Flutter, the Dublin-based parent of FanDuel, bought Italian gambling service Snaitech last month for $2.6 billion, hard on the heels of its purchase of a majority stake in NSX Group, one of Brazil’s biggest gambling operators.
The sports betting giant spent roughly $3 billion in total; both acquisitions are expected to close in the second quarter of 2025. Snaitech generated $285 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2023 and NSX is expected to report $34 million of adjusted EBITDA for 2024, according to New York-based investment bank Needham & Company.
Flutter may not be done yet. It is expected to have $6 billion at its disposal, at least through mid-2026, “for additional M&A or buybacks,” analysts at the firm wrote in late September.
This isn’t the first time Flutter has turned to mergers and acquisitions to push further into international markets. The company first launched via a deal in 2016 when Ireland’s Paddy Power and Britain’s Betfair merged.
In 2020, the company completed a $12 billion acquisition of Canadian online gaming giant The Stars Group. The deal brought PokerStars under Flutter’s umbrella, adding an online poker business to its burgeoning portfolio. Last year, the company acquired Italian online betting firm Sisal, bolstering its European presence.
With the rapid legalization of sports betting, FanDuel has grown into a dominant player. This past summer, rumors swirled that it was interested in taking over Penn Entertainment, a casino operator with more than 40 properties in its portfolio.
As the regulatory environment continues to evolve, particularly in the US, Flutter’s growth-by-acquisition approach positions it to boost shareholder value, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson said at the company’s Investor Day event on September 25. The goal is to deliver up to $5 billion of share repurchases over the next three to four years, he added. Flutter’s main rival, DraftKings, has been less active and successful when it comes to cross-border M&A. In 2020, it managed to go public via a SPAC deal with SBTech, a UK-based sports betting technology provider. In 2021, it offered to acquire Entain, a UK-based gambling company, with a reported $22 billion offer. After negotiations, however, DraftKings withdrew its bid, citing the complexity of the deal.
