Flutter Entertainment plc (FLUT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome, everyone, to the Flutter Entertainment Q3 Results Update Call hosted by Peter Jackson, CEO of Flutter Entertainment, along with Jonathan Hill, CFO. My name is Joe, and I'm your operator today. [Operator Instructions] I'd also like to advise that the call today is being recorded. And now I would like to hand over to your host, Peter. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Q3 trading update call. Today, I've got Jonathan Hill with me this morning. And hopefully, you all have had a chance to review our statement at this point. So I'll just touch on a few key issues before I open up for questions. Overall, the group had a good third quarter, reporting revenue growth of 12% on the back of 13% growth in AMPs. In the U.K. and Ireland, we grew AMPs by 19% and with flat revenues, reflecting challenging sporting calendar comps, less favorable sports results year-on-year and the ongoing safer gambling initiatives that we have introduced. In Australia, we had a very strong quarter reporting client growth of 24% and revenue growth of 20%. Sportsbet benefited significantly from the stay-at-home restrictions that have placed during the quarter. We estimate around 2/3 of our turnover in the quarter came from customers in states where COVID-related restrictions were in place. We remain pleased with the levels of player retention from last year. In international, revenues were in line with our expectations, with revenue up 6%, excluding the impact of German regulatory and tax change. We estimate that the unexpected suspension of our Dutch operations will cost us $10 million EBITDA in Q4, and we hope to be licensed in the Netherlands by H2 next year, and we'll invest heavily in that market at that point to reengage with customers. And finally, in the U.S., we are very pleased with our Q3 performance and what was certainly the most competitive start in NFL season to date, where competitors proved through pretty much everything at us, we delivered a 42% share of the sportsbetting market. We also doubled our sports and casino customers year-on-year and now regularly seeing staking volumes on NFL Sundays that match our Super Bowl performance. As you will have seen from our statement, sports results since the start of Q4 have gone in all regions, with our gross win margin over 400 basis points below expectations. As a result, the EBITDA impact has been GBP 60 million for group ex U.S. and GBP 15 million for the U.S. The majority of the GBP 60 million lands in the U.K. and Ireland, where football results, in particular, have gone against us. This is just the business we're in and sometimes results go against us. The October results are actually just a reversion to the mean in the U.K. and Ireland, where we benefited from favorable results in H1 The recent reversal brings the actual margin to the division back to expected levels for the year. As we look to next year, we're looking forward to continuing to expand our business in the U.S. with a record 7 new states expected to go live in 1 year. Closer to home, it now appears that there may be a delay to the publication of the U.K. Gambling Act in white paper. We, as a group, there are not waiting to make changes in this area as evidenced by the measures we've already introduced this year in areas such as affordability and product staking limits. And while the specifics of the Gambling Act review remain unknown, it seems unlikely to us that 2022 will be a normal year of growth for the U.K. online market. As such we would encourage analysts to consider also a realistic expectation should be for market growth knowing that the current status quo is unlikely to be retained. Overall, though, I'm very pleased with the underlying health of our business and the progress we're making. Our pro forma online player base is 46% bigger than it was just 2 years ago, and we look forward to growing that again next year as we further expand in the U.S. and elsewhere. And with that, we'll be happy to take any questions. [Operator Instructions] Joe, over to you.

[Operator Instructions] Our question is coming from Michael Mitchell from Davy.

One in the U.S. and one in the U.K., if I could. Starting with the U.S., and you referenced obviously being encouraged with your own customer engagement at the beginning of the NFL season. It's clearly been competitive period. I wonder could you just comment on the competitive intensity of the industry in recent weeks and months. And how fragile it has fared kind of from a customer engagement perspective through that period. And then secondly, in the U.K., as you referenced, since we last spoke, obviously, it's becoming more clear that the U.K. white paper could be delayed beyond the end of the current year. And as you say, 2022 unlikely to be the year that was kind of previously anticipated. I wonder what your own thoughts are in terms of what U.K. online market growth could be in 2022.

