Some first notes on Flutter's H1 from a poker perspective.

Phone-in analysts' call is in 15 mins, but the presentation is already live.

http://staticcontents.investis.com/media/f/flutter/interim-results-presentation-2020.mp4

Top line - from what I can tell, Flutter are going to stop reporting revenue numbers from poker, which is very disappointing.

PokerStars (non-US) division is broken down by sports and gaming, the latter of which will include casino.

Up 40% YoY.

"A picture paints a thousand words."

This should come as no surprise for followers. This chart follows their cash game data very closely.

Goes to show how it is still an excellent metric for seeing these trends, despite tournaments making up ~70% of revenue.

As that slides shows:
- 70% increase in daily actives
- Social aspect is what made poker so popular during lockdown
- Home Games increased 7x YoY
- Average weekly spend roughly static, at ~£10 a week

PokerStars in the financial review. Again, keep in mind that this includes sports and casino in the numbers (which is iirc ~40% of the business)

"This business has been deprived of proper levels of investment."

PokerStars only invested 14% in sales and marketing last year. Industry average is 25%.

Growth to casino so far has been almost entirely cross-sell to poker players; a "big missed opportunity."

This is getting interesting.

"Customer generosity too has significantly reduced over the last five years." < read, VIP program/Stars Rewards.

"This reduction has been deliberate - a specific initiative undertaken to make sure generosity is better directed towards customers ..."

"... who had enhanced the overall liquidity of the poker ecosystem." < read, cutting Supernova program, switching to Chest-based, personalized Stars Rewards.

"While such measures have been effective, there's an important balance that has to be struck in developing the business for the long term."

You heard it hear first - there's no two ways to read this. A clean signal that under Flutter, the operator will reassess how it rewards players with loyalty, and considers that there has been too much focus on recreational players - and overall rewards could increase.

"Finally, it is clear that customer perception of the PokerStars *product* lags behind competitors in a number of jurisdictions today, and we have work to do to address this."

That's a nod to their product falling a bit behind in certain areas (see - developments at GGPoker, partypoker. Particularly around mobile. Winamax in France).

"Make no mistake - the online poker market is a competitive market. And we're going to have to invest in our product and customer experience to remain competitive in this space."

"Getting this business to where I believe it should be will not happen overnight. But I'm confident that, given the right direction, it has all the assets it requires to achieve this potential over time."

This is a major shift to the rhetoric under TSG. There, poker was the customer acquisition channel for other verticals. Now, swims in a much bigger bound. Flutter can now switch to investment and growth in poker rather than mine it for cross-sell.

So, to re-state things in my own words:

- Flutter understands that competition is catching up
- That there is a perception issue with its product
- That it may have shifted reduced rewards too much to players
- That it may have shifted too much over to casual players

And over time, it will seek to address all of these issues.

Gauntlet thrown down.