DraftKings Inc. reported its first-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a shortfall in both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue compared to analyst forecasts. The company posted an EPS of $0.12 against the expected $0.20, and revenue came in at $1.41 billion, below the forecasted $1.46 billion. Despite missing these targets, DraftKings’ stock rose by 1.98% to $36.05 in after-hours trading, reflecting investor optimism about the company’s strategic initiatives and future growth prospects. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a "Fair" overall financial health score of 2.41, with particularly strong growth metrics.
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Key Takeaways
- DraftKings reported a 20% year-over-year revenue growth in Q1 2025.
- The company revised its full-year 2025 revenue guidance to $6.2-$6.4 billion, down from $6.3-$6.6 billion.
- Live betting now constitutes over 50% of DraftKings’ total handle.
- The stock price increased by 1.98% following the earnings announcement.
- DraftKings continues to integrate recent acquisitions and focus on AI.
Company Performance
DraftKings showed solid growth in the first quarter of 2025, with revenue increasing by 20% year-over-year, driven by a 16% rise in sportsbook handle. The company’s impressive 71% revenue CAGR over the past five years underscores its strong market position. The company has been expanding its live betting offerings, which now make up more than half of its total handle. This growth is complemented by improvements in its NBA and baseball products, as well as a cautious rollout of DraftKings Plus in New York. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock currently appears undervalued despite its recent performance.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $1.41 billion, up 20% year-over-year
- Adjusted EBITDA: $103 million
- Sportsbook handle: $13.9 billion, up 16% year-over-year
- Structural sportsbook hold percentage: 10.4%
Earnings vs. Forecast
DraftKings reported an EPS of $0.12, falling short of the $0.20 forecast. Revenue also missed expectations, coming in at $1.41 billion versus the anticipated $1.46 billion. This represents a significant miss in terms of EPS, which may have been influenced by the company’s ongoing investments and strategic expansions.
Market Reaction
Despite the earnings miss, DraftKings’ stock rose by 1.98% to $36.05 in after-hours trading. This increase suggests that investors are optimistic about the company’s strategic direction and its potential for future growth, particularly in live betting and AI-driven product development. Analyst consensus remains strongly bullish, with price targets ranging from $35 to $74, suggesting significant upside potential. The company’s market capitalization stands at $17.67 billion, reflecting substantial investor confidence in its growth strategy.
Outlook & Guidance
DraftKings revised its full-year 2025 revenue guidance to a range of $6.2-$6.4 billion, slightly down from previous estimates. The company expects Q2 revenue to grow by approximately 25% year-over-year, with adjusted EBITDA projected to exceed $200 million. DraftKings also anticipates structural hold percentages to improve in the latter half of the year.
Executive Commentary
CEO Jason Robbins highlighted the company’s strong start to the year and emphasized the growing importance of AI across its operations: "AI has gone from something where pockets of the company were utilizing it to becoming a company-wide movement." Robbins also expressed confidence in the U.S. market, stating, "We have a ton of growth in The U.S."
Risks and Challenges
- Market competition remains intense, particularly in live betting.
- Revenue guidance revision may indicate potential challenges in achieving growth targets.
- Economic uncertainties could impact consumer spending in the gaming sector.
- Integration of recent acquisitions poses operational risks.
- Regulatory changes in prediction markets could affect future revenue streams.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about DraftKings’ M&A strategy, focusing on the U.S. market, and the volatility of sports outcomes. The company also addressed questions regarding its marketing spend and efficiency improvements, highlighting the ongoing integration of AI across its business operations.
