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Luke Vargas
One most trusted app based on August 2024 proprietary survey. Over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings. February 2024 through January 20 hey, what's news, listeners? It's Sunday, May 11th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and this is what's NEW Sunday. We tackle big questions here, so we figured you'd like this episode of our sister podcast, Bold Names, where hosts Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims pose some big questions to the biggest names in business this week. The online betting industry is growing. During this year's super bowl, gambling company FanDuel was winning big, 70,000 bets a minute big. And today we're bringing you Tim and Christopher's conversation with Peter Jackson, the CEO of FanDuel's parent company, Flutter. What does the man at the top have to say about one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world and how technology's supercharging it?
Christopher Mims
Tim, I think this week's episode is one of the most interesting we've done yet, and tons of new listeners are going to tune in for the first time ever.
Tim Higgins
Oh yeah? Want to bet?
Christopher Mims
Funny you should mention this week's Guest is the CEO of the company behind FanDuel, the biggest US company in sports betting by revenue. Even if you don't care about sports, his industry is transforming the US right?
Tim Higgins
It was estimated that Americans would wager roughly $1.4 billion on the super bowl this year. And he told us FanDuel customers made about 70,000 bets a minute during the big game. The sports betting industry is big and it's growing like crazy.
Christopher Mims
And so are the consequences of getting millions of Americans hooked on gambling anytime, anywhere.
Tim Higgins
That's next.
Christopher Mims
For a lot of the companies we cover, first quarter is a bit of a lull. But if you're a gambler, there's no better time of the year. And if you're a sports betting company, it's also one of the busiest times of the year. The American Gaming association estimated that Americans wagered about $1.4 billion on the super bowl this year. And then there was March Madness, which was twice that, $3.1 billion. There are a lot of different things to bet on these days, and making sure the house always wins is a huge technological problem for online sports betting giant Flutter and its CEO Peter Jackson.
Peter Jackson
You think about like the super bowl with all those different players and all the different stats available, we have to be constantly assessing what we think the probabilities are of events happening. And then we turn those probabilities into prices, have them available on our site and at peak, you know, 70,000 bets a minute coming through the platform with, you know, you can imagine millions of customers looking and assessing prices in between that as well.
Tim Higgins
The stock market has been all over the place since January. But in recent years, FanDuel's parent company, Flutter, has performed more like a tech company. There's some irony in the fact that the best way to make money on FanDuel might be to skip the app and buy the stock.
Peter Jackson
I've been absolutely delighted with the way that the team have built the business in the U.S. with FanDuel. And if you look at the projections, we actually are talking about a $70 billion total addressable market in the medium term across the US and Canada.
Tim Higgins
The story of Flutter is the story of a whole new multi billion dollar vice coming out of the bookies notebook and into a place where it can be taxed and regulated. And no one has a better understanding of the odds of what's coming next than Jackson. From the Wall Street Journal, I'm Tim Higgins.
Christopher Mims
And I'm Christopher Mims. This is Bold Names, where you'll hear from the leaders of the bold named companies featured in the of the Wall Street Journal. Today we ask, how is Flutter capitalizing on the rapid rise of legalized online gambling in the US Is the sports betting boom sustainable? And is it really all just good clean fun? Or are states opening the gates to potential harms? Peter, welcome to the show. Good to have you here. I'm sure our listeners have at least a passing familiarity with your best known brand in the U.S. fanDuel and its competitor, of course, DraftKings. But for those of you who aren't already wagering on sports in the U.S. let's start with introducing your company and what you do.
Peter Jackson
Yes, I run a business called Flutter, which if you're English, you immediately know what that is because it means having a bet. And if you're American, you've got no idea what we're talking about. But you know, we're the world's largest sports sports betting and gaming business. Flutter Entertainment were listed on the New York Stock Exchange. You're right, Chris. Yeah. We own Fanguel. So it's an important part of our portfolio. It's about half of our revenues. The other half of our revenues come from our businesses outside of FanDuel.
