Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm here with Jonathan to answer your questions following our announcement this morning. Hopefully, you've all had a chance to watch the presentation that we published on our website this morning. I won't repeat what has been said there, but we'll just make a few opening comments. 2020 was a remarkable year for Flutter.
We completed our merger with Stars Group in May. And in December, we accelerated our buyout to the minority shareholders in Fanjul, something we're very keen to do given the scale of the opportunity we see in North America. I'm pleased to say that our business is performing very well. The growth we're delivering is being built on sustainable foundations with significant recreational customer growth in all our key regions. Throughout 2020, our average monthly online players grew 19% with our growth accelerating during the year.
Average player growth globally was 32% in H2. Merge integration continues to progress well. You'll have seen that we have upgraded our cost synergy guidance this morning. As we said before, our number one priority is ensuring that the momentum in the business is not negatively impacted by integration work, but I'm pleased that we've been able to identify further efficiencies whilst maintaining strong momentum. Whilst performance in all of our regions has been strong, our ongoing leadership position in the U.
S. Is particularly encouraging. We now believe the Westmark opportunity will be materially bigger than we previously estimated with a TAM of $20,000,000,000 by 2025, While the returns profile we have highlighted this morning clearly shows the embedded value we're building in our business. 2021 has started well. And while our Retail business is still being impacted by COVID related closures, the strong underlying momentum in our online businesses is expected to offset this.
And with that, I'll open it up for questions. In the interest of giving everyone the chance to ask a question, can I ask that you limit yourself to 2 each in the first instance? And then if we have time, we'll be happy to answer any follow ups you may have.
Your first question is coming from Ed Yong of Morgan Stanley.
Good morning, Ed. Good morning, Ed.
Good morning, both. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on Your triple step responsible gambling measures, I'm very struck by what you've done there. I guess my question is, Is that on a global basis? Or is that largely in your legacy markets?
I'm aware your tech platform is pretty across the U. S, and maybe that explains some of it. But Are there any differences between your responsible gambling measures and steps across your global businesses, particularly regarding in the U. S. Given client values and spend appears to be so high there relative to some of the other markets.
And then my second question is around the buyout of the on Annual Minorities. My understanding when that was done originally was that the exercise in the summer will continue to be a fair market value exercise. Obviously, since then Fox has said They'd be able to exercise the option at last private mark. So can you give a view on how you think that process is going to go in the summer. And if possible, I can add on a Part B.
Your sort of general view on the Fox assets, a lot of discussion about FanDuel, FanDuel brand, FanDuel returns. Any comment on the returns you're seeing in Fox in the U. S?
Ed, well, look, I might just take them in reverse order. We're pleased with the way that the SuperSix asset has performed with nearly 4,500,000 customers on that platform. It's clearly going to be a very valuable database for us to cost that into. I've talked in the past over some of the struggles we're having with the quality of the product for Fox Best, which is something which is definitely hampering the ability for that business to get the traction it needs. And It's a really good reminder for us of what it's likely one of these subscale operators in America because we sometimes to get the difficulties they face when we look at the fantastic results that the Fanjul business is delivering as the number one player there in that market.
In terms of the mechanism for dealing with Fox and the right that we negotiated with them as part of the purchase or the deal we did with the Stars Group. We haven't put anything formal in place this month, but we will honor our commitment to give Fox an option to acquire 18.6% of Fanjuel at fair market value in July 2021. To be clear on the valuation, Fox will have to pay the fair market value, which is different from the negotiated price agreed between Flutter and Fastball, which reflected the specific circumstances that Fastball found itself in. The valuation will be carried out in the same manner that would have occurred had Fastball still owned the state. And as a reminder for those of you that 2 banks will value the business.
And if the valuations are within a narrow enough range, the average of the 2 will be taken. And in the event that there's a wide disparity between the 2 variations, a 3rd valuer nominated and agreed by ourselves and Fox were valued assets, whichever the first two variations is Furthis away from the 3rd will be discarded, and then an average of the 2 remaining valuations will be taken. So that's the mechanism we use. In terms of your first question, look, we think that this approach you've taken to the triple set around affordability It is important and it's an important component of the race to the top that we're trying to engineer here in the U. K.
