{"id":277654,"date":"2026-01-10T12:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T12:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/277654\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T12:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T12:43:10","slug":"reclusive-billionaire-kenneth-dart-triples-down-on-flutter-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/277654\/","title":{"rendered":"Reclusive billionaire Kenneth Dart triples down on Flutter \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reclusive Cayman Islands-based billionaire, Kenneth Dart <\/a>has solidified his credentials as a contrarian investor in the past three months or so with a growing bet on Paddy Power owner Flutter Entertainment<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The septuagenarian, who first disclosed a 5 per cent stake in the group in late September, has since tripled down \u2013 even as the stock has lost almost a quarter of its value in the meantime. <\/p>\n

Flutter <\/a>disclosed this week that two Dart vehicles \u2013 Lake Michigan Ltd and LBS Ltd \u2013 now have a combined 15 per cent stake in Flutter, worth $5.65 billion (\u20ac4.86 billion) making him the biggest shareholder in the group. (About a third of the holding via financial derivatives called equity swaps, giving him economic exposure without owning the shares directly.)<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s largest betting company cut its 2025 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) forecast in November by $380 million to \u20ac2.92 billion driven by another long winning streak by gamblers that increased its payouts. Sentiment was further dented by the British government\u2019s move in its budget in November to increase taxes on online betting, which Flutter said would knock hundreds of millions off its annual profits. <\/p>\n

Flutter, which owns FanDuel, the top sports betting company in the US, and rival DraftKings, have also seen their shares dented by being late arrivals to the fast-growing predictions market, where people can place wagers on everything from elections and the weather to whether a new phone will sell a million units.<\/p>\n

Dart\u2019s increasing stake in Flutter suggests confidence that Flutter\u2019s own new predictions product \u2013 announced late last year in partnership with CME Group \u2013 will be able to take on the two existing US prediction market leaders, Polymarket and Kalshi. <\/p>\n

\"\"Ireland\u2019s record tax take makes light of Trump tariffs fear<\/p>\n

Not all investors would share such optimism. But not all investors are like Dart<\/a>, whose family wealth stems from his grandfather founding Dart Manufacturing, the world\u2019s largest maker of Styrofoam cups. <\/p>\n

Over the course of decades, Dart expanded his wealth by buying distressed sovereign debt from countries including Argentina, Brazil and Greece \u2013 often engaging in lawsuits to squeeze more out of debtors seeking to restructure their borrowings. <\/p>\n

He is also the largest shareholder in Evolution, a Swedish online casino tech company, and in recent years has amassed big stakes in tobacco giants British American Tobacco and Imperial brands \u2013 defying an ethical exodus from such companies. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s not one to follow the crowd. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reclusive Cayman Islands-based billionaire, Kenneth Dart has solidified his credentials as a contrarian investor in the past three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,2355,18,75457,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-277654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cantillon","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-flutter","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115870866149644235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}