The U.S. Olympic teams weren’t the only ones to excel in the Paris Summer Games. A major U.S. sportsbook took home plenty of gold as well.
Flutter Entertainment announced Thursday that FanDuel Sportsbook’s handle was five times higher in 2024 than the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. The amount wagered across all of Flutter’s sports betting brands more than tripled.
It’s something U.S. sportsbooks were counting on before the Games began.
Better scheduled events for U.S. viewership and the increase in legal sports betting markets led to impressive growth. FanDuel is operating in 23 U.S. markets compared to 10 in 2021. However, those markets that were active during the Tokyo Games still saw more than double the wagering.
The rise in betting popularity on women’s sports also played a major role in the growth of Olympic wagering, accounting for 24% of the entire FanDuel handle.
Flutter reported that 60% of soccer bets and 79% of gymnastics wagering came from the female side of those events.
Backing winners
Success, drama, and interesting storylines also helped drive bettors to the sportsbook.
Team USA led all countries with 126 total medals for the eighth consecutive Olympics. The Americans also tied China with 40 gold medals.
Professional stars LeBron James and A'ja Wilson competed for the men’s and women’s basketball teams, respectively, and swimmer Katie Ledecky and gymnast Simone Biles were already household names.
“For two full weeks, sports, human achievement, and nail-biting competition are the biggest stories in the world providing Flutter a platform to engage customers, both new and old, in new sports and products which has a halo effect thereafter,” Simon O’Shea, Flutter’s head of in-house global sports trading, said.
Parlay party
With more than 30 sports and 320 individual events in Flutter’s wagering catalog during the Olympics, bettors had plenty of options. The sports betting operator introduced new swimming and athletics parlays and Same-Game Parlays for basketball for the first time.
Those multi-leg offerings accounted for 55% of 2024 Olympic bets compared to 20% in 2021. Basketball made up 63% of Flutter’s entire handle in Paris while it accounted for 40% at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
“Many people who aren’t typical sports fans are Olympics fans, so it’s a unique chance to branch out to new audiences we wouldn’t normally reach,” Eric Gerson, a sports trader for FanDuel, said.
