I guess the only concern here would be Entain. Is there anyone else who could try to emulate this operating model?

Well, Entain don't follow this operating model, Entain moved a lot of their key operations to Hyderabad, ending up with several thousand tech experts there. They centralized some product areas, like the iGaming platform, and possibly the sports betting platform as well. We chose not to go that route. We avoided global roadmaps because, as the U.S. market grew, everything U.S.-related would have dominated the roadmap due to its value. This would have led to disenfranchised teams in other countries, losing out to local competitors.

I guess the only concern here would be Entain. Is there anyone else who could try to emulate this operating model?

In my view, the parts of Entain that performed better were Australia, which was a standalone business run by a local with the Ladbrokes name, and their Georgian business, which was also independently run. Many other parts of the business were stuck on the same platform. They also mishandled their U.S. strategy. Peter Jackson got it right by recognizing that DFS players with FanDuel and DraftKings are essentially sports bettors. Acquiring a company with seven million effective sports bettors gave a head start in every state.

This touches on the next area. Were you driving the investment decisions based on metrics like LTV, CAC, or were you looking at budgeting to set a loss for the year? Were you constrained by competitive dynamics, so if competitors invested more, you needed to follow suit? How did these factors combine to influence the actual investment decisions?

We had to be very clear on the discipline we employed in the states around the CAC/LTV and pushing them hard. We also had to transfer that message to the market and say, "Look, this is really good. We're still going to invest more because we're seeing 12 to 18-month paybacks. You can criticize us if you want to, but this is the right thing to do."