Inside Responsible Gaming: How The Flutter Edge Is Helping Customers Play Well Across The World

The tool, known as Real-Time Intervention (RTI), began life at Sportsbet. It monitors deposit behavior, responding immediately with a personalized prompt when a customer tries to deposit an outlier to their typical behavior.

“It’s about intervening meaningfully, in the moment,” explains Sarah McWhirter, Sportsbet’s Director of Customer Operations. “Traditional tools often act after the fact. We wanted something proactive, personalized and scalable.”

Behind that simple concept sits a sophisticated predictive model built by Sportsbet’s data-science team. “The engine learns each customer’s typical deposit pattern,” says Randika Dias, Head of Data Science at Sportsbet. “When it sees behavior that’s significantly outside that pattern, it triggers a tailored message. The thresholds adjust dynamically; no two customers are the same.”

The design draws on behavioral science principles, or “nudges,” to encourage reflection without confrontation. Messages start softly and escalate the more significant the deposit outlier. Visual cues such as color and tone are calibrated to feel supportive rather than punitive.

The innovation soon caught the attention of colleagues across Flutter. At a Play Well off-site in Dublin, Sportsbet shared its results with peers from other brands. FanDuel, Flutter’s market-leading U.S. operator, was quick to see potential for its customers.

That collaboration embodies what Flutter calls the Flutter Edge: the ability to scale proven ideas globally, adapting them to local contexts through shared expertise.

“Having access to Sportsbet’s experience saved us months, maybe a year, of development,” says Claudia Baim, FanDuel’s Director of Responsible Gaming. “But we couldn’t just lift and shift it. The U.S. market is different with multiple products, state-by-state regulations, and varied customer behavior.”

Each U.S. state has its own licensing framework, so FanDuel created a modular architecture that can be tailored easily without disrupting the customer experience. Over seven months, more than 50 employees across 10 teams contributed to the rollout. “FanDuel’s engineers and analysts rebuilt the system from the ground up, expanding its inputs beyond deposits to include product type, play history and bonus activity. The result is a more fit-for-purpose model for our operating environment,” Baim added.

Adapted for the U.S. market as Real-Time Check-In (RTCI), it marks a step change in responsible-play innovation, moving from static rules to intelligent systems that learn, respond and interact in real-time. It is not about surveillance or restriction, but about balance, awareness and support.

Other Flutter brands, including tombola and PokerStars, are now exploring their own models based on similar principles, focusing on time-on-site, product-specific behaviors and other indicators of play patterns. A cross-brand working group helps ensure consistency and shared learning across markets. "It’s what happens when you bring together diverse teams, large data sets and a culture of openness,” says Dias.

“We weren’t just replicating something; we were improving it collectively.”