From a safety gambling perspective. We aren't just confining ourselves to thinking about safety gambling in the U. K. There. You'll have seen, I'm sure the recent announcements around the changes that we've made in the Irish market with regards to credit cards as well as the restrictions on advertising.
We've decided to do that on a unilateral basis even without getting agreement from the other operators in the market. And safer gambling is something that's very important to us across the market, whether that's in sports betting Australia or indeed in Fanjul in the U. S.
Thanks very much. Very clear on thoughts. Just a follow-up on the responsible grounding ones.
Could you give us any kind
of color about where the Current framework sits versus the U. K. Or global market or what ambitions you have to align it? Was it just not as appropriate at this stage of the market? Or is there any restriction in terms of technology?
Just in terms of your ambition for where you'd like to get it to and what sort of time line would be very useful.
Yes, look, there are no sort of restrictions on the technology perspective. But what I would say is that the concept of the framework whereby we assess customers when they join us, then we have sort of ongoing extensive monitoring of our online customers and then have us interactions to help support customers. It's something which is used for us all around the world. And actually, we published some stats today. You can see that 40% of our Sky Bet customers, for example, already have a deposit limit in place.
And within the Sir Padipan Best Buy brands, the customers had interactions and then went on to put in place to deposit limits or so time outs on their account. So we believe the approach we're taking is working and we'll I'm sure find ways to continue to improve it in time, but we're pleased with that it's helping support customers at this time.
Thanks very much.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Gavin Kelleher of Goodbody. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jonathan. Good morning, Peter. Good morning, Gavin. Just on the U. S, could you give any comments around CPAs and how they're trending in H2 and into this year.
Any comments on CPAs in the U. S? That's my first question. And my second question relates to the percentage of net revenue going through cost of goods sold in the U. S.
Obviously, very high or much higher year on year at 46% in 2020. I presume that's a function of the high growth The relationship between net revenue and gross and then Pennsylvania making up a much bigger mix of the U. S. Business in 2020. Could you just give us any sort of flavor on how you expect that to trend in 'twenty one 'twenty two based on the states that you're seeing likely to launch in those years.
Yes. Good morning, Gavin. So look, in terms of the CPA data, we're very pleased with the way that the business is performing. I mean, clearly, we've had a terrific start to 2021. We outlined the results that we saw around the Super Bowl to acquire 350,000 customers in that week, which is more than we acquired in the preceding year.
It was something which we're delighted about. And I think the perhaps the fact that we continue to see such strong growth from some of our existing early states and it really gives us excitement about how big the opportunity could become for us. I'll let Jonathan pick up on the points around net revenue in the U. S, but This is sort of a mixed effect going on over there. Yes.
I mean, the only point I'd add to Peter's comment is we're not obsessing about CPAs. What we're obsessing about is CPA relative to LTV. And as we see, we talked about the retention rates being 80% better than we see elsewhere in the world. That really does drive LTV and therefore, we're really happy with the LTV to CPA equation and those sort of paybacks. And in states where there's greater products in terms of both sports betting and gaming, you're happy to see your CPAs go higher because your occupancies are higher.
So, I think that's the critical point for us is about paybacks. On the second point, which is around cost of goods sold, I mean, obviously, you get much higher cost of goods sold in terms of sports and casino with market access fees plus particularly taxes than you do on DFS. So as you see the mix going away from DFS towards sports and casino, you see that going up. You also see that some of these taxes are paid on GGR. So where we've got higher level of bonusing, particularly as state start up, you also see a boosted level.
I mean, I think we'll just see what happens with the mix as we go through this year. But certainly, I think 2019 is less representative than 2020 in terms of cost of cost of sales, cost of goods sold. So I'd probably look at 2020 as being a better proxy than 2019, that's for sure.
Perfect. Thanks, Jonathan. Thanks, Peter.
Cheers, Gavin.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from the line of Michael Mitchell of Davy. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, both. Thanks for taking my questions. 2 on the U. S, if I could.
First of all, just in terms of product and clearly the importance of product leadership in the U. S. It's becoming more apparent, both at market level and, I guess, in your own numbers this morning in terms of share gains and customer retention. And I just wonder, could you comment on how your current U. S.
