Amid World Cup Mania, FanDuel Parent Drops Dual Listing

Just in time for the World Cup, FanDuel parent company Flutter has renounced its dual citizenship, leaving the London Stock Exchange and pledging its allegiance to the US with a sole listing on the New York Stock Exchange. 

As far as soccer (or, umm, football) fandom is concerned, it’s not exactly a good move: England has +750 odds to win the cup, per FanDuel on Friday, while Team USA sits at a longshot +6000. But the company hopes that the London delisting announced Friday can save it a few pennies, win back a few more fans on Wall Street, and reverse a negative narrative at a critical moment for the sports gambling world.

Prediction Market Parlay

The 2026 World Cup might be the biggest event in sports betting history. Flutter told Barron’s last week it expects to manage 100,000 bets per minute at peak World Cup times, and experts project $50 billion total will be wagered during the 104-game-long tournament. Meanwhile, legalized sports betting has proliferated in the US since the last time Americans decided to try and care about soccer; around 65% of the US adult population now lives in states with legalized sports betting, up from around 40% during the 2022 Qatar-hosted tournament.

So why is Flutter entering the World Cup already down a couple goals? Since 2022, legalized gambling has proliferated … and been utterly disrupted by prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. Flutter’s NYSE-listed shares have fallen more than 60% since an all-time peak in August of last year, though the company has worked diligently to hedge its bets as prediction markets rip pages out of its book:

• Prediction markets now process more action than the sports books. In April, Polymarket processed $9 billion in trading volume, according to onchain data platform Dune Analytics. In its most recent earnings call, Flutter said FanDuel’s monthly handle came in at about half of that, and was down 9% year-over-year.
• But Flutter is now in on the prediction market action, launching FanDuel Predicts with CME Group in December. It also now acts as a “market-maker” on rival platforms, providing liquidity by offering event contracts; in May, the company told the Financial Times that market-making, fueled by “world-class proprietary pricing capabilities,” has become “a good contributor” to its revenues.

Book Busters: At a time of stalled-out user growth, the company is hoping the World Cup can draw in some new users. In the meantime, existing users are nearly an existential risk. An overwhelming amount of money was wagered on the underdog New York Knicks to defeat the San Antonio Spurs heading into the NBA finals, creating something of a massive liability for sportsbooks, according to one BetMGM analyst. As if Knicks fans, already quite curious about some questionable officiating, could get any more conspiratorial.