Full transcript - DraftKings Inc (DKNG) Q1 2025:
Conference Operator: Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the DraftKings first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there’ll be a question and answer session. Please be advised today’s conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Certain statements we make during this call may constitute forward looking statements that are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors as discussed further in our SEC filings that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our historical results or from our forecasts. We assume no responsibility to update forward looking statements other than as required by law. During this call, management will also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures that we believe may be useful in evaluating DraftKings’ operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for DraftKings’ financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Reconciliations of these non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release and presentation, which can be found on our website and in our quarterly report on Form 10 Q filed with the SEC. Hosting the call today, we have Jason Robbins, Co Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DraftKings, who will share some opening remarks and an update on our business. Following Jason’s remarks, our Chief Financial Officer, Alan Ellingson, will provide a review of our financials. We will then open the line to questions. I will now turn the call over to Jason Robbins.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining. We are off to a strong start to the year. If not for customer friendly sport outcomes in March, we will be raising our fiscal year twenty twenty five revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance. There are four important takeaways that we are sharing today.
First, our core value drivers are outperforming our expectations. Our product enhancements are driving higher structural Sportsbook hold percentage and more efficient deployment of promotions, while Sportsbook handle is strong and consistent with our expectations. We now expect revenue to grow 32% year over year in fiscal year twenty twenty five and ’36 percent year over year spanning the second through fourth quarters. Second, sport outcomes were once again customer friendly in the first quarter. A favorable Super Bowl was more than offset by favorites dominating the men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.
For the first time in tournament history, all four number one seeds reached the final four and three number two seeds and one number three seed reached the Elite Eight. Across the entire tournament, higher seeds won at an 82% rate, which is the highest rate in history. We acknowledge that customer friendly sport outcomes have impacted recent quarters and are continuously analyzing our data, including historical performance by bet type to fully understand the gap between our structural and actual hold percentage. Our analyses provide us strong confidence that the recent volatility we’ve experienced is random in nature. Third, we are well positioned for the evolving macroeconomic environment.
Online gaming was resilient in more mature jurisdictions globally during the global financial crisis. And today, our customer metrics continue to be strong consistent with forecasted trends. We are also beginning to realize efficiency as broader corporate demand softens in areas such as advertising. Fourth, we have a healthy balance sheet. We completed the first quarter with $1,100,000,000 of cash after repurchasing 3,700,000.0 of our shares.
Looking ahead, we expect our balance sheet to strengthen further as free cash flow accumulates. With that, I will turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Alan Ellingson.
Alan Ellingson, Chief Financial Officer, DraftKings: Thank you, Jason. I’ll hit the highlights, including our first quarter twenty twenty five performance as well as our fiscal year guidance. Please note that all income statement measures discussed, except for revenue, are on a non GAAP adjusted EBITDA basis. As Jason mentioned, our core value drivers are outperforming our expectations. In the first quarter, we generated $1,409,000,000 of revenue, representing 20% year over year growth and $103,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA.
New customer acquisition was consistent with our expectations and highly efficient as we continue to leverage our brand and scale while optimizing our marketing channel mix. Sportsbook handle increased 16% year over year to $13,900,000,000 and was consistent with our expectations as the NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments attracted strong customer activity. For the jurisdictions where we were live in Sportsbook before 2024, Handle increased 11% year over year. Structural sports book hold percentage of 10.4% outperformed our expectations and was an increase of 60 basis points year over year, driven by partly handle mix increase of three seventy basis points year over year. Actual sports book hold percentage was 9.5% as a favorable Super Bowl was more than offset by customer friendly NCAA basketball tournament outcomes.
Promotional reinvestment as a percentage of gross gaming revenues was more efficient year over year, even with the previously mentioned customer friendly support outcomes at the end of the quarter. Our adjusted gross margin increased more than a hundred basis points year over year to 45% as a result of both the higher structural sports bookhold percentage and the improved promotional efficiency. Adjusted operating expenses slightly outperformed our expectations as we work to integrate recent acquisitions while maintaining cost discipline across the organization. Now I’ll touch on our fiscal year twenty twenty five guidance. In February, we guided fiscal year twenty twenty five revenue of $6,300,000,000 to $6,600,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $900,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 Today, in light of Q1 results, we are revising our fiscal year twenty twenty five revenue guidance to $6,200,000,000 to $6,400,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $800,000,000 to $900,000,000 Importantly, if not for customer friendly outcomes in March, we would be raising our fiscal year twenty twenty five revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges at this time.
