Who would bet against a gold medal for Flutter boss Peter Jackson?

Peter Jackson is clearly a glass half-full kind of chap. While most chief executives would regard acquiring two businesses worth a combined £3 billion at the same time as a little reckless, the Flutter Entertainment boss has no such qualms.

On Wednesday morning, just as Times readers were learning about his plans to buy Brazil’s fifth-biggest gambling company for £1 billion, it emerged that Jackson had also been talking to Playtech about putting a £2 billion bid in to buy its Italian betting business Snaitech.

As if that wasn’t enough, in recent weeks Flutter has also been tipped to team up with Boyd Gaming in a potential $9 billion bid for its US rival Penn Entertainment amid criticism from an activist investor of Penn’s “misguided interactive strategy”.

• How Flutter grew from Paddy Power origins to US powerhouse

Even before his current barrage of deals, Jackson’s track record was none too shabby. Flutter is effectively a byproduct of Jackson’s ambitions since he took the top job in January 2018. The biggest of his nine deals was the $12.3 billion takeover of the Stars Group, while the most recent purchases have been Sisal, the Italian gaming operator, and Maxbet, of Serbia.

The result is a business with a global footprint that derives 42 per cent of its net revenues from the US, 26 per cent from the UK and Ireland and 10 per cent from Australia. The balance of 22 per cent comes from a host of other international territories, but none holds what Jackson calls the “podium position” of Flutter’s big three markets.

Italy and Brazil could be on the way to podium status, however. While the $2.16 billion Sisal purchase in 2021 was an effective deal, if Flutter can snare Snaitech from Playtech, the resultant business should comfortably make it to the top of the Italian podium.

In Brazil, meanwhile, Jackson said the company was already “reasonably well placed” with the Betfair and Pokerstars brands, and speculation that he is in talks over the acquisition of Betnacional, a sports betting and gaming operator, should earn him a gold medal.

At its second-quarter results this week, Jackson said: “We are ambitious — we like to have podium positions, and I really would like to have gold medal positions.”

He added that while Flutter has achieved success organically in many markets, mergers and acquisitions remained an essential tool for growth. “So we will work out what we want to do in Brazil, and when we’ve made a decision, we’ll let the market know,” he said.

Yet, Jackson is not the sort to stride around town arrogantly crying, “I am Maximus” (the winner of this year’s Grand National), to give the impression that he is something special. Rather he is building a business that will last the pace and rake in the winnings.

To ensure that happens, Jackson has turned the focus of Flutter onto Fan Duel, the leading US operation. Flutter, analysts say, has increased its firepower after moving its primary stock market listing and headquarters from London to Wall Street.

Jackson, 48, said recently that the group had a strong balance sheet, which gave it the ability to pursue further deals or to return cash to shareholders.

Snaitech, the latest target, is the consumer arm of Playtech. The company said in a stock exchange statement, however, that there was no certainty the deal would go ahead.

Although Snaitech has long been mooted as a likely candidate for disposal, sources close to Playtech insisted it had never been formally placed on the market and it was only the scale of the deal — which is greater than Playtech’s market value — that had persuaded it to play ball.

There were suggestions on Wednesday that Playtech, once it had sold Snaitech, could itself become a target, although its past experiences could militate against that. Two years ago, after entertaining a number of approaches, Playtech ended up taking itself off the market after failing to get a deal over the line.

It was Playtech’s failure to sign a deal that sparked the first serious suggestions that it should consider selling Snaitech. At that point, the mooted valuation was £1.8 billon, still well above the £730 million Playtech had originally paid for the Italian business six years ago.

Playtech was founded in 1999 by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli tech and property billionaire. It supplies software and games to gambling operators and employs 7,700 staff across 19 countries.

Flutter operates a wide range of online sports betting and iGaming brands including Fan Duel, Sky Betting & Gaming, Sportsbet, Pokerstars, Paddy Power, Sisal, Tombola, Betfair, Maxbet, Junglee Games and Adjarabet.

Shares in Flutter rose sharply and closed up $15.19 or 7.9 per cent at $206.58 in New York last night, while Playtech jumped 13.8 per cent to 612p as it confirmed that it was in discussions with Flutter regarding a potential sale of Snaitech “for a value that could be about £2 billion”.

Playtech confirmed that it had granted Flutter “a period of exclusivity to complete diligence and finalise the necessary transaction documentation”.

Given Jackson’s track record, the odds of a successful outcome must be heavily in Flutter’s favour.