Flutter Entertainment plc (FLUT): what the price requires
The current priced-in claim for Flutter Entertainment plc (FLUT) is temporarily suppressed because the live engine record is unavailable. The dated report remains a snapshot, not a current market read.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/FLUT
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | FLUT |
| Company | Flutter Entertainment plc |
| Current price | $111.84/sh |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | revenue-multiple |
| EV / sales paid | 1.9x |
| Steady-state operating margin assumed | 18.1% |
The price sits below what even a 5%/yr revenue decline would warrant; the inversion reports a bound, not a solved growth path.
The company earns no operating profit yet; the inversion runs on the revenue multiple and an assumed steady-state margin.
Solve inputs: computed at a 7.4% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage, holding a 18.1% terminal operating margin (45.2% gross margin x the 40% mature-conversion prior).
Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~-3%/yr; the models below use their own rates.
How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based/earnings-power land below the price.
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 2.31x | 2 | expensive |
| Earnings | 10.33x | 1 | expensive |
| Relative | 0.15x | 2 | justifies |
| Growth | 0.57x | 3 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=8)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $194.72 | 0.57x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 98.7x / 100.7x / 102.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $769.36 | 0.15x | yes | P/S fallback (negative EPS): Sector P/S 8.0x × TTM revenue — excluded from consensus |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $51.21 | 2.18x | yes | Book value floor: BV/sh $51.21, ROE negative |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $46.09 | 2.43x | yes | Book value with convergence: BV/sh $51.21, ROE converges to ke |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $121.86 | 0.92x | yes | Rev $17.0B, growth 19% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 0.9x / 1.2x / 1.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $0.00 | — | no | Negative/zero EPS — earnings-based value floored at $0 |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | $533.75 | 0.21x | yes | Margin ramp: -3% → 22% over 7yr, rev growth 19% (input: historical growth; tapered) |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $0.01 | 11184.00x | yes | Normalized EBIT (3y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.59B × (1−11%) / WACC 6.1% → EPV (no growth) (excluded from median) |
| Residual Income | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| Graham Number | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $0.01 | 11184.00x | yes | EBITDA $0.31B × sector EV/EBITDA 25.0x (excluded from median) |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $10.83 | 10.33x | yes | FCF $1215.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $0.01 | 11184.00x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.96B (FCF $1.22B − SBC $0.26B) capitalized at Kₑ (excluded from median) |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $2.93 | 38.17x | yes | BV $51.21 × (ROIC 0.3% / WACC 6.1%) (excluded from median) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $769.36 | 0.15x | yes | Revenue $17.02B × sector P/S 8.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $10.4b |
| Interest coverage | -0.3x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -0.2% |
| Burning cash | no |
Operating profit is negative or near zero and the company has no demonstrated through-cycle (mid-cycle) operating margin to normalize against, so years-to-repay cannot be computed honestly.
Bullet Takeaways
Flutter's moat is scale in a winner-take-most market. FanDuel holds roughly 44% of US online sportsbook gross gaming revenue, ahead of DraftKings near 34% and BetMGM near 14%, and that lead lets it spend less per customer than a challenger and convert at higher margins.
The stock has fallen hard, to about $101.67, a market value near $18 billion against trailing revenue of roughly $17 billion. The price is read against sales, and it sits below what even a modest revenue decline would warrant, which is unusual for the category leader still growing the top line at a double-digit pace.
The catch is that trailing profitability is thin and the recent quarter went the wrong way: net income fell about 38% on bad sports results and launch costs, and Flutter cut its full-year guidance. The bet is that the scale advantage and US margin ramp reassert themselves; the risk is that the cut is the start of a trend, not a blip.
Bull Case
Flutter's structural advantage is scale, and in online sports betting scale is close to destiny. FanDuel leads the US market with roughly 44% of online sportsbook gross gaming revenue, well ahead of DraftKings near 34% and BetMGM near 14%. That leadership is not cosmetic: a market-share leader acquires customers more cheaply, retains them through a deeper product and loyalty offering, and earns a structurally better margin on each bet because fixed technology and marketing costs spread over a larger handle. The filing frames the industry as "becoming increasingly competitive" at "both a local and an international level" where operators must attract players with product [FY2025 20-F, accession 0001635327-26-000005], and the company that already has the largest base wins that competition more efficiently than the ones chasing it.
The economics behind the share are improving where it counts. Flutter's 2026 framework points to US revenue around $7.8 billion and US adjusted EBITDA around $1.05 billion, a US business that has crossed into solid profitability after years of land-grab spending, with management targeting further margin gains from product integration, loyalty, and cost efficiency on a unified FanDuel platform. Group revenue grew 17% in the first quarter of 2026 to $4.3 billion, and the company generates real free cash flow, over $1.2 billion on a trailing basis, even though GAAP operating profit is depressed by acquisition amortization. A business throwing off that much cash while still growing revenue at a double-digit clip is not a speculative story; it is a maturing leader.
The optionality is the prediction-markets push. Flutter's filing calls prediction markets "a significant incremental growth opportunity for FanDuel" that it believes "will be TAM expansive, broadening reach by bringing sports markets" to new customers [FY2025 20-F, accession 0001635327-26-000005], and FanDuel Predicts extends the franchise into a federally regulated adjacency that could open states where traditional sports betting is not yet legal. Strong launches, including a number-one share position in Missouri ahead of expectations, show the customer-acquisition machine still works. At a price that values the leader below what a modest revenue decline would justify, the upside is the scale advantage and US margin ramp simply continuing.