Christopher Mims
And you know, you're kind of on a tear. Like you've been posting really strong results and you're also growing. You got 44% of the take for sportsbook revenue in the U.S. goldman Sachs estimates Americans will spend $45 billion a year on sports betting once the market is mature. It's already a 10 billion dollar a year market right now. So let's start with that. Do you really think that you're on pace to grow 350% in the next, I don't know, 10, 20 years?
Peter Jackson
When we acquired Fangil, we were anticipating that we'd be one of the market leading businesses and we'd be expecting that the market would be enormous. I've been absolutely delighted with the way that the team have built the business in the US with Fangil. And if you look at the projections, we actually are talking about a $70 billion total addressable market, or TAM, as people would say, in the medium term across the US and, and Canada. So we think the business will be bigger. That covers both sports betting and Igaming. You know, look, it's you, you know, all of us who spend time, you know, in America, you know, you cannot help but realize how passionate people are about sports. Everybody watches it, everyone knows a score. They all know what happened to the players who had a good game, a bad game. A whole piece around fandom is so important and we deliver a brilliant experience for customers. We own the sort of the parlay concept, this idea that people can pull together a series of events that are related in a game and they can place a bet on it.
Tim Higgins
So what would be an example of that? The Super Bowl. Patrick Mahomes is going to do a touchdown and then he's going to have a dance afterwards and people can bet on that. Or how does that work?
Peter Jackson
Well, I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure that will be available somewhere on our platform. But you know, it's about picking. It's about picking that, you know, Patrick Mahomes will score a touchdown, there's going to be a field kick from both teams in both halves, that Sequined Barclay is also going to score touchdown and that the Eagles are going to win by 10 points.
Tim Higgins
Right.
Peter Jackson
I think that's a big buy in all that together.
Tim Higgins
The technology has allowed for all sorts of bets. Right. It's no longer just which team is going to win or are they going to cover the spread. You can get very granular in the whole game. I mean, this is incredibly deep. But I think it also kind of rises with analytics in sports and this kind of bigger conversation about kind of the future of television. Right. You have the FanDuel Sports Network, which I think costs something like 20 bucks a month. And here in the U.S. you can get MLB, NHL and NBA games, which seems like a really great deal. Is that part of the future of your business, television streaming?
Peter Jackson
We've always been in the sports broadcasting business in America. So our first investment there, we bought a business called tvg. So some people wouldn't think about it as sports, but horse racing is very popular. Of course, we made the leap to streaming it as well. So we started with, to horse racing channels and we built it out from there. Now of course there's a huge amount of technology that we have to have behind the scenes to price all of these events and markets and selections. Now what do we mean by pricing it? You know, I mean, can you, can you think about like the, the super bowl with all those different players and all the different stats available? We have to be constantly assessing what we think the probabilities are of events happening. And then we turn those probabilities into prices, have them available on our site and at peak, you know, 70,000 bets a minute coming through the platform with, you know, you can imagine millions of customers looking and assessing prices in between that as well. So it's a, it's an incredibly technology rich environment, very complex operating environment. We take a huge amount of risk. Know customers place $100 bet with us. The most that, you know, they can lose is $100, but you know, they could win $10,000.
Christopher Mims
For me to price that, you've got an internal risk and trading desk. I mean it feels like, like I, I picture a pit full of commodities traders in Chicago shouting at each other. I mean, is that how you are able to price so many events every day?
Peter Jackson
Well, obviously it's a much cooler job than working in a commodity, you know, pit because it's talking about sports. Right? So we're paying these people to watch live SP mean there isn't a better job on the planet than that for, for, for most people. So you know, but you're right, you know, we have hundreds of traders, you know, around the world. So we, we have a follow the sum model. So you know, actually supporting the super bowl, we had traders In Dublin, we had them in Melbourne, we had them in New Jersey. And yeah, they are running our models. They're looking at our bet stream of data. Right. So we get more bets than anyone else. It gives us more insights. You know, I could be watching Tim's bets come through and, you know, we'll be really confident taking all of his money, apart from, you know, maybe when he's betting on, you know, Texas in the, you know, in the college game. And we know that he's really sharp on that and you know, when he does, we'll take his money, but we'll, we'll check the odds, right. And we have that sort of ability, real time to assess all the bet stream data that's coming through and help make sure that we're offering as accurate a set of odds to our customers as we can.
