Writing exclusively for EGR, Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson explains how the Flutter Edge underpins the Group’s global leadership through competitive strengths initially developed in its UK and Irish division.
With the European Championships behind us and a new season about to begin, I’ve had the beautiful game on my mind of late. Specifically, a comment by Sir Alex Ferguson toward the end of the 2012-2013 season – his last – that conveyed his legendary competitiveness.
His Manchester United team had just lost narrowly to Chelsea and the manager proceeded to roundly criticize his team, accusing them of taking their “foot off the pedal”. The reason this stood out for me? Ferguson and United had already won their 13th Premier League title weeks beforehand, finishing 32 places above my own team, Leeds United, who were languishing in the Championship at the time. Yet this perfectionist manager was furious at signs of standards dropping. “There was no edge to our game,” Ferguson bemoaned.
Naturally, there are many football fans within Flutter who know precisely what Ferguson was talking about. As CEO of the world’s largest online sports betting and gaming company, I too recognize the importance of developing and maintaining a distinct competitive advantage – or an edge. This core tenet has generated success in our core markets – the US, the UK and Ireland and Australia – similar to that great Manchester United team.
But what exactly is this ‘Flutter Edge’? Simply put, it is our ability to leverage the scale and power of our global business to form unique competitive advantages through talent, product, technology and capital; benefits which are readily accessible by our local brands and teams. And nowhere are these four strengths more on show than within Flutter UK and Ireland (UKI) – the home of Sky Betting and Gaming, Paddy Power and Betfair – so I now wish to illustrate these features using some of the mantras that Ferguson himself famously outlined to Harvard Business School.
Dare to rebuild your team
Great businesses and winning teams have extraordinary people in them. These are the key players that can change a game. A Ronaldo, Keane or Beckham. However, success can only be achieved through a collective effort. At Flutter, much like a sports team, we constantly hone the Flutter Edge by blending experience with promising new potential, developing teams that are diverse not just in one’s background, but also in their thoughts, words and actions.
Part of our culture is to move talent around, be it to different locations or into new roles. For example, many colleagues that have built FanDuel into the number one brand in the US began their careers in Dublin, London or Leeds. Many of the brightest minds behind FanDuel’s odds compilation are Irish, while you will hear many a Yorkshire accent within its risk function.
While other companies may resist this, we embrace it as part of our Edge, knowing that our scale will also allow us to rebuild teams where colleagues have left through a steady pipeline of top talent.
Never stop adapting
Leading – rather than reacting to – change is another similarity between Flutter and that Ferguson team, and a key part of our Edge is that our brands have been at the forefront of product innovation for over two decades. Paddy Power was the first betting operator on Apple’s App Store. Betfair pioneered the Betfair Exchange and created ‘Cash Out’. Sky Betting and Gaming led the way in responsible gaming as one of the first brands to advertise protective customer tools. Many rivals copied these advancements, proof yet again that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, what can’t be replicated is our ingrained culture of innovation within Flutter and which provides another competitive edge for our business.
Take the same game parlay product, or bet builders in the UKI. This game-changing innovation was first launched by a quantitative team working at our Australian brand, Sportsbet. They were provided with a foundational data model developed by colleagues at Paddy Power back in Dublin and building off this base, Sportsbet was able to launch a product that allowed customers to bet on several outcomes in the same game for the first time in 2016.
As competitors scrambled to develop this capability, we were able to export this around the world, including to the US, where it gave FanDuel a near 18-month head start in its product development roadmap that allowed it to capture the number one position in online sports betting – something we have yet to relinquish.
Start with the (tech) foundations
No matter how strong your talent is or how quickly they can innovate, businesses cannot compete in such a fast-paced sector like online betting and gaming without reliable, scalable technology. Thankfully, Flutter is founded on several well-invested and interoperable tech platforms that manage over 1.5 billion odds changes on our busiest days through our Global Trading Tech; offer markets on over 750,000 sporting events every year via our Global Betting Platform; and track the effectiveness of customer generosity through Cross Product Promotions.
The recent Euros provides a perfect example of how this tech creates an advantage for Flutter’s UKI brands. We have an 80-strong team based across our Dublin and Leeds trading hubs who are responsible for running our football offering, distributing all product, pricing and operating capabilities globally. This allowed thousands of FanDuel customers to bet on the outcome of the tournament, taking a price that was set by an odds compiler in Leeds, through a product created and managed from Dublin.
Prepare to win
Like Ferguson, we invest to ensure success. The strong financial performance of our UKI division allows us to build significant financial resources that we use to invest strategically in marketing and brand in other markets. Not only have we spent several billions on FanDuel, we’ve also invested in other local brands, like Junglee in India or Adjarabet in Armenia, to help them scale. Much like the sustained success of Manchester United under Ferguson over more than two decades, Flutter’s current global leadership position has only been made possible through the consistent financial performance in our core markets.
But looking at United in recent years, we maintain a healthy dose of paranoia. While they have clearly lost their edge, we at Flutter remain laser focused on sharpening ours.
For more information, please contact corporatecomms@flutter.com
Sign up to email alerts here.