Product compares to an average European product in terms of features, breadth, markets, etcetera. And really what the kind of the near term of the 2021 pipeline looks like from a kind of product release perspective. So that's my first question. And then second of all, on your DFS activations, clearly still the key component to the customer acquisition funnel. I wonder when you think about the reactivation since the return of sports, I wonder if you could just provide some color in terms of how the DFS customer base is evolving when you consider across states that already have live sports betting markets versus those to come in the future.
Michael. Look, from a product perspective. I think for those of you who are familiar with one of our products here in the U. K. Or Ireland, I think you'd be Surprised, when you saw the product we have in the States, I think it is pretty well positioned.
There's clearly more to do, but we're pleased with the way in which we've managed to sort of integrate things like same game parlay into the product rather than because we sort of own that product is fully built into the customer experience rather than sort of hanging out on the side, which often happens if you acquire the stuff from 3rd parties. There is definitely some more work we need to do from a casino perspective. And we have the best casino product in the world as a result of the acquisition of The Stars Group. We're really pleased with that casino platform. And so we'll be able to improve the casino products in the U.
S, which here, as you'll have seen from our results, is an important component of the U. S. Market. And I think we've been really pleased and surprise actually at the extent to which we've been able to drive cross sell in the U. S.
Market around the casinos. There's a lot There's more to do around sports and casino. The fact that we're getting the business onto our own tech end to end and it will be fully there by this coming football season. It's something which will really help us accelerate our journey. And as a reminder for you, whilst we are running the business on our own global vesting platform, the U.
S. Team have their own a version of it. So they're able to make their own bespoke developments to suit their market, but they can steal with pride from other divisions as well, which that we think gives us a really powerful platform for driving fast innovation across the business. In terms of DFS, your point around sort of DFS aspirations, I haven't got the stats and Jonathan may know in terms of the differential between the performance of the DFS sourced customers after the return to sport as opposed to the new to franchise ones. I'm not aware of any the differences of SoftBank.
But one thing I would point out is we've actually been really pleased with the way in which we're going to continue to grow and acquire customers onto the DFS platform. Our hypothesis when we acquired Fanjul was whilst we thought we'd see good growth in sports betting, we didn't think We'd be able to sort of maintain the contribution and indeed to customers around DFS. But we've been really pleased with the way that, That business has continued to perform. And of course, today, it's still acting as a very, very significant source of customers for some of in the states where we're live and allows us to attract and acquire customers to the FanDuel brand in states in advance of them regulating.
Super. Thanks.
Thanks, Michael.
Your next call is coming from James Roland Clarke of Barclays.
Good morning, everyone. I just wondered if I could follow-up on the safer gambling measures question from Ed earlier. So in your presentation, you say 40% of PPD customers have signed up to those measures. Is that a high number for the U. K?
I assume it is. And do you have any targets about where you'll get to on those measures by the end of this year? And a sort of follow-up would be At what point or maybe you could remind us at what point you substantially put those measures in place for PPB customers? And then my second question is on the U. S.
I think DraftKings said the other day that they're seeing about 50% cross sell from sports betting to iGaming in their core states. Please, could you tell us what yours is? And is that an area that you can improve in? You're obviously holding sports betting market share at a very high level, but your iGaming share has slightly fallen. Thank you.
Yes. Thanks, James. Look, to be and I think I've just made sure I was sort of clear about the points I made with that earlier. In the Stai that business. 40% of revenues are coming from customers with deposit limits in place, which we're really pleased with.
But it's an ongoing journey for us. So the extent to which we encourage more customers to put those limits in place, I think that would be a good thing. Through this COVID situation. We've had to be pretty nimble and change the way in in which we monitor and assess customers. And there have been new guidelines from the Gaming Commission, which we've made sure we've adhered to.
I think for us, what's really reassuring is that the SkyBest and Paddy Power brands are actually very recreationally focused. So typically, something like the heavy power bank, you'd be seeing customers spending for £10 a week or the Sky at, and that's what I mean by that, the recreational punter. And I think those customers, Clearly, to the extent to which we can ensure they avail of our tools, we'll encourage them to do so. But if we ever get any sniff of them Having any problems, we'll force them to do so. So we don't have specific targets.