Core value drivers continue to improve, reflected in our higher structural sports book hold percentage and the optimization of the deployment of promotions. Sportsbook handle has been strong and consistent with our expectations. These trends account for $50,000,000 higher revenue and $37,000,000 higher adjusted EBITDA across the full year. Customer friendly sport outcomes year to date were a headwind of $170,000,000 to revenue and $111,000,000 to adjusted EBITDA. Maryland increasing its tax rate on sports betting and Jack pocket shutting down digital lottery courier operations in Texas and New Mexico are a combined headwind of $30,000,000 to revenue and $26,000,000 to adjusted EBITDA.
We are also providing additional fiscal year twenty twenty five guidance detail. We continue to expect sportsbook net revenue margin of 7% to 7.5% as we anticipate higher structural sportsbook hold percentage and increased promotional efficiency to offset the impact from customers friendly sport outcomes year to date. We now expect our adjusted gross margin to be 46%, an improvement of more than 300 basis points year over year compared to fiscal year twenty twenty four. We continue to expect stock based compensation expense to represent 6% of revenue in fiscal year twenty twenty five. We expect the bridge between adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow to be approximately $100,000,000 and therefore expect to generate free cash flow of about $750,000,000 in fiscal year twenty twenty five.
In the second quarter, we expect revenues to increase approximately 25% year over year and for adjusted EBITDA to exceed $200,000,000 That concludes our remarks. We will now open the line for questions.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our first question comes from David Katz with Jefferies. Your line is open.
David Katz, Analyst, Jefferies: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to just raise the issue of M and A, not from a perspective of will you or won’t you, but rather what are the boundaries as you see them today, use of equity, tolerance for leverage, trajectory to accretion, anything that you can give us some perspective on. Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Thank you, David. So I think the best way to think about it is M and A like anything is just part of an overall evaluation of what’s the best way to create value for our shareholders. And I think including the questions you asked around how if you did do M and A, you would ultimately think about equity versus debt versus cash on the balance sheet. And a good example of that would be some of the acquisitions we made last year like SimpleBet, SportsIQ and Mustard Golf, which really we’re now seeing pay dividends in our increase in live handle as well as the cost reductions we’ve seen by bringing those costs in house, which alone were enough to pay for the deal. So that we thought was a great use of shareholder capital because even with no revenue upside, which we do believe is there, we were easily paying back at our thresholds of cost of capital.
So things like that, I think, may make sense. But they’re really part, as I said, of an overall valuation, including buybacks and other organic investments that we can be making as well.
David Katz, Analyst, Jefferies: And quickly as my follow-up, I wonder if you all share some of the stress that we have over the conversation of hold and structural hold versus actual hold. Are we sure we have the right structural hold, and do we get there, and when?
Analyst: I suppose there’s a bunch of discussions in there. Yeah, thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: I mean, listen, I’d be asking the same things. We’ve had a couple of really bad quarters in a row in terms of outcomes. This quarter, this past quarter was looking great until March Madness. So that does happen. We have analyzed, as we always do, everything thoroughly and we are 100% confident that these are random outcomes.
I think another way to think about it too is that, you know, even if there were something that fundamentally changed, like I’ve heard theories like NIL is driving more, you know, winning amongst the top ranked teams in college sports. First of we didn’t see that in college football. But, you know, certainly this year there were a lot of favorites that won in the college basketball tournament eighty two percent, which was an all time high. One year does not a trend make, but it is something, of course, that has a legitimate theory behind it. But in that case, it wouldn’t change who the favorites are, wouldn’t change the customers are betting on favorites, it would just optimize the lines a little bit.
So to your question, if that is something that’s going on, the models will pick that up and it will converge. So unless there’s fundamental changes that are happening on a frequent basis in sport, structural hold and hold should converge over time. But part of sport is that there are randomness to outcomes and things happen. That’s why people watch sports and want to bet on sports. It’s part of what makes the customer experience great.
So there are periods where you’re going to have quarters, two, three in a row sometimes with bad outcomes, maybe even more. But obviously there could be the opposite too. So we’ll just have to kind of wait and see if things normalize. I expect they will because they always seem to.
