Flutter Seals $31B FanDuel Valuation with Boyd Deal, Fox Stake Still a Wild Card

It’s the hot, sticky summer of 2018. Just months earlier, the Supreme Court had overturned the federal ban on sports betting in states in the landmark Murphy v. NCAA decision.  Now, as state legislatures across the country rush to legalize, the nation’s two premier fantasy sports powerhouses look poised to dominate.

With massive user databases full of people already betting on fantasy sports contests, as well as their existing tech stacks, including payment processors, geofencing, and compliance infrastructure, they are well-positioned to capture market share quickly. Competitors? Likely strangled in their crib before they can even get off the ground. 

FanDuel has already sold off a 61% stake in the company to European gaming powerhouse Flutter for what at that time seemed like a massive $158 million payday, to ensure it has the capital and experience to properly position itself for the coming expansion, but what it needs is a US partner with operations in multiple states.

Most legislatures seem poised only to license existing casinos in their respective states, so FanDuel will need a partner with not only multiple properties but properties in the larger, more lucrative markets, and Boyd Gaming, which has operations in ten states, including Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Nevada, fits the bill. 

Boyd, in return, received a 5% equity stake in the company and, more importantly, an exclusive agreement with what promised to be the next sports betting powerhouse at the time. And, of course, the ability to charge market access fees to each of the states it opened to FanDuel, a passive but powerful revenue stream, likely to generate tens of millions of dollars yearly.

Today’s Market Domination

Fast forward to the even hotter, stickier summer of 2025, and the past seven years have seen tectonic shifts in both the online sports betting and online casino marketplaces. FanDuel holds 43% of the US sports betting market, which is currently valued at $13.7 billion in total revenue for 2024. More remarkably, that number increased by 24% from 2023 as the industry continues its meteoric rise.

FanDuel also controls 27% of the iGaming market, which, although still confined to seven states, represents a market of more than $8.4 billion in 2024 and the potential for tens of billions more as other states join the market.

The company has grown to more than 4 million monthly active users, $5.8 billion in revenue, and over $500 million in EBITDA. Revenue increased by 20% from 2023, while EBITDA grew by more than 80% year over year. 

Perhaps finally feeling that the time had come, Boyd and Flutter announced a new strategic partnership on July 10th that, among other things, would see Flutter buy back Boyd’s five percent stake in FanDuel for $1.76 billion, once again giving them 100% ownership. This gives FanDuel a valuation of nearly $31 billion.

And while the deal still sees Boyd collecting fees across nearly a dozen states, Flutter/FanDuel expects to realize over $60 million in cost savings from reduced market access fees under the new deal, which runs through 2038.

While FanDuel stock had struggled this year due to headwinds from tax increases in multiple states for sportsbook operators, many were surprised that Boyd chose this moment to sell its stake.

Still, they are in a costly reinvestment phase on many of their Nevada properties, including remodels at The Gold Coast, Suncoast, and The Orleans, as well as in the final stages of completing a $750 million new casino project in Norfolk, Virginia.

That $1.76 billion would go a long way towards paying down their $3.5 billion in debt, as well as open the way to new investment opportunities or strategic purchases.

Fox Option Foils Flutter’s FanDuel Finale

The 100% ownership stake for Flutter will give them not only significant cost efficiencies but also less partnership complexity, at least in the short run. In the long run, the company must still navigate an option it awarded to Fox, which would allow that company to buy an 18.6% equity stake in the company.

In 2020, when Flutter attempted to purchase the remaining 37% of Flutter from Fastball Holdings, it had to clean up a messy marriage between Fox Bets, The Stars Group, and Fastball. The option was a way of helping delineate who owned what, and also as a peace offering to Fox Bet and its owner, Fox Corporation. However, the pricing of this option soon caused a years-long rift.

While both Fox and Flutter have attempted to litigate the issue, the option remains in place, albeit at a significantly higher price than Fox believed it should have been forced to pay, and allows Fox to exercise it at any time up until 2030.

The price was determined from a December 2020 valuation of the company at $20 billion, considerably more than the $11.2 billion Fox had asserted as fair market value, but with a very small price escalator of just 5% per year in place.

This means Fox could already purchase what is a roughly $6.5 billion stake in the company for about $4.3 billion. Still, each year as FanDuel grows by double digits, Fox’s price for that almost 1/5 share of the company only goes up that fixed 5%, and they have at least five more years to decide how they want to proceed.

Conclusion 

It’s been a wild seven-year ride. This deal is the culmination of a series of strategic chess moves from betting on regulatory change, then through a series of tactical alliances and betrayals that would make the Hapsburgs blush, to Flutter finally coming out as 100% owner and last man standing, as it were, of a dominant market leader and fully vertically integrated online gaming empire.

But the story doesn’t end here. Looming large over Flutter’s ambitions is the multi-billion-dollar call option awarded to Fox. A massive bargaining chip in a high-stakes boardroom poker game.  We will get to see what Machiavellian intrigues Flutter and Fox bring to the table in the next act of FanDuel takes on the world.