Bear Case
The balance sheet is where the fragility hides, because Flutter built its US leadership partly with debt. The company carries net debt on the order of $10 billion, and the filing details a layered, repeatedly expanded credit structure, referencing a "Third Incremental Assumption Agreement" and an additional "$500 million pursuant to the Fourth Incremental Assumption Agreement" that "increased the aggregate principal amount available" [FY2025 20-F, accession 0001635327-26-000005]. Trailing GAAP operating income is slightly negative and interest coverage on that basis is below one, so the debt is serviced out of cash flow and adjusted earnings rather than reported operating profit. That works while free cash flow stays strong, but it leaves little margin for error: a few bad quarters of sports results or a step-up in competitive spending, layered on a leveraged balance sheet, compounds quickly.
The recent results show how quickly the model can turn. In the first quarter of 2026 net income fell about 38% year over year to $209 million and earnings per share dropped about 22%, hit by unfavorable sports outcomes and launch costs for new states, and Flutter lowered its full-year guidance as a result. Sports betting carries inherent revenue volatility, customers winning their bets is a direct cost, and a single unlucky stretch of game outcomes flows straight to the bottom line. FanDuel's own revenue grew only 6% in the quarter, lagging the group, and its long-tenured CEO departed, a leadership transition at the most important asset at an inopportune moment.
Regulation and tax are the structural overhang. State gaming taxes are rising in several jurisdictions, and every increase comes directly out of operator margin in a business where the leader has little ability to pass it on. The filing acknowledges that the ability "to successfully enter such jurisdictions or markets may be affected by future developments in state/regional, national and/or supranational policy and regulation" [FY2025 20-F, accession 0001635327-26-000005]. The prediction-markets expansion that excites the bull case is itself a regulatory bet, exposed to challenge from state gaming regulators. A leveraged leader facing rising tax rates, revenue that swings with sporting outcomes, and a regulatory frontier it does not fully control is more fragile than its market share suggests.
Valuation
Flutter is a leader with depressed trailing operating profit, so the price is read against its sales rather than its earnings, and the read is a bound rather than a clean solve. At about $101.67 (June 27, 2026) the price works out to roughly 1.8 times trailing revenue, a multiple so low that the price sits below what even a sustained 5% annual revenue decline would warrant, while still requiring an eventual operating margin around 18%. The framework states this as a bound: the price is beyond, on the cheap side, of what an ordinary outcome would justify, given the company is the category leader still growing revenue at a double-digit pace.
The X-ray is dominated by the gap between trailing GAAP profitability and underlying cash generation. The earnings-power and EV/EBITDA frames collapse to near zero because normalized operating income is depressed by amortization, which is misleading for a company that produced over $1.2 billion of free cash flow; the FCF-yield frame, more representative, lands near $10 capitalized at the cost of equity but understates a growing business. The forward methods reach far above the price: the DCF-exit-multiple frame lands near $185, the discounted-future-market-cap frame near $110, and the margin-trajectory frame far higher on a ramp toward a low-20s operating margin. The asset-based floor anchors to a book value of $51.21 a share. So the conservative trailing-earnings methods understate the business and the growth methods sit well above the price, which is why the priced-in assumption reads as within range and arguably cheap for the leader.
The honest synthesis is that the valuation is reasonable to cheap if you believe the US business keeps scaling toward its margin targets and free cash flow keeps growing. The risk is in the leverage and the volatility: the price looks cheap on sales because trailing earnings are weak, and if the earnings weakness proves structural, from rising taxes, competition, or sustained bad sports luck, rather than transitory, the cash flow that anchors the bull case erodes. The full-year guidance, which was just cut, is the number to watch.
Catalysts
The most recent catalyst was the first-quarter 2026 report, and it was a negative one. Flutter grew group revenue 17% to $4.3 billion but net income fell about 38% to $209 million and earnings per share dropped about 22% to $1.23, hurt by unfavorable sports results and launch costs including Arkansas, and management lowered full-year 2026 guidance in response. The prior full-year framework had pointed to group revenue around $18.4 billion, adjusted EBITDA around $2.97 billion, and a US business near $7.8 billion of revenue and $1.05 billion of adjusted EBITDA, so the revised outlook and the next quarterly print are the key checkpoints on whether the cut is a one-off.
Leadership and competitive dynamics are live. FanDuel's CEO departed, a transition at Flutter's most important asset, and FanDuel held roughly 44% of US online sportsbook gross gaming revenue in the quarter, still the clear leader but with revenue growth of only 6% that lagged the group. New-state launches are a recurring positive catalyst; Missouri came in at number-one share ahead of expectations, and additional state openings extend the addressable market.
The forward swing factors are prediction markets and regulation. FanDuel Predicts is the growth option, extending the franchise into prediction markets that management views as TAM-expansive, but it faces regulatory tests from state gaming authorities. On the other side, rising state gaming-tax rates are a direct margin headwind. Analyst sentiment is constructive, with an average price target well above the current price, which sets a high bar but also signals that the Street sees the recent weakness as temporary. The watch items are US margin progression, the durability of FanDuel's share, sports-results normalization, and the regulatory path for prediction markets.
Sources: Flutter Q1 2026 financial results, GlobeNewswire; FanDuel revenue grows 6%, handle dips, Yahoo Finance; Flutter Q1 FanDuel leadership and prediction markets, Gambling Insider; Flutter FY2025 results and 2026 guidance, GlobeNewswire; Flutter Q1 2026 8-K, SEC.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Core business (reported)
- DKNG (DRAFTKINGS INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- RSI (Rush Street Interactive, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.