David Katz, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you very much.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Shaun Kelley with BofA. Your line is open.
Shaun Kelley, Analyst, BofA: Hi, good morning everyone and thank you for taking my questions. Jason, maybe we could just start with the big question we received across the board is around handle growth and sort of what we’ve seen broadly across the market. A lot of your commentary in letter was really positive around that. But just to put a fine point on it, have we seen a deceleration as you kind of move through Q1 and into April as we’ve left North Carolina? And two, do you expect trends to pick up from here and what would drive that if you do?
Analyst: Yes, it’s a great question.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: I mean, we’ve seen pretty strong hold growth this year, Definitely a little bit of a slowdown in April relative to Q1, but still seeing strong growth in April. It’s only down a bit. But I think that is much of a sports seasonality type thing. NBA was a little bit weaker this year than some, but the playoffs have actually been picking up. So I don’t expect Q2 to be too bad.
I think it’s probably going to end up being high single digits to low double digit growth would be my guess in terms of overall handle. But as a perspective, March was 14% up year over year for us. The quarter, as you know, is up 16%. And then baseball year to date is up about 16%. So those are some data points that might be helpful in thinking about where things are headed.
Shaun Kelley, Analyst, BofA: That’s great. And just for a quick follow-up, iGaming was an area that sort of tracked a little bit behind what we were thinking and a little bit behind state reported GGR figures if we did the math right. So your comments there, was there something going on as it relates to promotion or bonusing? And sort of what are you doing to kind of get that product on an NGR basis back up to the growth rates you might expect, which might be a little closer to high teens than the 14% that was on the quarter? Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Well, I mean, we believe it should be even higher. April, we were in the mid-20s percentage growth year over year at 26%. So really feel like that’s where we should be trending. We made some significant changes and improvements, I think, in both the product as well as the marketing and operations and promotion deployment. And I think the combination of those things have led to accelerated growth in April, we expect that to continue.
Analyst: Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Steven Grambling with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Analyst: Hey, thank you. Maybe following up on both David and Sean’s questions, tying in promotions, looks like they were down as a percentage of handle year over year. How should we be thinking about where promotions as a percentage of handle should shake out in the year end or longer term? And any impact you think about that having on handle as well? Yes, I think it’s going be
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: a balance as structural hold rises to think about it in terms of handle. I think thinking about it as a percentage of hold of GGR or even structural hold, I think is a good way to think about it as well. But I do we’ve said this for a time and it will continue to go down even if nothing else changes in terms of other optimizations because of the mix of new users becoming less and less of the total user pool over time, total customer pool. So that I think is part of what happened in Q1. And I think the other point I made is that GGR, expect sorry, hold rate, we expect to continue to rise as the product continues to develop and as more and more customers shift into parlays and things like that.
So, if that happens, then I think you could potentially see a flattening or even slight rise in terms of promo as a percentage of hold, but it should definitely continue to decline as a percentage of GGR.
Analyst: That’s helpful. And maybe an unrelated follow-up. In the release and in the letter, you talked about an AI kind of first strategy with the business. Where are the biggest opportunities to leverage and or deploy AI, or where is it currently being used?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: I think this has been a real big win for us over the last quarter or so, maybe two. It’s gone from something where pockets of the company were utilizing it to becoming a company wide movement. It’s really great to see. I mean, you know, one example I’d point to is that all the time we would see people thinking about what can I do if I had more headcount? And now people are totally shifting that mindset to what could I do with AI.
It’s just an amazing thing. And as far as where opportunities are, it’s really across the board on both the revenue and cost side. There’s not a place that you can’t see efficiency gain throughout the company. Everything from documents being created and summarized and customer service not having to spend forty five minutes, an hour tracking down dozens and dozens of emails or other communications a customer sent because an AI tool can summarize everything that’s been happening in a case to date in two seconds, actually less. It’s just really a remarkable thing to see how much people have really started to understand how this can be life changing and business changing, and we’re leaning in really hard.
Analyst: Sounds great. Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Robin Farley with UBS. Your line is open.
