022 and 37% in those states launched in 2022 and 2023. Customer economics have also remained compelling with payback periods of 18 months in the quarter. These customer economics continue to validate our investment strategy as we focus on building as big a business as we possibly can today while staying well within our 24-month payback target. This focus has been driving strong customer acquisition, up 10% compared with the prior year. Many of you joined us at our recent investor day in New York, where we demonstrated how product innovation has been and will continue to be a key driver of our success at Fanjul and across the group. Recent product improvements rolled out for the new NFL season have been resonating well with our customers, including expansion of the Pulse to all NFL games and a further increase in live player prop markets. This focus on more immersive live experiences and capturing the player narrative helped to drive our sportsbook and base 31% higher year over year. In addition, the proportion of live handle coming from same game parlays almost doubled in the first month of the NFL season and our overall NFL parlay penetration was over 700 basis points higher. These product improvements are driving both customer engagement and volumes and are contributing to continued structural revenue margin expansion year over year. This continues to give us confidence that we are well on track to deliver our long-term gross revenue margin target of 16% we shared to our investor day. In iGaming, product improvements also drove our AMP base 43% higher and a step up in our customer frequency. We know that our customers' top preference is to see exclusive and well-loved gaming franchises, and we continue to execute on delivering these with the launch of the Pure Imagination gaming title in our Wonka iGaming series, quickly becoming our second most popular slot game for new customers, next only to World of Wonka, which was launched in Q1. We were delighted to see the Missouri sports betting referendum passed by voters last week. From a new launch perspective, we therefore currently expect to add Alberta and Canada during Q2 and Missouri during Q4 2025. Outside of the U.S., AMP growth of 13% drove an increase in revenues of 15% and EBITDA growth of 24%, underpinned by our scale and diversification. We saw excellent momentum in iGaming as well as strong Sportsbook performances with the conclusion of the European Football Championships in July and the beginning of the new soccer season in Europe during the quarter. In the UK i, our market leading products continue to deliver strong growth across both Sportsbook and iGaming resulting in continued market share gains. On iGaming, we added the UK's number three ranked games provider to our content portfolio and our sportsbooks benefited from a 142% increase in same-game parlay wages at the beginning of the new soccer season compared to the same period in 2022. Our same-game parlay capabilities also benefited CESAL in Italy, as the first operator to offer the product for the new Italian soccer season, with same-game parlays accounting for nearly a quarter of all sportsbook wages in the first six rounds. CESAL also broadened its portfolio of iGaming titles during the third quarter, including exclusive titles we know players enjoy, which, combined with our Sportsbook product improvements, helped to deliver a 200-bps increase in CESAL's Italian market share year over year and a 41% increase in online revenues. In Australia, while the anticipated racing market declines were evident in the quarter, with staking 8% lower, amps were 6% ahead, and growing across both sports and racing, which we believe is encouraging for the future growth trajectory of the business. Overall, the group had a very strong quarter, and I feel even more confident in the path to medium-term growth that we laid out in our recent investor day and the future value creation opportunities for the group. You've heard me talk about us as an AND business, one with significant capital allocation optionality, And I'm really pleased to confirm they will launch our share repurchase program on November the 14th. We intend to repurchase up to $350 million of ordinary shares up to the end of Q1 2025, with a further announcement of the details in due course. This, coupled with our announcement to acquire NSX and SNAI in the quarter, our continued organic investment in our businesses to drive strong growth, clearly demonstrate our status as a business with many opportunities for capital deployment and the ability to do them all. With that, I hand you over to Rob.