Who Owns Paddy Power?

Paddy Power is owned by Flutter Entertainment, the world’s largest online betting group. Flutter is no longer a British or Irish listed company in the way most people assume: it moved its primary listing to the New York Stock Exchange in 2024 and left the London market entirely. It has no controlling shareholder. Its largest brand by revenue is not Paddy Power but FanDuel, in the United States. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Paddy Power today?

Flutter Entertainment plc owns the brand, and nobody owns Flutter. Its shares are held by institutions and private investors, with no holder near the 25% at which UK rules would record significant control.

Paddy Power is a brand within Flutter rather than a company anyone can hold shares in. Its shops and its online business are operated by Flutter subsidiaries.

Flutter is Irish-incorporated, headquartered in Dublin, and primarily listed in New York — a combination that means its ownership is disclosed principally under US securities rules rather than British or Irish ones.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

Flutter Entertainment plc is the ultimate parent. Nothing sits above it.

The listing history matters for anyone trying to research it. Flutter was listed in London and Dublin, added a New York listing in 2024, moved its primary listing there the same year, and subsequently delisted from the London Stock Exchange. A company whose best-known British brand is on high streets across the country is no longer a London-listed company at all.

That is the same direction of travel this site records at TUI, which left London for Frankfurt in 2023 — and the practical consequence is identical: the shareholder disclosures a British reader would look for first are no longer where they expect them.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

No individual or company controls Flutter. Its largest holders are institutional — index managers and active funds — each holding single-digit percentages on behalf of their investors.

Flutter has a single class of ordinary shares, so votes track shares. There is no founder class, no family block and no entrenchment mechanism of the kind this site documents at Alphabet, Nike, Comcast, Fox, Paramount and SpaceX.

That is a genuine contrast with its principal British rival. bet365, covered elsewhere on this site, is privately held and Companies House records Denise Coates personally holding more than 50% of it. Two of the largest betting companies serving Britain sit at opposite ends of the ownership spectrum: one controlled outright by a named individual, the other with no controlling owner at all.

Official records and evidence

Flutter’s British subsidiaries file at Companies House and name their immediate parents, establishing the structure. They establish nothing about who owns Flutter, because the parent is Irish and its shares trade in New York.

Ownership is disclosed instead through SEC filings — the annual proxy statement for directors’ and officers’ holdings, and Schedule 13G filings for institutions crossing 5%. Every percentage is a snapshot from a filing date, and index positions drift continuously.

The register that matters most for a betting company is a different one again. The Gambling Commission licenses operators to take bets in Britain, and it — not Companies House — is the authoritative source for who is permitted to run a gambling business here. Licensing and ownership are separate questions, and a change of owner requires the Commission’s approval where a licensee is involved.

Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Ownership history and changes

Paddy Power was founded in 1988 in Dublin by the merger of three Irish bookmakers, and named after Paddy Power, one of the founding family.

• 1988 — founded; floats on the Irish and London markets in 2000.
• 2016 — merges with Britain’s Betfair to form Paddy Power Betfair.
• 2018 — acquires a controlling stake in FanDuel in the United States, ahead of the Supreme Court decision that opened American sports betting.
• 2019 — renames itself Flutter Entertainment, dropping the brand names from the group’s title.
• 2020 — merges with The Stars Group, adding PokerStars and Sky Bet.
• 2024 — primary listing moves to New York; the London listing ends.

The FanDuel timing is the decisive commercial fact. Flutter bought into American sports betting before the market was legalised nationally, and FanDuel became the largest operator in it — which is why an Irish company named after a Dublin bookmaker is now valued principally on its American business.

The 2019 rename followed the pattern: a group that had carried its brands in its own name adopted a neutral one, as boohoo later did in reverse by naming itself after a brand it had bought.

Related companies and brands

Flutter owns Paddy Power, Betfair, Sky Bet, PokerStars, FanDuel, Sportsbet in Australia and Sisal in Italy.

Sky Bet is the connection most British customers miss. Despite the name it is not owned by Sky: it was sold by Sky in 2015 and came to Flutter through the Stars Group merger, and it uses the Sky brand under licence. A Sky Bet customer is a Flutter customer, and Sky — owned by Comcast, covered elsewhere on this site — has no stake in it.

Flutter is not connected to Entain (Ladbrokes, Coral), bet365, Betfred or William Hill, all separately owned. The sector looks consolidated and is genuinely split between a handful of unconnected groups.