Well, look, if I take your questions in order that you put them, look, the competitive situation in the U.S. with the launch of the NFL was the most severe that we see, experienced so far. I mean I think every year, we expect to see renewed levels of competition, and that was the case this year. People are trying to claim their positions in the market. There was a lot of sort of free money flowing around. So I think we were very pleased with the way in which we performed. If you look at the market share figures that we've shared in the release this morning, we were, I think, very pleased with the outcome that we've seen. Clearly, benefiting from the partnership we have with the NFL. And of course, we've now got the NBA season restarting, and I think we're pleased with the way that, that is performing. I think ultimately, whilst competitors may be giving customers sort of effectively free money and they're very enticing-looking levels of free bets, what people ultimately want are great products. And we have the best products in America, and that's what has customers coming back to our platform time and time again. And I think that's what standing us in good stead at the moment in the U.S. and I've talked about our parlay products in the past example. The fact that that's well integrated into our product, I think, is really helpful for us. And so we're pleased with the way that the business has performed in this football season. And I think kudos to the team and Amy's leadership have done such a great job for us. As it relates to the U.K. and the publication of the white paper, look, it's obvious that the U.K. government has some very significant issues to wrestle with at the moment. And actually, a number of those issues rest with CMS. So look, whilst I know that the publication of the white paper is important, it's probably not the utmost priority at the moment. In the meantime, though, we have been very much focused on putting in place a number of actions to support our focus on safe gambling. And if you look at the things we're doing, whether it's the daily deposit limits, the GBP 10 slot safe limits, the mandatory deposit limits for 18- to 21-year-old banning credit cards in Ireland, the under 25 policy changes that we've communicated being into place end of the year and some very significant enhancements to the way in which we engage and communicate with customers, we're doing an awful lot. And I think that is important. And I think we shouldn't expect there to be a sort of big bang set of changes that come from the publication of the white paper. I think there's going to be a number of changes, which operators choose to make. I think there'll be some regulatory interventions. And I think there'll possibly be some changes, which will be encouraged by the Gambling Commission. So I think with all of those things happening, I know it's very difficult to try and assess the impact of them. But I think it would be hard to imagine that the online market in the U.K. would experience any real growth into next year, with the battery in the face of all those interventions and changes, which we expect to happen in the market.

The next question is coming from Ed Young from MS.

I also have one in the U.K. and one in the U.S., perhaps with the U.K. to start with. The GBP 60 million impact you've quantified from margin this year appears to be mechanically sort of assuming not a lot of benefit from recycling going forward or perhaps a very normalized situation for the following 2 months rather than any kind of benefit from increased staking. Is there a particular reason that's the case? Is there anything changing in play behavior? Any reason why you haven't done that? Or was it sort of conservatism for why that appears to be a relatively odd impact for a relatively short period? And the second one, on the U.S., you mentioned the promotional environment there. I wonder if you could just give any view on the percentage of players or the rough proportion of players and the market share plays you have, who are sold as customers of your products. Obviously, it's one of the strengths in the U.K., particularly in Sky Bet, you've got a lot of plays. You only play with that brand. Just in an environment where money has been thrown around, I'm just wondering if those kind of customers are generally going to be less loyal than perhaps you experienced. So any comment on those would be appreciated.

Yes. So maybe I can take the first. Certainly, the $60 million is the point that we find ourselves at the end of the 24th of October. But I would just cast back to earlier in the year where we've seen, particularly in U.K. and Ireland, positive sports results. In fact, all the way through to the 30th of September, which we now managed to give back all of that by the 24th of October to end up relatively flat. But during that first 9-month period, even though we were experiencing bookmaker-friendly results, we didn't really see a degradation in the staking levels during that period. And while we were looking for those trends, we didn't necessarily spot them. So what will happen from here to the end of the year, I think we've taken a sensible view of presenting you where we are at this point. Will some of that come back through recycling? We would hope so. Have we baked that in? Not at this point because, obviously, we don't exactly know given what we've seen in the first 9 months of the year and those correlations between staking and results.

