The 200-person trading floor at Flutter Entertainment’s Dublin headquarters is where you “get a feeling for what our business actually is”, says Peter Jackson, the gambling company’s chief executive. Where a “visceral passion for sport and data” helps create Flutter’s key product: bets. But today, it is silent.
When coronavirus hit, Flutter told its employees to work from home, relocating its normally noisy traders and their multiple computer screens and headsets to their bedrooms and dining rooms.
The timing for Flutter could not have been worse. Its first day with all the traders at home was Cheltenham Gold Cup day, one of its busiest gambling periods of the year with more than 3m bets placed through Flutter’s Paddy Power and Betfair brands.