It's something that was also about 60 around different age profiles of people. But we will continue to evolve and use data to help us assess how best to position ourselves. Jonathan, do you want to pick up on the In terms of cross sell rates, I know that And DK referred to sort of 50% general cross sell rate in their Q4 disclosure, and we'd be seeing something very similar to that across our business. So no discernible difference at all in those cross sell rates.
Thank you very much. So I'll just follow-up on the safe gambling point, Peter. So your sense to anyone that's not recreational has already signed up to SG measures or the SG tools of some sort in the UK?
Look, we've got very extensive checks on customers, whether that's source of funds. There's lots of enhanced diligence we do on to the highest taking customers and I'll be surprised if for the customers who we've got we haven't had those checks. I mean, ultimately, I think it's important that there are some backstops in place to make sure we capture any customers who are spending too much. And that's, as you know, the 3rd part of our affordability of Triple Step. So there may be some exceptions, but we will learn from those as we pick them up through the 3rd part of our affordability triple step.
Great. Thanks very much.
Your next question is coming from Simon Davies of Deutsche Bank.
Firstly, obviously, you reported a very strong start to the year. Can you give a rough view as to how much of that is down to abnormal gross win margins? That's my first.
Do you have any more questions, Simon?
Yes. Could you also give a feel for market share in Michigan, that's how that's performing and how you see that as a benchmark in terms of market share on newly opening states.
In terms of the strong start, I mean, it's fair to say that most of the majority of this is driven by customer growth, again, continuing on from Q4, and we talked about some of the enhanced investment we have put into the business in specific areas to drive customer growth. So You should expect that the majority of that comes from that recreational customer growth. There is also a smaller element, which is down to results. I'm not going to comment too specifically on results on a 7 week period, but the majority of it is down to customer growth. On the market share number.
I mean, I won't comment on specific the shares on a state by state basis. But I think we're very pleased with our opening position in Michigan. We've only traded there recently, but you know the business has been doing well.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Richard Huber of Numis. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, basically. Two questions for me, both from the U. S, please. I think on the presentation, you were talking about how you wanted to sort of improve from podium positions to just of gold medal positions and particularly in the U. S.
Given you've got sort of 40% share in Sportlifting and 20% share in iGaming at the moment, What do you consider to be these leading market shares, which you need to keep in order to keep that position? I think in the past, you've mentioned that you expect some of those market shares to fall back a little bit. And the second question is, I was wondering whether you can give any sort of color around difference of behavior customers, the spending behaviors across different states, where were you entering in terms of spend ahead and to get duration on your app and that type of thing. And yes, any color on any sort of differences would be great. Thank you.
Hi, Richard. Look, I mean, from a you have yes, I'm pleased that someone watched the presentation. I thought it might have just been my mum. But look, it is true. We are sort of refining our ambition in America from wanting to have a podium position So, being on that top slot, the gold medal, we have got that at the moment.
Let's be really clear. We are number 1 in America and I think to have been able to post a year where our revenues were 1.4 times that of our next nearest competitor. In with the we're greater than players 23 combined, gives us a comfortable top step position on the podium or gold medal. So look, we'd like to and we'd like to stay there. How that sort of evolves in terms of the market shares that we need to have from a sports and gaming perspective.
We'll see. I think, as you know, we've never necessarily targeted an absolute percentage instead of market share if they go in any of the sports or gaming. But what we're trying to do is to acquire as much business as we can at a very specific and good CPAs. We think we have a real advantage around the quality of our DFS business for cost selling, which gives us customer acquisition advantages. And within the quality of our product is really helping drive improved levels of retention on the business.
And all those things, together with better than expected levels of cross sell into gaming, have led us to having higher customer values than we anticipated. So That gives us the confidence and conviction to keep investing hard in customer acquisition. And you can see the results of that with the figures we released around the fiscal year. And John, I don't know whether you want to give some color around the different things. But look, they are all a little bit different with different partners, And that means you get sort of different starting points with them, but Yes.
I mean, I think a couple of points on that. Obviously, there's different spend rates depending on the products that are on offer, depending on the GDP per state. And obviously, some of the wealthier states we're seeing greater spend. I think the one thing we're seeing, I think, possibly because there's more marketing dollars going into each state, is an acceleration of the speed of uptick. And actually, in the early states, it's much slower than certainly what we've seen in the most recent states of in Virginia and Michigan.
