India's real-money gaming ban leads to $556 million impairment for Flutter after Junglee halts RMG operations

"The sudden regulatory change in India was extremely disappointing. Flutter has invested significantly in India over the last number of years, responsibly delivering innovative skill-based games to Indian customers," Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson said in a letter to shareholders.

Junglee Games will now only offer free-to-play content as the company "assesses its medium-term options in the market".

During the earnings call, Flutter Entertainment CEO said the company was "frustrated at the speed with which the bill that emerged came into law" and expressed hope for more legal clarity on the extent to which certain games of skill could be allowed back in future.

“They have had 70 years worth of constitutional protection in India. It’s not that long ago that we saw Black Friday in America and look where we are today,” Jackson said, referring to the 2011 US crackdown that shut down major poker sites overnight, before the industry later bounced back under state-regulated online gaming laws.

Read More: From cabinet clearance to President’s assent: India gets a gaming law in 96 hours

"We're going to maintain the Junglee products on a free-to-play basis, and we'll see what happens. We're doing all the lobbying and legal sort of challenges that you'd expect us to," he added.

Flutter also operates a Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Hyderabad with over 1,000 employees working across areas such as data engineering, game integrity services, HR technology and analytics, finance, procurement, safety and security, and customer operations.

When did Flutter Entertainment buy Junglee Games?

Flutter Entertainment, formed through the merger of Irish bookmaker Paddy Power and gambling firm Betfair, had acquired a 50.1 percent stake in Junglee Games for $67 million in January 2021, which it later increased to 95 percent, taking its total investment in the company to $237 million.

The company said the impairment includes $517 million in goodwill, $32 million in acquired and developed intangibles, and $7 million in other long-lived assets. Flutter added that the charge exceeds the total amount paid because of a reallocation of international goodwill tied to the group’s restructuring at the start of 2025 under US GAAP.

How Junglee's RMG halt impacted Flutter's Q3 financials?

The impairment charge resulted in Flutter Entertainment posting a net loss of $789 million in the third quarter of 2025, a significant jump from $114 million loss in the same quarter last year. The company's overall revenue, however, grew 17 percent QoQ to $3.79 billion for the quarter.

Flutter Entertainment has also lowered its outlook for 2025, forecasting revenue of $16.69 billion and EBITDA of $2.915 billion.

Which other firms have taken a financial hit due to India's RMG ban in Q3?

On November 12, diversified gaming and sports media company Nazara Technologies took a one-time impairment charge of Rs 914.7 crore on its investment in Moonshine Technologies (PokerBaazi).

The move resulted in the company reporting a loss of Rs 33.9 crore for the quarter, marking its first loss-making quarter since going public in 2021.

Earlier this month, fintech major Paytm also saw its consolidated net profit drop 82.9 percent to Rs 21 crore for the quarter ended September 2025, after taking an impairment charge of Rs 190 crore on loans extended to its gaming joint venture First Games, which has also been hit by the new law.