Ed, with regards to your U.S. question, I think typically we see that U.S. consumers have many less accounts, so they're much more likely to have one account than we would see in the equivalent situation in the U.K. And partly that's because of the onerous degrees of opening an account and able to share sort of people's social security details and that type of thing. So people are more likely to have a smaller number of accounts. And certainly, when we look at our -- the metrics that we can see, which is the lifetime values, one of the metrics that we've been really pleased with is the extent to which we've seen very high degrees of retention from customers. And we've seen very frequent use of the product. And that leads us to believe that we have a very high share of those customers' wallets. So it's hard to gauge as clearly as we can do in the U.K. market with someone like a Sky Bet, where we know we have some of these service customers. But I think we've been very pleased with the way that customers have been engaging with us. And I think what we've seen is, even if they've availed themselves of some free money effectively in and around these promotions, when we look at the sort of staking handle volumes on our platform, we believe customers are coming back. We have some majority of their business.

I think the other point I'd add is the place we probably see in our existing business very high levels of [ solos ] is in highly recreational businesses. So when we look at Sky Bet, when we look at Sportsbet, and we aren't necessarily in the U.S. market at that highly recreational end, which we've got in those other 2 businesses at this stage in its evolution of development.

The next question is coming from Simon Davies from Deutsche Bank.

Two for me, please. Firstly, you referred to a new reward scheme for the PokerStars brand. Can you talk us through how that works in mechanics and the likely cost of this? And what are your expectations on poker and your ability to return that product vertical to growth? And secondly, can you talk about the most recent state launches, Arizona and Connecticut, and what you're seeing there in terms of the competitive landscape and betting volume levels relative to expectations?

Yes. So look, I mean, I think it's -- in what we're doing with poker, we've done quite a substantial change to the way in which the reward scheme works. And it's probably not quite a time for me to share all the full details on this call now because it'll take a lot of time up for me to take you through these. So we can get something to you if you'd like to see it in detail. But essentially, we have increased the level of generosity that we make available to customers on the platform. And we think it's going to help retain customers on our site to boost our share of liquidity. I think when we think about growth prospects there, we have to look at the -- you look at it from a customer perspective rather than a product standpoint. And if I take September, that was the -- we saw a record high level of GGR from our casino-acquired customers in a month. And I think it's a good indication of our focus that we have for the business. So casino is a very important part of what we do. And when we think about it from a customer perspective, that's where the growth is coming from. So no matter where we source the customers from, whether it is casino directly or into poker first and then into cross-sold in the casino, that's where we see the real areas of growth coming from.

I mean, a couple of other points just on the sort of poker business and the scheme. We've obviously been trialing mapping with 20% of our base, and we've seen some very positive reaction from the customers. And therefore, we expect that when we roll this out further, it will lead to greater levels of engagement with the customer base. And I think we feel as if the sort of poker market share quarter-on-quarter is relatively stable. And we like to think that we've sort of abated some of that decline through recent actions. And obviously, we're looking to make sure that we can maintain, if not try and push forward with that market share position that we have in the poker business.

And Simon, in terms of the state launches, I think I would look and characterize some of the these in -- I mean it's not really fair to say the mature state. Places like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where we've been operating for a while, it sometimes feels like some of the other operators have given up in those markets because they see that we've got such a strong and commanding lead. And so I think in the newer states, we see that new operators will try really hard to compete with us. And so I'm particularly pleased with the way in which we performed in Arizona, we've seen that market mature. So we've been growing more quickly than any other market. And I think we've done a -- the team has done an incredible job of taking great share in that market. So I'm really pleased with what we've done to date. And of course, actually Arizona itself is a state where we didn't have the benefits of DFS base to cross-sell into. We're reliant entirely on the quality of our products and the strength of our brand. And I think the fact that we've done so well in that market shows how well both our product and brand stand in the eyes of the consumers interested in sports betting. So whether it's the older states or the new states, I think the business is performing well across the process full spectrum.