So I think the adoption curve is getting steeper and we intend to be there at the start on investing aggressively to build those leading positions. I mean, I think It's fair to say when we first came out with the numbers with a market share of around 40% in sports betting, we said, I think, 2 years ago, we expect this to fall back. I think We said the same thing a year ago. So look, we'll hold on as long as we can to this position, but we just want to be ahead of at the next competitor. I think just coming back, sorry, to the previous question.
In Michigan, I think we are number 1 with about 28% of handle, just to come back on that one. So look, I think we're very pleased with where we are. It's a state by state battle And we'll pick and choose our sites very carefully and make sure that overall, we remain try and remain number 1 in that market. Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks Richard.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from the line of Joe Thomas of HSBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just a couple of questions, please, on the regulatory side of things. One is Germany and and the mention that you make about the potential turnover tax there. I just wanted to understand if that had any mitigating actions in it and what mitigating actions might look like in response to Such taxes, were they imposed with HME or frankly elsewhere? And the second thing was Just mindful again of this affordability issue.
I'm just wondering if there's anything you can help us with in terms of the SKU of sports betting customers and sports betting towards the particularly higher spending elements. I mean, it's in the industry, It's obviously skewed gaming is skewed towards high spending elements. I'm just wondering to what extent that's also reflected in sports.
Okay. Jonathan, do you want to take Joe's first?
Yes.
I mean, in terms of Germany, the range of actions that we need to take. First of all, we'll continue our lobbying efforts in advance of the decisions around, I think, 1st July timing. We're not overly hopeful that we can change this because obviously the tax is greater than the revenue generated. We need to be very careful in understanding exactly how this is defined when it's put into legislation to really understand precisely what the tax relates to. And we also need to look very carefully at the different products which we have within our portfolio, the different poker products we've got for tournaments versus just the live games and obviously then consider whether there's ways to mitigate that.
The issue, I think Joe becomes where we've got an offshore competitor who will offer greater value to competitors. So any of our mitigating actions will have to be put into that context. And I think we already see some shift in player activity when one looks at Google searches offshore and we would expect that to grow reasonably exponentially as if this tax were to come in. And Joe, look, in terms of your sort of questions around sort of affordability and the SKU, We clearly with Paducah and Sky Bet have the 2 market leaders from a recreational perspective in the UK from a sports betting perspective, which we think sets us up really well in the UK market. And we're really pleased with the way in which those businesses continue to take share in 2020.
And indeed, you just need to look at what happened with the customers who are migrating from retail to online. These are customers who have habitual pretty small staking customers. We do have 5% of the shops with the Capitao brand, but we believe we captured 40% of that business when those customers went online. And we think the better value, things like generosity that we offer those customers. We'll keep them on our platform even when shops reopen.
So I think we are a very recreational business. It's true in the U. K. And as it is in Australia with our sportswear business. And I think that's That's an important area of focus for us to keep growing those average monthly players.
And that's why we shared the figures with you and while we're so pleased with the performance that we saw in last year. And as Jonathan said, that's what's driving this year's performance as well.
Okay. Thanks.
Your next question is coming from James Wheatcroft of Jefferies.
Good morning to you both. Given the scale and the scope of the U. S. Business, what prospects are there perhaps potentially for a dual listing in the U. S?
Are there any circumstances when you would consider spinning out the FanDuel business, firstly? And then secondly, in terms of U. K. Regulation, do you have any thoughts on sort of direction of travel and then maybe the timetable for
the conference for you, please. Yes. Hi, James. Look, in terms of that sort of your last session, the point around the timetable in UK, I mean, we're all aware of what the government's published timetable. I don't know whether the sort of ongoing COVID pandemic will potentially sort of derail us or not.
But we're preparing to submit all of our evidence of them. And yes, I think we're really pleased with the approach that the government seems to be taking around this evidence led approach, and we'll do everything we can to engage with them and share with them the insights that we get from what's frankly a very good our ability to sort of review what's going on across the U. K. Market. In terms of the As you say, the scale and scope of our U.