Robin Farley, Analyst, UBS: Great. Thanks. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, your market share in basketball. It seemed like, given the strength or the acceleration of your handle growth overall in the quarter, some others talked about softness in handle in basketball. So I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about maybe if there were some share shift there?
Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yes, I do think we believe we gained some share. I think the big part of the story here has been live betting. Live betting is up significantly for us year over year. Really, I think, you know, some of the investments we alluded to earlier, you know, like SimpleBet and some of the others, I think, have really helped us accelerate our live betting options. And, you know, I think also those are coming with better hold and stronger adoption at the same time, which is the perfect combination.
So that’s been a big part of the story of what’s driving our handle up, and I do think we’ve gained some share.
Robin Farley, Analyst, UBS: Great. And then just as my follow-up, I wonder if you can help us think about how growth rates should look. You talked about handling up 16% in the quarter and for the pre-twenty four states up 11%. So you’re not a surprise, right, that maybe some of those initial growth rates slow that we should expect that and all. Can you help us also think about even more what that rate of growth looks like sort of over a period of two or three years, right?
If we looked at like the 20 states that started in 2021 versus states in 2022 versus 2023, sort of what that rate of sort of maybe maturing handle would look like?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yes, it’s hard to look at handle in isolation because remember one of the things as a state matures, there’s a number of metrics that move together to drive increasing contribution profit. Handle growth is obviously one of them, but also our hold rate is going up, promotions continue to decline as states mature and marketing spend continues to go down as states mature. So those things all combined to create significant inflection of contribution profit. Obviously, we’d like our handle growth to be as strong as possible, but we don’t really look at it in isolation. We look at it as one of multiple things that we’re monitoring.
And sometimes when you’re doing things like you know, reducing promo and increasing hold rate, that’s not going to always maximize the handle growth, but it still might be the optimal cocktail. So that’s always how we look at it.
Robin Farley, Analyst, UBS: Okay, very helpful. Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Ben Miller with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Ben Miller, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great, thanks so much for taking the questions. Can you just talk about the underlying dynamics around handle acceleration versus the MUPS deceleration when you exclude jack pocket? And just any color you can provide on what you’re seeing in the cohort data by vintage around handle versus users would be helpful. Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yes. I think the Q1 MUPs were actually consistent with our expectations, but we did see that handle acceleration you mentioned. So as I said, a big part of that is live betting. Live betting in Q1 was actually up to greater than 50% of our total handle, first time that’s ever happened. We think there’s even more upside from there.
As we’ve said, we’ve seen stats that it’s as high as 70%, eighty % of GGR and some cases for operators in more mature markets. So we think there’s a ton of opportunity there, but really happy to see that. MLB live handle, it’s early in the season, but it’s up 36% year over year for April, really great to see. So we think there’s a ton of upside there. And as we noted in the last couple of quarters, that’s where we’ve been leaning in.
But certainly also continue to focus on driving pre match, handle and bet mix and also been a great story on the bet mix side. We’ve had a tremendous year over year gains in terms of both SGP and parlay mix and overall average leg count.
Ben Miller, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great. Then just on the prediction markets, obviously a lot of moving pieces there, but I’m curious how your conversations with state legislators and tribes have evolved in the context of prediction markets and whether that’s catalyzing states that are not legal to refocus efforts in some way?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: It’s definitely something that they’re talking about and it’s early days, so it’s hard to say at this point that it’s really catalyzed anything because we haven’t seen, you know, any states that are like, yeah, we’re going to do this now. But definitely, think step one, which as you noted, is getting their attention and making them start having those conversations. We are seeing that happen. You know, and I think as it continues to grow, that’s just going to continue to be a powerful lever that this is happening kind of whether you want to or not. So do you want to do it in a way that makes sense if you’re a California tribe or if you’re a state that hasn’t legalized it yet that allows you to prosper, or do you want to watch it happen somewhere else?
And I think that’s something that, you know, everybody’s talking about right now.
Ben Miller, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great. Thanks so much.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Brent Montour with Barclays. Your line is open.