The next question is coming from the line of David Brohan from Goodbody.

Just one question for me. On the Netherlands, could you just break down the guidance for next year, kind of the bridge between your GBP 10 million in Q4 and then GBP 40 million for FY '22, given kind of plans to be breakeven in H2? Is that kind of significant marketing push in advancing H2? Or what's the kind of driver there?

Yes. So the assumption is that we are often in H1 and we reactivated ourselves in H2. And then clearly, there are operators who will be remaining on June, the whole period, and we will have to reengage. A bit like our return to sport program last year in the States when they've been offered. We're going to have to reengage our PokerStars customers, make sure we get them back on the platform and betting with us. And therefore, that's how we've guided the GBP 40 million number for next year.

The next question is coming from Monique Pollard from Citi.

A couple of questions for me, if I can, both on the U.S., please. The first was just obviously thinking about the U.S. revenue guidance being maintained despite the poor sports results. And I'm assuming earlier when you were saying you weren't taking into account recycling for the rest of the year, that will be for the U.S. as well. So is it right in thinking you would have had a significant revenue upgrade for 2021 to your U.S. guidance ex those results? And then secondly, U.S. iGaming. You mentioned in the statement that you've got a new gaming promotions platform that's now live and that's providing some flexibility to reward multiproduct players. Just trying to understand if you can give any guidance on how the proportion of your customers that are now playing both iGaming and sports and where you think that can go over time?

Can I deal with the first one?

Yes, please.

In terms of the first question, obviously, we talked about GBP 15 million starting of revenue impact, EBITDA impact. When you gross that up, you probably get to around $50 million. The other thing you need to recognize, Monique, is that as we go through the year, we'll also make decisions between whether we spend money on our customers either through the marketing line or through the promotions line. So we can decide the dollar is better spent in a promotion than it is necessarily in marketing. So we will make decisions and then we have done as we've gone through the start of the NFL season to move some of that spend around. So we need to take all of these things into consideration. It's not just a binary, every extra dollar of revenue would go on to the guidance. So overall, we're managing within that sort of that envelope.

Yes. Look, Monique, in terms of the point about iGaming, I mean I think we've acknowledged in the past that there's more for us to do in this area. And part of that was the launch of our sort of in-house promotions platform, which we've acknowledged when we got out into the market. We're excited to see the capability that, that brings us and opportunities it provides to us. The best place for us to start is the fact that we have the most sports betting customers in the United States and a very strong brand. And that's what we're cross-selling into. And then we see that the level of cross-selling are higher in the U.S. than we had originally anticipated. That's actually one of the things that's been supporting the higher LTVs that we're seeing in the market, and it's certainly higher than we would have experience in the European markets. So that's something that we're very much focused on and continue to try and take advantage of the strength of our sports franchise in the U.S.

The next question is coming from the line of Joe Stauff from Susquehanna.

Two questions on the U.S., if I could. I'm wondering maybe in September, with certainly the start of the sports calendar here, if the mix for sports betting revenue for you guys, if the mix or the product mix is notably different at this point, pregame, Same Game Parlay and in play? Or is that something that you would expect is more likely to change, say, going forward? And then I have a follow-up, please.

Do you want to give us a follow-up, Joe?

Sure. The follow-up is just asking about trends for monthly active users in October as well as if you saw the promotional environment somewhat normalized maybe by the end of October? Or was it still pretty heavily promotional to the end of October in the U.S., of course.