S. Business is very impressive. We believe we have the premium asset in the U. S. Market, and we're very proud of that.
We worked hard over the last few years to build out that capability. And we are number 1 in America, and there's not many British businesses that can stay that. And I think, look, the way in which we've been able to build out those capabilities in America is by really leveraging a lot of our group capabilities to support Americas. It's not just the funding that we've been able to give to the team in Fanjul, which has obviously been a very important component of our ability to drive customer acquisition hard. Hundreds of our colleagues from around the world.
It helped support and build out and develop the Fanjul business, whether that's with expertise and as a source betting from a marketing standpoint or the fact that we're sort of using our global risk and trading capability, which has got sort of 6 to people pricing products globally, which is a very important component of why we have the best products in America. The other point I'd also highlight is the Americans are leveraging our global betting platform, which is a very an important aspect of our strategy, the fact that we have many of our divisions using the same platform, which allows us to share development across the group, but at the same time, also push decision making down close to the customer end, I think, is really important for us.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from the line of Kiranjit Groll of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Just two questions from me. Firstly, could we get a little bit more color on the performance of the Other U. S. Brands from the Fox and the TVG and how they've done over 2020.
How valuable has that cross sell been between the brands? And then secondly, Australia is performing incredibly well despite pure lockdown restrictions. Should we be thinking of more resilient Performance in Australia versus that was being guided towards the end of 2020? Thank you.
Yes. Look, I commented on Fox earlier in terms of how pleased we are with the way in which we've acquired so many customers onto the SuperSix platform. And I think that's been a very important so the components of that business and we'll set up that business well for the future. To have nearly 4,500,000 activism in SuperSix is tremendous. Look, the TMEG business has performed well during the course of the year.
We've benefited from the shift of a lot of business from retail to online and that's helped grow that business very successfully. And we're really pleased with the market share performance of that business. It's not yet integrated fully into the FanDuel ecosystem. As and when it is, I think we believe that we'll get some digital cross selling benefits from it. But at the moment, that's more substantial.
In Australia, You're right to highlight the fact that they've come out of this lockdown ahead of the rest of the world. And we're watching very carefully what happens as customers there are able to go back and enjoy some of the channels that they weren't able to previously, most particularly sort of retail. Early evidence seems to be the customers are enjoying the generosity and superior product that they're getting on the Sports Bet business. Undoubtedly, there's going to be some shift in spend away from Wagering into other forms of leisure activity. But we're really pleased with the way in which the Our Australian team performed in 2020 and it's have migrated the Beddies business in less than 90 days.
It's incredible and the full lockdown and and the way in which the business is currently trading, we're very comfortable with. And the only point to add on Foxtrot is obviously Those €4,400,000 are spread across the U. S. In a lot of states. So we can only mine that base in terms of sports betting in the states in which and Foxbatters live, so that restricts the ability to cross sell at this point.
But obviously, it's a great funnel, but it's a relatively long term funnel.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Christine Xu of RBC. Please go
ahead. Hi. Good morning, both. I have a couple of questions on the U. S.
As well, if I may. Firstly, you mentioned in the presentation that you're refining your state opening playbook. So I just wondered if that's changed at all recently, Any surprises or learnings from recent openings? Or is it mostly and your first alluded earlier to the quicker adoption in later states? Is it mostly that?
Or is there anything else as well. And my second question is just regarding the 1.8 times retention rate in the U. S. Versus the U. K.
I suppose as the market matures and other players probably improve their products, do you think that there are any structural reasons why U. S. Consumers Might be stickier in the longer term than European counterparts. And I guess, I suppose I'm referring to more outside FanDuel specific positive in terms of keeping customers engaged. Thank you.
Good morning, Christine. Look, in terms of your points about refining the reference remains of refining state opening. Look, we think we're getting better at it. The more we practice, the better we get, whether that's with opportunities to try and to pre register customers or make sure that we have all the rights of local influencers and partners signed up to make a splash when we go live. Those are all things that which are important components of our strategy.
Clearly, we're not going to give away too many of our trade secrets. But we think that as time has gone by, we've got better and better launching live in space. And in fact, the fact that we own our platform end to end allows us to offer differential opportunities and deals for customers. And some of the Spread the Love campaigns and things have been very successful for us as time's gone by in new state openings. And obviously, the only thing to add there is we are looking at making improvements to our product and platform over 2021.
