Flutter CEO lavishes praise on Tombola ahead of acquisition anniversary

Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson has heaped praise on the Tombola brand as the group nears the one-year anniversary of its £410m acquisition of the bingo giant. The London-listed operator snapped up Sunderland-based Tombola in November 2021 and added the brand to its UK and Ireland division when the deal completed just two months later in January. In the financial year to the end of April 2021, the recreational-focused bingo and games operator generated revenue of £164m and an EBITDA of £38.5m, piquing Flutter’s attention, along with its average 400,000 monthly players and tech expertise. In Flutter’s H1 financial report, the group noted Tombola, which operates in Spain and the Netherlands besides its core UK market, had contributed revenue of £85.3m and £2.1m of profit after tax. While Flutter did not disclose full brand breakdown in its Q3 report, the operator giant confirmed UK and Ireland gaming revenue increased by 29% year on year. Pro forma revenue was 5% higher, driven by continued strong player momentum, with gaming average monthly players 9% higher. On analyst call following the Q3 update, Jackson waxed lyrical about the bingo operator’s performance. Jackson said: “We’re very pleased with how the business has performed since we took it over. “We launched and ran Britain’s biggest ever bingo game which we were really pleased with the result. We had 175,000 concurrent customers playing that game. There is good growth in revenue and at an AMP level,” he added. Jackson went on to praise Tombola as a bellwether for the group’s UK and Ireland operations, using it as a guiding post for future strategy. He continued: “I do look at the Tombola business as a sort of canary in the coal mine as to whether there are any challenges from a macro perspective in the UK, and we are seeing no evidence of that at the moment.”