Okay. Let me take those up, Joe. So look, the first thing to say is from -- the biggest impact on our mix between sort of pregame, same game, in play and all that stuff is driven by the sports. So we do see different levels of penetration based on the different leagues that are into vogue at the time. So actually, for example, baseball has not been as popular as we would have probably thought for some of the in-play products, when I think certainly about the analogies related to cricket. But if you look at the -- there's a point in time where at the moment, NBA is something where we have a -- we feel like we have sort of a real advantage and it really plays to our strengths. And so the extent to which we're seeing take-up of the same game parlay cuts across our customer base is something that we're really pleased with the performance of that at the moment. That's partly driven by the fact that we're seeing increased levels of recreational customers. It's partly due to the promotions we're doing. And it's partly due to the way in which we're getting better integrating and promoting and sort of making it available to our customers on our platform. So that's something which we know it's important to customers, and I think we're really trying to dial that up at the moment. In terms of our -- the trends we're seeing around promotions, I think a lot of people really focus their promotional firepower around the launch of the football season and are beginning to sort of run out of dry powder to some extent. We have been aggressive, as you'd expect, throughout this period and will continue to be so, but in a relatively disciplined way as we always have been in the States. And I think we are taking advantage of the opportunities. The partnership we have with NFL is something which we've been trying to exploit through the start of the NFL. And with the NBA coming on stream now, that's also a league where we have very strong ties, great product available and something that customers are really engaging in. So we think that some of the people who try to sort of grab some of the market early in the football season is probably a little bit running out of steam and we're continuing to push hard and trying to exploit our leadership position.

The next question is coming from Daniel Politzer from Wells Fargo.

So a couple on the U.S. Any updated thoughts on timing for a listing there now that you have a new CEO installed? And the second would be, any changes in terms of cadence for your expectation to be profitable in 2023 in the U.S. given the high level of promotions you've been mentioning?

So look, we are very focused on winning in America, and we're pleased that we're continuing to do so. That's what we've tasked Amy and the team to do and to also take advantage of all the new states that are coming on stream. We shouldn't forget, we've had some very successful launches this year. We've got 7 more to focus on next year. And that's a massive lift for any business to do. And we want to continue to ensure that we position ourselves well for that. The point about the sort of increased competitive activity, something that we had anticipated. It's not been a surprise to us. It seems to happen every year. But -- and so it hasn't changed any of our views on the extent to which we would reach profitability. The thing that we're closely watching and monitoring is the extent to which any of the very large states could potentially introduce regulation and come on stream, which would obviously have a bearing on the amount of money we've invested in trying to take advantage of them opening up.

I mean I think also as we look at the maturing of the -- I was going to say, the mature states, but they're not mature states. I mean they would be going for maybe 3, 4 years max. Those are going in line with our expectations in terms of contribution. So we feel pretty confident there. And then the second thing is we expect to exit next year with 20 states versus the 12 we're live in at the minute. And it's the game of the existing states versus new states. And as we enter 2023 with 20 existing states, we feel pretty well set up for our expectations for '23.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is coming from the line of Richard Stuber from Numis.

Two questions for me, please. The first, in the 7 states that you expect to launch next year, are the economics broadly similar to the states where you're currently live or are the newly regulating states of wanting a greater share of the economics? And the second question, not just in gaming, but I think elsewhere, there's lots of commentary around labor cost inflation. Are you seeing that in any of your geographies, particularly in the U.S. and in particular jobs?

Look, I mean I think the most important thing for us in the next 7 states to go live is that they are predominantly sports states. And so that definitely plays to our advantage. And look, you're right to think about the impact of market access costs and that's something that people don't always focus on. But I think for us, the most important dynamic for us is the sort of the CAC/LTV dynamic. And we know that we're -- we can lean heavily on sort of being sports led, which most of the states are, we have a real advantage in being able to utilize both the strength of our brand but also our DFS database to get lower acquisition costs than anybody else has in the market. And then the strength of the product enables us to drive higher LTVs. And so I think we're excited to see what we can do in those 7 states that we launch in next year. It's in terms of the labor cost inflation, look, it is impacting all businesses around the world. I think the areas that I probably call out that it's -- that we're seeing the most pressure in our -- around the tech and engineering roles where there is a degree of heightened of inflation and there are more people save on the move, seeking more flexibility in the ways in which they're working. We're trying hard to make sure that we can provide them with a greater of employee value proposition and keep them engaged in our business. I mean, ultimately, people want to work for somewhere so they can have fun and engage and believe in what the organization is trying to do and people like working for winning businesses. And so we're hopeful that we can continue to attract and retain the great talent we -- that's helped us be so successful so far.

