Week 17 became a game that didn’t affect the standings for the Detroit Lions. Win or lose, they had to win in Week 18 to claim the NFC North and the No. 1 seed. As such, many thought the Lions would rest their players against the San Francisco 49ers.
As it turned out, head coach Dan Campbell was true to his word that the Lions would still play their starters and play hard. Detroit went on to beat San Francisco, 40-34, a win that put the Lions at 14-2 before beating the Minnesota Vikings to claim the No. 1 seed at 15-2.
That win by the Lions caused a loss of $74 million for Flutter Entertainment, per the Detroit Free Press. Flutter Entertainment is the parent company of FanDuel Sportsbook.
Between betting the game and player props and parlays, Flutter took a major hit from the game and cited “a period of very unfavorable sports results” for their loss of about $390 million over the last two months of the year.
What the company considered “customer-friendly results” led to “an estimated adverse gross gaming revenue (GGR) impact of $438m, and estimated reductions in revenue of approximately $390m2 and Adjusted EBITDA3 of approximately $260m4, for the period November 12 to December 31.”
One result from the Lions seems to have been responsible for about 20% of that loss. In a game that didn’t even matter to the Lions. But they made it matter and the sportsbooks paid dearly for it.