Flutter Entertainment heads into Wednesday's Q1 results with a notable shift in sentiment — options traders have swung from defensive to unusually upbeat, even as the stock has slipped 5% in the past week.
The clearest signal heading into the print is in the options market. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.99, more than 1.5 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.27 — a sharp reversal from just two weeks ago, when the PCR touched 1.67, near its 52-week high. That earlier defensive posture has unwound quickly. Call demand now dominates relative to recent norms, suggesting options traders are positioning for a constructive outcome rather than hedging against a miss.
The short-selling picture backs that up, though from a different angle. Short interest fell 25% over a single week, dropping to 4.2% of the free float from roughly 5.6% a month ago. That's a significant cover, not noise. The borrow market stays relaxed — cost to borrow runs just 0.52%, and availability remains wide. Shorts aren't facing pressure to cover; many appear to have already done so voluntarily. The ORTEX short score, now 40.8, also dropped sharply from around 45 on April 23, when the covering wave began. That timing lines up with an improvement in the broader market, but the scale of the unwind at Flutter specifically is notable.
The fundamental debate centres on whether Flutter's U.S. sports betting business — primarily FanDuel — can sustain its market-share dominance while improving margins. Flutter trades at roughly 12x EV/EBITDA on estimates pointing to $2.9 billion in EBITDA against an enterprise value close to $35 billion, with net debt of about $10 billion. The company has carried a heavy debt load since its international expansion, and the interest burden runs above $600 million annually — a figure the market will weigh against operating cash flow of $1.9 billion. Closest peer DKNG shed 1.4% on Friday and is down marginally on the week, broadly in line with Flutter's recent slide, though RSI bucked the trend with a 20% weekly gain — a reminder that event-driven moves in the gaming space can diverge sharply.
Ownership adds one more layer worth noting. Kenneth Dart recently added a substantial stake and now holds 18.8% of shares, making him the dominant institutional force on the register. Capital Research lifted its position to just over 10%. These are long-horizon holders, and their continued accumulation sits in contrast to the insider activity from March, when CEO Jeremy Jackson and CFO Rob Coldrake both sold shares around the $106-$108 range — almost exactly where the stock trades today. Those were award-and-sell transactions at low significance scores, but the timing creates an implicit reference point: insiders saw $106-108 as a reasonable exit level.
The Q1 print tests whether Flutter can show enough U.S. revenue momentum and margin progress to justify a re-rating from a stock that has essentially gone nowhere in two months, even as institutional conviction at the top of the register quietly deepened.
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