The next question is coming from Joe Thomas from HSBC.

Peter, I was interested in your comments on the U.K. not much to have much growth next year. Is that -- when you talk about interventions, are you talking specifically about the interventions that you've made on maximum staking limits, et cetera? I'm just wondering how much in a full year those things are likely to cost. And then secondly, just on -- back to the U.S. Also interested in your comments about competitors running out of a bit of steam. Do I take it that a lot of the competitive intensity has come from sort of the smaller sort of start-up type businesses that might be less capitalized.

Yes. So look, in terms of the U.K., I think it's -- we need -- my observation was really just trying to sort of provide some views on what we thought and think would happen to the market as a whole, so not just us. And I think there's going to be a range of interventions that the government may instigate, the regulators will impose and operators will put in place themselves. And I don't think it will happen in sort of over a weekend. I think it's something which is going to happen in a sort of series of steps. And so that -- it's on that basis that I just -- I think it's hard to believe you'd see any real growth in the U.K. market next year. As to the specifics of which action is leading to that. It's very difficult to determine. Of course, there's a number of overlapping actions, which can happen in any event. So that's the basis in which I was making the observations. And look, in the U.S. market, look, it is a bit of a sort of land grab at the moment, and it's both from some of the sort of more start-up type businesses, although none of these are start-ups because they're big likes of casino groups like who are throwing money around as well as some of those of the pure-play digital businesses. So none of these are sort of poorly funded sort of 10 people start-ups. These reasonable sort of operations. But there's only so much funding any of these businesses can access and provide free money to people before they eventually run out of it.

The next question is coming from Kiranjot Grewal from Bank of America.

I think a lot of my questions have been answered. But just quickly on margins. Across the industry, we saw margins benefiting over the last 12 months or so due to a growing mix of recreational customers online. Could you perhaps comment on how that mix of online customers is changing now that things are going back to normal? And also second question. There's a lot of consolidation happening in the market at the moment, including the U.S. When do you think the right time is for you guys to maybe stop pushing for your other U.S. brands as well in terms of customer capture? Or is this something that you're already working on?

Look, from a margin perspective, we are continuing to push hard to acquire as many recreational customers as we can. And that's -- and I think the bet mix and bet type from those customers has helped support growth in expected margin. There is inevitably more volatility when you get into sort of the parlay-type bets because whilst they can be higher margins when they're positive, they can also then be more deeply negative when they're loss-making. And so there's sort of a couple of weeks that we called out in football, where we were loss-making in the U.K., and that was driven by 14 or the 15 favorites winning in international [indiscernible], 15 or 16 favorites winning in the Champions League. And so when that happens and people have put sort of accumulated type bets on -- the sort of the impact is quite significant. Albeit when things are positive, it's very positive. As Jonathan, I think, has I said, we've now got ourselves back to the point where sort of expected margins are back to where we expected them to be, albeit the benefits of 9 months and a rollback quite quickly in 24 days in October.

Look, well, I think the bet mix is giving us an uplift in the sort of gross win margins. Then if you look at what we then do with that gross win margin, particularly in something like Australia, which we obviously did at the Capital Markets Day, we're then reinvesting some of that upside to help drive customer engagement and the size of our business through either the promotions and the marketing line. And you can see how you get back to that -- the flywheel effect from being able to get greater gross win margins, being able to give back more to the customers, driving customer engagement, driving customer growth. And I think that's perfectly illustrated by the presentation. Hopefully, we -- hopefully, you took that out of the presentation we gave to you on Australia recently.

