Flutter UK and Ireland (UKI) chief commercial officer Ben Reilly’s career path makes for interesting reading. Embarking on a graduate scheme with Paddy Power back in 2010, the intervening 16 years have seen Reilly at the coalface of Flutter’s kaleidoscope of brands.
More than a decade with the Irish bookmaker, which included the merger with Betfair in 2015, was followed by a stint leading recreational bingo-led brand tombola as managing director. A shift to the wider Flutter UKI group (Sky Betting & Gaming, Betfair, Paddy Power and tombola) included a spell overseeing product, before he became CCO in July last year.
“I often say to people, I’ve been in one company in theory my whole career, but actually it felt like four or five at least in that time,” Reilly tells EGR in his first major trade press interview since taking on the post. “I remember the first day in an old, prefabricated building in an industrial estate in West Dublin,” he muses. “Flutter has grown enormously in those 16 years. We’ve been a business born out of acquisition.”
The £5bn merger of Paddy Power and Betfair in 2015 kickstarted the now-New York-listed giant’s upwards surge. The addition of Sky Betting & Gaming in 2019 in a £10bn move and subsequent rebrand to Flutter Entertainment was the next milestone.
Sprinkle in the £402m move for tombola in 2021, and you have yourself a UKI powerhouse. Paddy Power began life in 1988 thanks to three Irish bookmakers joining forces; almost 40 years down the line the company has evolved into a different beast. But for Reilly, a core identity persists. He notes: “I think all our brands have, to some degree, that challenger mindset. Clearly, as you get bigger, there’s maybe a few more spreadsheets and PowerPoints, but I like to think the core ethos of the brands and the core culture across Flutter is still one where our best days are ahead rather than behind.”
Flutter UKI is now one division of the wider Flutter group, which includes the US (FanDuel), APAC, Southern Europe and Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Brazil. In Q1, the division accounted for just over 20% of group revenue with $900m. The shifting of the primary listing from London to New York two years ago was an indicator of the importance of succeeding stateside. That doesn’t mean all the eggs are in the Stars and Stripes basket, however. See the €2.3bn move for Snaitech in Italy and $350m splashed on a majority stake in NSX, the parent of Brazil’s Betnacional.
The group often lauds the ‘Flutter Edge’ whereby tech and talent can be transported across its global operations to give advantages where needed. Plenty of FanDuel’s operations are run out of Dublin and Leeds, while products that first saw success in Australia and Italy are now landing with consumers in the UK. Reilly describes this relationship as “cohesive”, although the UKI is “pretty much 100% self-sufficient in terms of investment decisions we make”. He notes: “The Flutter Edge is a real asset to us and has been a key driver of growth over the past number of years. We’re continuously evolving how we drill into where the most value is and, for me, it’s in the connection and sharing of ideas.”
World Cup fever
Reilly is speaking to EGR on the eve of the 2026 World Cup, with the new expanded 48-team version of the tournament in the US, Canada and Mexico kicking off on Thursday 11 June. The CCO describes the World Cup as a “tent pole moment”, with teams having planned strategies for more than a year in the run up to the first game. “We’ve always been good at those events. We typically shine and see our relative market share increase a bit during those mass events,” Reilly points out.
To that end, fresh marketing and product plays have been made by the operator across its brands as it looks to carve out a greater slice of the pie. And some pie it may turn out to be. Analysts at H2 Gambling Capital have estimated around $60bn will be wagered globally across legal sportsbooks, an increase of more than 71% on the firm’s predictions for Qatar 2022. In 2022, Flutter UKI said it expected to see £300m in stakes across its brands. Given there will be 104 matches this time around compared to 64 in Qatar, the sheer slate of games should see this figure leap.
On the marketing front, Paddy Power has rolled out the ‘Nobody Does Football Better Than Us’ campaign, featuring Danny Dyer and Rob Lowe personifying the idiosyncrasies between UK and US football culture. Betfair has also got a new ad, fronted by comedian Tom Davis, as he speed-runs through nostalgic World Cup moments. Sky Bet’s promotion of a £5m prize pool for bettors who back the Three Lions to win the tournament is backed by a spot featuring Roy Keane and Micah Richards.