Tim Higgins
In a lot of ways. You're a tech company. You do a lot of innovation. The other day I noticed this new feature that it's basically a slider where you can adjust the amount of risk a person wants to tolerate for like a complicated chain of bets that we just talked about. Parlays, you got all kinds of deals, alerts, stuff clearly borrowed from social media, apps, casual games. How do you do all this? I mean, do you have a lab of people just dreaming up new ways to keep people engaged, or are you taking ideas from social media? How does this work? How does the innovation occur?
Peter Jackson
You're absolutely right, Tim. We are a technology business. We're delivering a brilliant user experience to our customers. But if you think about the amount of things we sell on our platform, we've almost got a limitless assortment. So trying to work out how you merchandise all of those different, you know, products to customers and make them available because ultimately, you know, people want to watch the game, but they want to get their bet on quickly. And, you know, and that's not to get in the way. Right. But, you know, maybe they want to do a bit of research along the way. So, yeah, we. Those, those types of products where people can spend time looking at what other people are betting on or looking into the history of what's happened in the matchup between two players. That's an important component, actually. Even simple things like making sure that if people have got a bet on, they could actually track the performance of their bet in the game. Right. Without having to keep going onto their phone. So making sure that we're taking advantage of the latest features on the Apple iOS, for example. But that slider component, it's simple and Elegant. So a customer can select the number of yards they want to pick for. For a player. You think about it every yard, you increase or decrease. We have to go back and we have to determine what we think the probability is of that event happening. And it's happening real time, right in it, real time whilst the game is happening. We're constantly assessing all of those probabilities, but we also spend a lot of time talking to our customers and finding out what they want and thinking about how we can bring that to life for them. And the scale that we have, the data, the insights, allows us to do that.
Christopher Mims
We just heard how Flutter uses tech to create new experiences for its customers. But how much of that tech is also used to keep them clicking, scrolling and betting. Just like social media keeps us glued.
Peter Jackson
To our phones, in the end, this is about entertainment. This is not about making a living for them. But you get much better value from the money you're spending with us than you do going to the cinema.
Christopher Mims
Stay with us.
Luke Vargas
This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover more@viking.com.
Christopher Mims
Clearly, like you just said, the data matters. Of course, you are a business, right? I mean, according to our own reporting, I think people lose on average 7 and a half cents on every dollar they bet with you, right? The house always wins. But how do you keep people coming back when on average, you know, you have the problem that every gaming business has, which is that clearly you're making money overall and they're losing it to you.
Peter Jackson
We, we're in the entertainment business. I mean, the business is called Flutter Entertainment. And yeah, yeah, I'll tell the story. And I mean, I, you know, I get in a cab, right, and the guy says to me, what do I do? And I, you know, I tell them I work for Fan Jewel. And he's like, oh my God, you can't believe what happened at the weekend. I had my parlo bet on and you know, you know, six legs clicked and the seventh leg didn't. He said, I had $10 down. If that only that player had gone five more yards, I would have won 100. But he said, I've been telling everyone about it, right? They'd had so much entertainment from it, right? And that's what it's about. Now, sometimes that win, sometimes they lose those parlor bets. But in the End this is about entertainment. This is not about making a living for them. But, you know, you get much better value from the money you're spending with us than you do going to the cinema. Right. Where it's as a been and gone experience. Right. You know, you get to tell your friends about it. You can share it on social media. People love showing their wins. They love sharing the ones that they almost won. So that's what we bring. We bring excitement to life for people.
Christopher Mims
So sports betting is definitely better than going to a movie?