And look, to the point about consolidation, I mean, I think we've been at the forefront of a lot of consolidation in the industry over the last several years. We do believe the diversification and scale are important in this sector. And it appears that other people are beginning to believe that's also true as well.

The next question is from Clark Lampen from BTIG.

Two for me, please. The first is on advertising. Peter, there seems to be more of a focus lately from the U.S. officials on advertising frequency and visibility. I'd love to know whether you think the U.S. over indexes on either front, maybe relative to some of your other larger markets, or if we're at a point now where you think operators will have to consider maybe paring back advertising to avoid potential limitation. The second question I have is on product differentiation. There seems to be a perception that as your competitors are adding parlay options and deepening those markets that your advantages from a competitive standpoint might start to erode, what did you miss there with that sort of high-level comparison of parlay options between you and your competition? Do you expect that you're going to continue to lead on market depth, perhaps with product innovation? Is there something else that we're missing?

Look, it's -- look, in terms of the 2 points you raised in the U.S. market, which I think are important, but from an advertising perspective, we operate in many markets around the world, and we have often tried to take the lead in trying to sort of push and sort of nudge the industry into getting to a more sustainable level of marketing expenditure. And look, we would expect to want to continue to do that in the U.S. market as well. It doesn't surprise me that there are some people beginning to sort of ask questions about the frequency and visibility. Clearly, the launch of this football season, there has been a sort of pretty significant level of marketing expenditure by lots of operators in the market. With regards to your sort of second question around sort of product differentiation, I think if I look in a market like Australia, we have consistently led the market there with the sort of quality of our execution and things like parlays. Look, it's relatively easy to go and acquire the right sort of parlay product from a third party. The issue with that, of course, is you give away all the upside. And then from a customer experience perspective, it's not an integrated product. And so it doesn't -- you can't then have the same sort of association with your generosity and promotional mechanics on your product. Sometimes customers now have to go to a different tab. It just may not be as intuitive and experienced. And so we believe that we can maintain our leadership from a customer experience perspective in and around the parlay product. It's something we've done consistently in Australia. And whilst competitors may be sort of acquiring rights to third-party products to try to catch up with where we are, rest assured that we have many fantastic engineers in the U.S. striving to keep us ahead of those competitors. And of course, uniquely and amongst U.S. businesses, we have thousands of chair leaders around the world in our other businesses who are also building products, which they can use and engage in the U.S. market to try and maintain our leadership as well.

I think from the Aussie presentation, there was a very interesting phrase, [indiscernible], which is all 1%. And that's about making sure that every element of the customer experience that from when they log in right through to placing a singles bet through the Same Game Parlay, through to whatever else they want to do is done in a way that makes it super easy for the customer. Just sticking the Same Game Parlay on the side of your app isn't the way to make that a seamless and great user experience. So there are many, many things that lead to product differentiation rather than just having a product or not having a product.

Yes. Look, the final point, I think, Clark, which I think is important. Sometimes people forget this is a -- really, the heart of our product is our pricing and risk management capability in the sort of risk and trading stuff. And we spent some time on this call talking about the fact that sports results have gone against us. But the most important thing is to get your probability in pricing as accurate as possible. And we have many years of experience of that. We have 650 people assessing and developing models and pricing and trading for us around the world, and that found us some really good starts in the States, which gives us the best sort of depth of markets, which customers love, but also when you get the pricing accurate on them, you get -- you effectively get the better margins in the end. Look, I think that's the end of all of our questions, so thank you very much everybody. We are very pleased with the extent to which we've been able to grow our player base over the course of this year and look forward to doing so next year. 2022 is going to give us a number of new states and opportunities to continue to grow the business, and we look forward to seeing what we can do with our fantastic [ challenge ] of brands around the world. So thank you.

Thank you, Peter, and thank you, everyone. That does conclude your call for today. You may now disconnect. Thanks again for joining, and enjoy the rest of the day.