While marketing machines across the sector whir into action to grab attention and drive customer acquisition, Reilly points to longer-term thinking. “The World Cup is a great opportunity in the next six weeks for incremental staking and revenue, but actually, the World Cup is much more about momentum build into the second half of the year and even into next year,” he says. Reilly estimates 70% of revenue in 2027 will come from users who bet on the World Cup this summer. “Think about the scale of that and how important it is. Therefore, it’s important we put our best foot forward, put the right propositions, experiences, generosity and marketing campaigns in front of customers.”
Stella David, CEO of rival operator Entain, suggested in the Ladbrokes and Coral parents’ Q1 earnings call that the opportunity around the World Cup may be slightly overblown. CFO Michael Snape pointed to disciplined marketing spend as a key approach. “We’re very careful to make sure we don’t waste money. Lots of people, obviously, in tournaments like the World Cup will bet and then never bet again until the next World Cup,” he said back in April.
Reilly argues that despite the influx of super-recreational punters, there is still value in the tournament as an acquisition tool. “It’s not the same as a Grand National, for example. It’s definitely a higher quality acquisition opportunity than something like that, from my point of view.”
Product perfection
In terms of product, the teams over at Flutter UKI have been busy. Ghostleg, which will allow customers’ bet builders to stay alive even if one selection doesn’t land, is due to go live on Sky Bet and Paddy Power. Over in the US, FanDuel rival DraftKings rolled out a similar product last summer. Sky Bet is also pushing out in-play betting markets on penalty shootouts, apps will be getting a “bit of a facelift” and “quite a bit of work on pricing engine improvements” have been deployed, Reilly reveals. Paddy Power has launched a social media-style feature, The Feed, which allows users to follow and track other customers’ bets. “If you think about the way customers are consuming social content and engaging, it feels like there’s a real opportunity there,” the CCO adds.
A few months prior to the World Cup kicking off, Betfair rolled out a beta version of a new prediction markets interface under the Betfair Predicts label. The product is due to be expanded to more users throughout the World Cup. Prediction markets have gone haywire in the US, mainly thanks to regulatory loopholes, while Betfair has been a betting exchange leader in the UK for two decades. That depth of knowledge has already been used to help FanDuel with its own prediction markets push in the US, as pointed out by group CEO Peter Jackson on recent earnings calls.
While mass-market appetite for prediction markets in the UK, at least on paper, is weaker than in the US, Reilly explains the beta push will prove to be helpful. He says: “Early signs are encouraging, but from a small base, and that’s intentional. We haven’t been pushing it very widely to date. There’s some interest clearly in the US market. We’ve been doing this for 20 years. So, if the customer demand grows off the back of the widening in the US, or we can prove out some proposition or UX that works, then we’ll push a bit more from a Betfair standpoint.”
A total of £84bn was matched on the Betfair Exchange in 2025, which was almost a 10% increase year on year, and Reilly confirms the brand is still a “material revenue driver”. However, he notes consumer behaviour has shifted away from the exchange model. “If you look at the part of the market that’s grown faster, it’s more the recreational bet builder audience. If you compare exchanges and sportsbooks, sportsbooks can offer significantly more choice and a relatively simpler kind of UI.”
The product and marketing advances are positives, but it remains to be seen how much engagement the expanded World Cup will deliver. Being hosted in North America is a dampener for UK and Europe-based punters, with overnight games in the group stage expected to see little interest. Reilly states the opening stages, which won’t conclude until 28 June because of the expanded format, are a “little bit of an unknown”. Austria versus Jordan at 5am on a Wednesday hardly screams betting bonanza. “There’ll be some relatively low-grade teams late at night in the opening stages, and I don’t anticipate a lot of activity,” Reilly mulls.
But a problem necessitates a solution. “We’ve been thinking about how the punting behaviour could change. You might see some accas placed to run overnight and check the results in the morning. We’re thinking about it from a content perspective; I think people’s behaviour will be waking up in the morning and checking what happened the night before,” he says. “Highlight reels to catch up on the action will be a part of the football punter’s experience over the next few weeks.”