Peter Jackson
Well, if you're asking me, of course it is.
Christopher Mims
So let's talk about young people. So I was a young man once.
Tim Higgins
You were a long time ago.
Christopher Mims
A long time ago. You know, loved risk, loved making impulsive bets on things. But we're in a different kind of era than we were even a couple years ago. Lots of states are sort of tightening the screws on social media companies and especially in terms of age verification. Utah just passed an age verification by app store law. Do you think that that might impact you as well, that age verification regime that's going to happen here for all kinds of apps?
Peter Jackson
We operate in a very, very strict regulatory environment. You know, when we first launched our business, the first, because we, we operate on a state by state basis. So that's how, you know, it's a state's rights issue. So this is not a, not a gift of the federal government. So the, the states can determine whether sports betting or Igaming is legal in their states.
Christopher Mims
Right. And sports betting is legal in 39 states now already.
Peter Jackson
Yeah. The first state we went live in was in Jersey, and actually you could cross the bridge between New Jersey and Manhattan and as soon as you were a meter past the halfway point, your phone would stop working on our app. So we had to have absolutely pinpoint, precise precision to know exactly where you were. So that we were very careful to ring fence people from a geographical perspective. Likewise, we do very, very careful and precise customer onboarding and verification to make sure that you are who you say you are and you therefore are old enough to be able to, you know, gamble with us depending on what the state's rules and regulations are. So this is, you know, we're not as a platform where you can just sort of tick a button and say, I'm, you know, I'm over 21. Let me on, you know, we need to see all your verification details and documents before we'll let you onboard onto our platform.
Christopher Mims
That said, plenty of teens have said it's easy to circumvent those age verification controls. I mean, it wasn't hard to find op EDS in university newspapers that are talking about teens with problem gambling issues, especially on college campuses. For example, Purdue University has tried to ban everybody on campus from doing this kind of gambling. It does kind of feel like your business, though, to get people on as soon as you can. And that does feel like the playbook of some other businesses in the past I could name. So how important to your growth is getting people as soon as they're able to get on your app.
Peter Jackson
We take this stuff incredibly seriously, Chris. So, you know, if there are examples where, you know, people think they can get through our systems, we will shut that stuff down. Now. There are a lot of illegal operators in the U.S. you know, people are spending a lot of money, you know, with unregulated sites. So, you know, I agree, around the world, right? No, no underage, you know, people should be allowed anywhere near our platforms or any of the, any of our sort of regulated competitors. And actually, we should all be doing as much as we can from the regulators, the banks, you know, the Internet companies who allow the advertising. Right. You know, they shouldn't be allowing these illegal sites to advertise. There's, there's lots that can be done. The regulators are much more interventionalist in the UK in a number of different fields. And so in the gambling space, they have determined that they want to try and ensure that customers don't spend more money than they can afford. And that's quite interesting sort of moral question, right, which is, what is more than people can afford? Right. You know, so where do you draw the line on that for people? You know, there's a tool that we, you know, have, have available in the states at the moment, you know, our spending tools, to make sure that people are aware of how much money they're spending on our site. Because, look, you know, it is entertainment. They are spending money with us, and we need to make sure it's clear to them how much we're spending. The other thing that we've developed in Australia actually is a real time intervention tool. So, you know, because if I can see that traditionally you're spending, you know, 100 bucks, you know, a week with us, but when the super bowl comes around, you spend $400, we think, well, that's your normal pattern, right? And then if the following year we suddenly see you spending $200 in one day and trying to spend $300 the next day, we'll intervene and we'll say, are you sure you want to do this because this seems outside of what you would normally do with this, your normal pattern of behavior. So we're developing some real time intervention tools to help ensure that we can just turn the mirror and point at our customer and just say, just have a think about whether you, whether you want to do what you're about to do.