Analyst: Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. So first one on OSB. Could you remind us what is implied for structural hold in the second half of ’twenty five guidance, particularly Nf L? And maybe talk through the lens of parlay mix.
What are you looking for in terms of parlay mix lift year over year in the second half versus the trajectory that you were on as of the first quarter year over year?
Alan Ellingson, Chief Financial Officer, DraftKings: Yes. So in terms of
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: the back half, structural hold should be a little north of 11%. It’s going to be a bit lower like just below 11% in Q3 and then over 11% in Q4. So that’s I think the best way to think about it. And really the driver of that is you kind of alluded to is NFL, but also NBA, which are the two best sports in terms of structural hold as far as the major sports go because of the heavy SGP and parlay mix.
Analyst: That’s really helpful, Jason. And then just more of a near term modeling question. The release says adjusted EBITDA in the 2Q should exceed $200,000,000 That’s a reasonable ways off from what’s currently implied in the consensus numbers. So maybe you could just talk about the way that you split up the hold impact between the first quarter and April? And then anything else we should think about in terms of comparisons for the next couple of quarters?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yes. I mean, that’s part of why we said it because we haven’t always provided color on a quarter by quarter basis. The beginning of the year, we typically don’t, but wanted to obviously help since we saw that the Q2 numbers and consensus were a little bit off. As far as outcomes go, about 50,000,000 or sorry, excuse me, 30,000,000 of outcome headwinds were in April. So not a huge number.
And that’s sorry, that’s on the revenue side. So obviously less impact on the EBITDA side about by 20,000,000 20 1 million dollars of that flows through. So yes, it’s definitely somewhat of the impact, but it’s not really. It was more just the allocation across quarters was a little bit different in our model than what the Street had.
Analyst: Great. Thanks everybody.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jordan Bender with Citizens. Your line is open.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings0: Good morning everyone. You gave parameters around M and A and how you think about potentially getting that done. But curious to get your thoughts around becoming larger on a global scale through M and A and just more broadly, maybe your updated thoughts around your ambitions for international expansion. Thank you.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yes, I mean, think we continue to feel the same way. We’ve been sort of articulating over the past years when it comes to international. It’s something that we don’t need, but we do believe that if the right opportunity emerges, it’s something that fits well and could create synergies. But we don’t feel like we need it right now. We think we have a ton of growth in The U.
S. And so that’s our focus. But if the right opportunity came about internationally, we think it’s something we should look at because we do have global ambitions one day. But obviously, we’ll be very selective there and the bar is very high given our focus on The U. S.
And our opportunity in The U. S. And we understand that and we know that anything we might do elsewhere, we have to do with a very high bar because the opportunity here and any distraction from that is costly too.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings0: Great. And then just a follow-up. You just gave the back half of the year expected hold. From what I can tell, below 11% in the third quarter, above 11% in the fourth quarter implies a potential slowdown in that growth year over year. Just curious if that’s correct and what could be driving that?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: No, I don’t think it’s a slowdown. We’re seeing structural hold increases and expect to see that in the back half of the year as well.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings0: Okay. Thank you very much.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Joe Stauff with Susquehanna. Your line is open.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings1: Thanks. Good morning, Jason, Alan. Jason, your comment on live betting and the improvement in the product, a lot of those acquisitions, tuck in acquisitions that you have made have largely occurred within the last year. So just wondering kind of when you felt as though like you’ve got the live product at a point now where you can really start to accelerate and see growth from that. And then I have a follow-up after.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yes, I really think this past quarter was the first time I felt like, wow, I’m actually really seeing impact on the live side start to materialize in the way that we had planned. And that was exciting to see and it’s continued and actually accelerated into Q2 with MLB being up 36% year over year in live. So really excited to see that and still think there’s a ton of upside as I noted. But think it’s really just this last quarter we started to see those impacts. We knew the work that was being done before, but the actual impact in the numbers.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings1: Got you. Thank you. And then a follow-up on Jackpocket. In terms of the database, can you give us a rough split of the percentage of users in non OSB states? And do you think you have a path in Texas for them to reconsider your offering there?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: So, I don’t have an exact staff for you on percent of customers in non OSB states, but they are certainly in quite a few of states that have OSB in them. Texas obviously was not one of them. And as far as that question, I don’t know. We’ll have to see. There is certainly some momentum about around legislation at one point, but I don’t know if that’s going to go through given the Senate and Texas will probably oppose it.
