Flutter's second quarter was less a profit report than a deliberate margin reset, and the company said so in plain language. FanDuel exited the first half carrying the aftershocks of its customer churn, so management chose to shift from protecting margin to buying momentum, spending roughly a third of a billion of incremental revenue in the second half on customer acquisition. Group revenue rose three percent to $4,326 million, and the net loss of $296 million against a small profit a year earlier reflects that choice plus one-time tax provisions. Adjusted EBITDA fell 45% to $508 million, a compression that is the honest core of the quarter. The stock at $101.78, a market cap near $17.7 billion, sits in the lower third of its fifty-two week range. That position says the market is already discounting the earnings hit and paying up for the franchise.
The strongest evidence the reset is working is granular. U.S. sportsbook average monthly players grew 8% and handle grew 2%, both improving sequentially even as the reported revenue line slipped. The top line was down in the low single digits on the year. A six percentage point swing from unfavorable sports results, the worst kind of noise in a quarter, masked underlying stability. International kept compounding quietly: revenue rose 10% to $2,643 million, and Italy posted a record June market share after the Snai migration completed in April. Direct casino average monthly players in the U.S. climbed by a quarter or more on the year. The counterpoint is equally real. U.S. adjusted EBITDA collapsed by nearly three quarters to $119 million. Group leverage rose to 4.3x, well above the target range management has set. A new $500 million cost saving program only lands by 2029.
The variable that decides the next year of this stock is not revenue growth, which is now largely scheduled around the NFL calendar. It is whether FanDuel's average monthly players hold or rebuild as the NFL season starts a week late and prediction markets like FanDuel Predicts start pulling customers ahead of state-by-state sports betting licenses. Full year adjusted EBITDA guidance fell to a midpoint of $2.655 billion, a 7% decline, yet the company guided Q3 to roughly breakeven adjusted EBITDA in the U.S., a setup where the second half print, not this one, carries the thesis. Peter Jackson hands the CEO seat to Dan Taylor on October 1, adding a leadership question the market has not yet answered, and the overlap period runs straight through the first month of the NFL season.