Tim Higgins
I guess I'd be curious in hearing more about that because one of the criticisms about online gaming is that it's taking too many cues from social media and so called dark patterns. That idea that kind of keeps people engaged. I read something from a researcher that talked about how these features keep the product exciting, engaging and make them almost addictive. So on one hand you've got a product that is almost tweaked in a way to keep people going back for it, and the other hand you've got some tools presumably that can try to mitigate some of that. So where are you in that kind of debate or kind of that challenge?
Peter Jackson
The whole field of safer gaming is really important to us. Research education internally in our business on it and we spend a lot of time with our customers with these types of tools that I was describing, making sure that, you know, we push this really hard. So you know, there, there are many customers who we block from our systems because we're not comfortable that they're, they're gaming responsibly. It's then important that you actually have a tool available in the country so that if the customer wants to self exclude, they can do it from all operators. So you know, there's plenty of revenues that you know, we don't take. Right. There's customers that we switch off or we restrict the amount of money that they're spending with us to make sure that they stay at a level which they are comfortable with, with, with hindsight to ensure that they're engaging with us safely and responsibly. It's absolutely crucial. It's part of our societal license.
Tim Higgins
So you're spending $134 million on this a year. But there's also data that shows, you know, there have been surges in people searching online for help with gambling addiction, especially since we've seen the return of sports gambling here in the states, largely thanks to these apps normalizing this behavior. I think of a recent paper that talked about that four years after a state legalizes online sports betting, the likelihood of a person filing for bankruptcy increases by 25 to 30%. So there are other effects out there. Reduced access to credit, debt set to collections, abuse of Debt consolidation, loans, all these things that there's a, there's a cost to society. And I'm curious, kind of how you reconcile that reality with kind of the entertainment part of it. Like people want to have fun, but there also is a larger cost to society dealing with this kind of fun.
Peter Jackson
We're very focused on the super casual user, right. So we want people who are spending, you know, a small amount of money. They're putting their $10 on a parlay, maybe they're spending $100 at the weekend. Yeah. So this is, yeah, this is not extraordinary amounts of money for people to be spending. It is, is in that sort of entertainment bucket. Right. That's what we're focused on. We've got the biggest mass recreational customer base in America. We're not, you know, we're not trying to sort of get the whales that, you know, you often hear people talking about in our sort of, in our type of industry. Now that isn't to say that there aren't, you know, consumers who get themselves into trouble. I think it is important that the, that the industries pull together and have these tools that customers can self exclude so they can opt out of it. And then it's important that those things get extended as well. I mean, there's nothing worse than if you've decided to sort of opt out of gambling, than if you're still surrounded by the advertising. So we need to make sure that, you know, on the, the digital platforms allow people to opt out as well, I guess.
Tim Higgins
I'm curious what your statistics show the people actually opting in to use some of these safety features because the research suggests that people rarely opt into it. So there's these very sophisticated tools that are there to help people, but people rarely want to take that help. Is that what your data would show?
Peter Jackson
Look, if you look at our business in Italy, 100% of our customers there have a deposit limit place that, you know, we've introduced that as a, as a tool. So, you know, Chris, you could choose a deposit limit that suits you. Tim, you could have a different one, right. Depending on how much money you want to spend. And of course these things require cooling off period to change them. So, you know, that's, that's a good example of a tool that we have now of course people in the US can avail of that. We haven't insisted that every, everybody puts in place a deposit limit, but we are introducing in the US this real time intervention tool. So when you're in the process of that deposit to make you sort of you know, actually there'll be a threshold at which point will make you stop and actually reconfirm you do want to make the deposit. And there'll be a threshold at which point we actually will want one of our agents to speak to you on the telephone. You can make the deposit on the telephone, right? To make sure that you are actually definitely want to go ahead with it. And there may also be, you know, levels at which when we speak to you, even if you tell us you want to do it, we'll say, do you know what? We think you've had enough.
Tim Higgins
Jackson just outlined for us how his company spends big on reducing the harms of problem gambling. You might be surprised what he told us when we asked if the same standards that apply to gambling should be applied to social media.