Home (dis)advantage
Away from the furore of the World Cup, a new reality has dawned on the UK. From the 1 April, remote gaming duty shot up from 21% to 40% as laid out in November’s Autumn Budget. A hike in general betting duty, excluding domestic horseracing, from 15% to 25%, is set for next April. Flutter issued a statement in the aftermath of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ announcement, with adjusted EBITDA impact in 2027 hitting $540m pre-mitigation. With mitigation plans, which include “reduced operational, promotional and marketing spend”, the net impact drops to $339m. Flutter did note it expects to take market share as smaller firms drop out as the duty hike squeezes margins.
Reilly calls the tax hikes a “seismic shift in the economics of our sector in the UK”. Some operators have taken action, including full exits, while others are cutting costs – most visibly in sponsorship budgets. Others, such as evoke, are due to be snapped up by another business, with Bally’s Intralot striking a £243m deal for William Hill parent evoke at the start of June. A little over two months on from the tax hike, Reilly points to declining RTPs across the sector, which the CCO says Flutter has been “strategically averse” to sanctioning, as a standout real-world shift post-increase. Operators have warned the rates could fall to the low 90s given the cost pressures they face.
For Reilly, the more harrowing impact of tax increases is the fuel they provide to the growing fire that is the black market. H2 Gambling Capital reported in May that stakes with illegal gambling firms in the UK hit £16.6bn in 2025, more than doubling in the past two years. Analysis from the firm showed GGY was up to £685m versus £524m in 2024. Stakeholders have warned tightening restrictions have also exacerbated the issue. “We are seeing early signs of movement in that direction [the black market],” Reilly discloses. “That’s probably the most impactful sector-wide dynamic we need to watch for. How much of the sector do we end up pushing offshore to unregulated operators that offer significantly less in terms of customer protection.”
Reilly cites similar trends in the Netherlands and Germany, where tax and regulation have played a role in the black market flourishing. In the Netherlands, the tax rate hit 37.8% in January and, coupled with monthly deposit limits of €700 for over-25s, data from the regulator shows channelisation based on GGR is just 53%. Is there hope for the UK government to change course, or even scrap the general betting duty increase next year? “I think we’re doing everything we can to surface the impacts. It’s not a free hit to essentially double our tax rates and expect us to absorb that, and for that not to have really significant impacts from a consumer protection perspective and an economic perspective,” he answers.
Solid footing
“I can’t say I had that oversight 16 years ago,” Reilly replies when asked if he envisioned if he’d end up in this position: leading four giant brands for one of the world’s largest gambling companies. He points to “plenty of standout memories” over the years, from World Cup activations with Paddy Power to taking over from the “visionary” founder of tombola, Phil Cronin, post-acquisition. There have been other milestones, including the completion of the Sky Bet platform migration, which Reilly says has left the brand in a “really good space”. On the Q1 earnings call in May, group CEO Jackson said it was a “big step change” since the migration last summer, with Sky Bet hitting its highest customer acquisition volumes in five years. Working with various stakeholders on tracking and tackling the black market is a growing project in what will be another new challenge.
And despite clouds on the horizon in the UK, and Ireland going through its own regulatory shakeup, the CCO remains confident. “I think you’ll see through the World Cup and onward the pace at which we can now build something and deploy it across multiple brands. It really gives that scale advantage,” he says. “The Flutter Edge, as we talked about, ultimately allows us to get more products in front of customers quicker, and, therefore, bodes well in terms of our foundations for the future.”
Those solid foundations, and strong leadership, will be sorely needed in the upcoming period of commercial and regulatory upheaval.
The post From graduate to grandee: Ben Reilly’s rise through Flutter UK and Ireland first appeared on EGR Intel.
Flutter UK and Ireland chief commercial officer Ben Reilly sits down with EGR to reflect on his career, why the World Cup is a “tent pole moment” and dealing with the fallout from UK tax hikes across the sector
The post From graduate to grandee: Ben Reilly’s rise through Flutter UK and Ireland first appeared on EGR Intel.