We'd expect to be migrated across from IGT on to the global betting platform by the start of the next NFL season, which will give us greater depth of markets, greater resilience, greater speed for the customers and on top of a new account and wallet, which is launched in 2020. We think that will set us up to hopefully be able to prosecute our advantage in terms of product on the sports betting side and Peter has referred to some improvements that we'll be making on the casino side. Yes. And then look, in terms of the Differential Performance Received from a Retention Perspective. The market is pretty well completed already.
I mean, I don't think there's anyone who's operating in America who hasn't gone out aggressively and said they want to sort of take a good market share and people are throwing a lot promotional generosity around. So it is well competed. I think the one major difference in the U. S. Compared with what we see in a lot of markets in Europe.
There are a number of hoops and hurdles you have to get through from a registration perspective and people having to supply their social security details, which we think could lead to people having a smaller number, sort of active customers having a smaller number of products than we see in other markets. And say that may be one of the things that's helping improve and drive the retention rates. But I think the biggest impact actually is that we've got the best product in the market. And what we've seen time and time again, whether that's with our business in Sky Bet or Sports Bet or the changes we've seen in Paddy Power, indeed the investments we're putting into PokerStars, because you've got to have the best product in the market. We think we've got the best product in the market with Fanjul.
The same game parlay product is pretty unique in the market, certainly the way it's integrated. We've got the best and breadth and depth of products. We've been operating a couple of we're now placing 2 states and then a full end to end tech stack, which gives us much bigger sort of resilience and advantages compared to using third parties. And so we think all those things are important components to sort of continue to drive the retention rates as high as they
are. Brilliant. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Ivor Jones of Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. I just wanted to ask about the implications for the exchange of what you said about the international business taking PokerStars as its principal brand. Obviously, Exchange didn't grow nearly as strongly as Sports in the second half of last year. Is this a legacy product now in runoff globally to be overtaken by fixed ops betting?
What How important is the international part of that, the ex U. K. Part of that? And secondly, is it possible to have a gold medal position in Australia If Flaca doesn't own the Tabcorp wagering business, then what are the indications for the group if a more capable international business does own that at our core business in the future. Thank you.
So
yes, good morning, Eivah. Look, it's It's a good question around sort of the impact on the exchange. So those are the technical reasons why the growth is a bit slower in the second half of the year. But the fact that we are focusing on the PokerStars brand in international markets It doesn't mean that we are not going to continue to push Betfair where it's appropriate to do so. I think we referenced in the presentation that whether that's of Latin America or Spain.
The best that our business has, so good traction and we'll continue to use it there. I see no reason why we can't continue to invest into the exchange business and it's something that we are doing right now and there's enhancements that are due to be launched to improve the quality of the products on exchange, which frankly has lagged behind a little bit. And I think if we look at the if we actually stripped out some of the switch offs we'd undertaken in the exchange in prior year. The underlying performance is actually quite good in the second half of the year. So I certainly wouldn't characterize the exchanges as a sort of sunset product.
It's something which we know is very important and We're investing in it, and we'd like to continue to see that business grow. Look, in Australia, We started out as the challenger. The business has gone from strength to strength year after year. We continue to grow incredibly well. We offer brilliant experience.
We've got a fantastic brand and customers seem to continue to enjoy betting with Sportsbet. And so look, gold medals are important to us and having that top position on the podium. I can't comment on what may or may not happen to the tab in Australia, but we're really pleased with the way that Australia Sportsbet performed last year for us in 2020. I think the team did a terrific job in execution. I think to have done that integration in less than 90 days and everyone was working from home, I think, was astounding, particularly with all the product enhancements that they delivered for the sports betting customers, the introduction of streaming and things.
So look, I'm really pleased with where we are in Australia, and we're investing hard to to keep our business growing. John, I don't know if you got anything to add on either of those? No.
Okay. Thank you.
All right. Well, look, thank you very much, everybody. Unfortunately, we are sort of coming up against it now from a time perspective. But very much appreciate all your questions. Sorry, we were having to do this on the phone yet again.
But at some point, we'll see you in 3 d, hopefully, in the summer. Thank you all very much.