Peter Jackson
There's a lot of good practices that we have, which actually sometimes it's frustrating for us that some of the operating partners we have are not able to fulfill.
Tim Higgins
That's next.
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Christopher Mims
A lot of what I'm hearing kind of as the subtext of what you're saying is you are the cleanest shirt in the laundry. You talked about being part of the entertainment business. One of the things about the evolution of the entertainment business, of course, is that so much of it's being delivered through these. I'm holding up my phone for those of you can't see it, which is everyone right now. In some ways, it's a more potent delivery device. That's the flip side of it being accessible. And so, you know, there's this kind of growing literature on how we have to be careful because it's with us all the time, right? So psychiatrist Anna Lemke, she has this great book called Dopamine Nation. She calls so much of what gets delivered through our phone a digital drug. And so many of the kind of safeguards that you talk about putting in place. I mean, they do remind me of, like, responsible drinking campaigns or, you know, the regulations that were put on companies like Juul, for example, about not advertising to young people. I mean, is it fair to say that in the same sense that social media is a digital drug, that this is a digital drug and we should acknowledge that and sort of regulate it accordingly?
Peter Jackson
We are regulated, you know, I think unlike the, you know, the social media businesses were very heavily regulated on a state by state basis in the US and you know, on a sort of country by country basis elsewhere. And there are a lot of customs and practices we have to adhere to to make sure that our, you know, our customers are well protected in that sort of operating environment. And I think, you know, there are some therefore important distinctions between what we do and what so some of the social media, you know, and other and other digital businesses are doing. We take our responsibilities very seriously. And I think there's a lot of good practices that we have which actually sometimes it's frustrating for us that some of the operating partners we have are not able to fulfill. But nonetheless, we'll still make sure that we operate and provide a very safe form of entertainment to our customers.
Tim Higgins
You operate in a world that everything's almost been gamified. I'm curious, you know, where you see there's more potential for expanding. You get into predictive markets, you get into the stock market, which a lot of people think has become a lot like gambling.
Christopher Mims
Can we bet on election outcomes?
Peter Jackson
Right.
Christopher Mims
Like when do I get to bet on the things that I can bet on? Polymarket with you?
Peter Jackson
Well, if you're in the U.K. chris, you can, right? So you know, you can, there's all sorts of novelty bets, right. You know, you can bet on the outcome of the, you know, the elections. You can bet on the outcome of whatever the, the big, you know, celebrity led, you know, program is on TV tonight. You know, there's all sorts of things that you can bet on these sort of fun, fun markets outside of, outside of sports. We're not there yet in, in, in the U.S. you know, I, I'm not the person to sort of sit here and opine on, you know, whether, you know, the stock market is gambling or not. There are other people who will have views on, you know, on that. But of course, you know, there has been gamification of that. There's some well known businesses who have democratized it, I think is how people would describe it. You know, but what we, what we focus on doing with, with our business is offering people sort of, you know, great value entertainment. And you know, if, if we were allowed to let our customers bet on, you know, on the election or some of those other things, you know, we found them to be we call them novelty markets. We found them to be a bit of fun in other countries and I'm sure American consumers would enjoy it as well if they could.
Tim Higgins
Well, Peter Jackson, it's always a gamble coming on here and talking to us. So we appreciate you giving us the time and it was a nice conversation.
Peter Jackson
Thank you very much.
Tim Higgins
And that's bold names for this week. Our producer is Danny Lewis. Michael Lavall and Jessica Fenton are our sound designers. Jessica also wrote our theme music.
Christopher Mims
Our supervising producer is Kathryn Millsap. Our development producer is Aisha Al Muslim. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are the deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio.
Tim Higgins
For even more, check out our columns.
Christopher Mims
On WSJ.com I'm Christopher Mims.
Tim Higgins
And I'm Tim Higgins. Thanks for listening.
