How a winning streak for NFL bettors reshaped Flutter Entertainment’s outlook

Sports betting’s unpredictability is again in the spotlight as Flutter Entertainment , the parent company of FanDuel and Paddy Power , slashed its 2024 U.S. revenue projections. A hot run of wins for favourite National Football League (NFL) teams during the late season left sportsbooks shivering in the winter gloom. Between mid-November and December 2024, a surge of favourable outcomes for bettors led to a $438 million (￡354.78 million/€407.34 million) hit to gross gaming revenue (GGR) and a $260 million (￡210.6 million/€241.8 million) reduction in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA).

According to the Financial Times, Flutter said that the 2024-25 NFL season is the most “customer friendly” since the launch of online sports betting. SiGMA News recently reported that the 2025 sports calendar offers an amazing sports spectacle and a range of punts, prizes, and betting surprises. This announcement arrives just in time for the NFL Wild Card rounds, a notorious time for tight matchups, unpredictability, and a swell in betting activity.

A perfect storm of predictable wins

Following a SiGMA News report about an NFL week 5 wild weekend for bettors, a streak of wins late-season by NFL favourite teams created a “perfect storm” for bettors. San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles romped to emphatic victories in high-profile games. Chiefs’ week 13 win against the Buffalo Bills is a prime example of how it reaped the rewards for prop bettors looking at passing yards and receiving yards. The Chiefs followed this up in week 15 by dismantling the Denver Broncos Football Club , with prop bets delivering notable returns, particularly on Isiah Pacheco rushing for 100+ yards and scoring two touchdowns.

Another big bookmaker loss came when the Detroit Lions defeated the San Francisco 49ers on December 30, 2024. This cost Flutter a phenomenal $74 million (￡59.94 million/€68.82 million) because they struggled to offset payouts, particularly on parlays. Parlay bets combine multiple wagers into a single high-risk, high-reward bet. In Europe, parlays are called accas, and bookmakers usually offer safety nets (acca insurance) so if one team lets a punter down, the bookies offer all or part of the stake back. Another way to entice punters is to offer acca boosts. When some of these bets win, they win big.

One of the largest acca wins comes from Malta, where William Hill was taken to the cleaners with a crazy 19-fold bet, culminating in an 87th-minute Liverpool winner (versus Chelsea) to win. In this case, an 80p ($0.98 cents/€0.91) bet won ￡585,000 (US$719,550/€666,900) at mega odds of 683,738/1!

Another remarkable success story is an early cash-out by a punter in 2021 at the Cheltenham Festival. Having placed a five-fold acca bet, the first four horses won, but the fifth wasn’t scheduled to be run until the following day, so the punter took a ￡250,000 cash out (US$307,500/€285,000), as opposed to the ￡511,000 maximum jackpot (US$628,530/€582,540). You can guess the rest. Yes – his fifth horse tumbled at the fourth fence, meaning he’d have lost the bet anyway, so his ￡5 bet at 50,000/1 odds remains a favourite early cash-out win. Flutter’s parlays, promotions and odds boosts inflate their liabilities, and for once, the bettor, on this occasion, came out on top...[Read More]