WSJ What’s News - Episode Summary
Title: 70,000 Bets a Minute: How FanDuel’s Parent Is Winning at Sports Gambling
Release Date: May 11, 2025
Hosts: Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims
Guest: Peter Jackson, CEO of Flutter (FanDuel’s Parent Company)
In this episode of Bold Names, a sister podcast to What’s News, hosts Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims delve into the booming world of online sports gambling. They engage in a comprehensive conversation with Peter Jackson, CEO of Flutter, the powerhouse behind FanDuel, exploring how the company leverages technology to dominate the market and the societal implications of this rapidly expanding industry.
Peter Jackson introduces Flutter as the world's largest sports betting and gaming business, highlighting FanDuel as a significant contributor, accounting for approximately half of Flutter's revenues.
Peter Jackson [05:30]: "We own FanDuel. So it's an important part of our portfolio. It's about half of our revenues. The other half come from our businesses outside of FanDuel."
The conversation underscores the explosive growth of the sports betting market in the United States, with projections suggesting a total addressable market of $70 billion in the medium term across the US and Canada.
Peter Jackson [06:04]: "If you look at the projections, we actually are talking about a $70 billion total addressable market in the medium term across the US and Canada."
A significant portion of the discussion centers on the advanced technology Flutter employs to manage and price the vast array of betting options available. During peak events like the Super Bowl, FanDuel processes up to 70,000 bets a minute.
Peter Jackson [03:19]: "We have to be constantly assessing what we think the probabilities are of events happening. And then we turn those probabilities into prices, have them available on our site."
The hosts and Peter also discuss the innovative features of the FanDuel app, such as customizable betting options and real-time tracking of bets, enhancing user engagement and experience.
Peter Jackson [11:48]: "We're taking advantage of the latest features on the Apple iOS, for example. But that slider component, it's simple and elegant."
Peter Jackson elaborates on the stringent regulatory frameworks Flutter operates within, emphasizing state-by-state legalization and precise customer verification processes to prevent underage gambling.
Peter Jackson [17:09]: "We do very careful and precise customer onboarding and verification to make sure that you are who you say you are and you therefore are old enough to be able to gamble with us."
Addressing concerns about gambling addiction, Jackson details Flutter's commitment to responsible gaming. The company invests heavily in tools and interventions to monitor and limit excessive gambling behaviors.
Peter Jackson [20:46]: "We're introducing in the US this real-time intervention tool. So when you're in the process of that deposit to make you sort of, you know, actually there'll be a threshold at which point we'll make you stop and actually reconfirm you do want to make the deposit."
The discussion also touches on the societal costs of gambling, such as increased bankruptcy rates post-legalization.
Christopher Mims [23:21]: "There are costs to society dealing with this kind of fun."
The hosts probe into the parallels between online gambling platforms and social media in terms of user engagement and potential addiction. Jackson defends Flutter's practices, distinguishing them from social media by highlighting the heavy regulation and focus on customer safety.
Christopher Mims [28:33]: "Is it fair to say that in the same sense that social media is a digital drug, that this is a digital drug and we should acknowledge that and sort of regulate it accordingly?"
Peter Jackson [28:33]: "We are regulated... We take our responsibilities very seriously."
Looking ahead, Jackson discusses potential expansions beyond traditional sports betting, including novelty markets like political elections and entertainment events. He acknowledges the evolving landscape and Flutter's readiness to adapt to new betting opportunities.
Peter Jackson [29:51]: "We call them novelty markets. We found them to be a bit of fun in other countries and I'm sure American consumers would enjoy it as well if they could."
The episode concludes with Jackson emphasizing Flutter's dedication to providing safe, regulated entertainment while continuously innovating to enhance user experience. The hosts appreciate his insights into balancing profitability with social responsibility.
Peter Jackson [31:20]: "Thank you very much."
Tim Higgins [31:22]: "It's always a gamble coming on here and talking to us. So we appreciate you giving us the time and it was a nice conversation."
This comprehensive discussion provides valuable insights into how Flutter leverages technology and strategic practices to excel in the sports gambling sector while addressing the ethical and societal challenges that accompany rapid industry growth.