And so, you know, I’m not sure what’s going to happen there. But if it ends up that there is a stalemate in the legislature, then it would have to be through the courts. And right now, we’re not pursuing that. But one of Jack Pocket, one of the competitors, I believe Lotto.com, is doing so and recently won an injunction. So, you know, that certainly signals there might be something, but I think early days and, hard to know, and obviously we’re watching closely and we’ll make any decisions accordingly.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings1: Thanks a lot.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Robert Fishman with MoffettNathanson. Your line is open.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings2: Good morning. In the letter, you guys talk about beginning to realize efficiency as demand softens in areas such as advertising. So just curious if you can share any levels of the ad efficiencies you’ve seen to date and talk more about how you can benefit or how that’s going to impact your planned advertising spend for the rest of the year?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Sure. So really, where we’re starting to see some is on the digital side. Haven’t really seen anything on the offline side in terms of softening yet. And I think a lot of the places that are premium sport property are going to continue to command prices because of the scarcity of inventory. But on the digital side, we are definitely seeing some softening.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings2: Thank you. And maybe on taxes, clearly, saw Illinois increase and with Maryland set to increase. Can you just take a step back and share what you’ve learned about the right strategy to help mitigate future tax increases and how investors should think about the risk for additional states increasing taxes in the year ahead?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yeah. I mean, think what’s unfortunately happening and as states increase taxes is alternate options are gaining share. And so, that’s something that we’re making sure people understand the illegal market is bigger than ever in terms of iGaming. And obviously that’s mostly in states that don’t have legal iGaming, but those companies are going to create competitive offerings and push them in states that do have legal iGaming if taxes are too high. You know, that’s something that we think certainly is resonating.
And then also, you know, I think that there’s an element of just making sure that they do understand that there is ultimately a cost to the consumer, whether it’s weaker product, less promotion, things like that. So, you know, it’s something that we’re certainly cognizant is out there. We’re operating in quite a few states now. So at any point in time, there’s probably going to be some, you know, positive developments going on in any given states and some challenges, and we’re just going to have to stay on top of everything.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings2: Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jed Kelly with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Analyst: Hey, great. Thanks for taking my question. Just getting to live betting, if that becomes a larger percentage of your handle, would we expect that to handle a reaccelerate, but it’d be at a lower hold because you don’t want to maximize your hold on live betting? And then just looking at your R and D, it’s up quite a bit. Is that being more deployed to product and development?
Or is that from acquisitions? Because we’ve noticed a huge product improvement in your MBA products, so any color there would be great. Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yeah, so on the latter question, some of the recent acquisitions that I noted are what that is being driven by. And I think definitely appreciate the comments on the NBA. It’s a product that we worked hard on and I’m really excited about our baseball product as well as our golf. We have a lot of great updates that are coming through this summer as well. So I’m pretty pumped about where we’re at from a product perspective.
And then as far as the first question, I think it depends on the kind of live betting. If you’re talking about micro bets, next basket, next pitch, do think you’re correct that you don’t want to hold too high on those. If you’re talking about customers that are at halftime betting on what the end outcome of the game is, that’s fine to have them making parlays and having higher hold products. So I think it really depends, you know, but that’s how we think about it.
Analyst: Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Clark Lampin with BTIG. Your line is open.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings3: Thanks very much. Jason, I wanted to go back to the structural hold topic. And maybe you could help us understand or unpack, I guess, what sort of contributes or drives this quarter, I think you guys saw a 300 basis points mix shift towards parlays. Is that largely a function of new cohorts that you’re onboarding that are significantly more parlay inclined? Or is it coming largely from your existing player cohorts where you’re able to gradually shift them over towards higher margin bets via retention promo?
Or does one of those, I guess, sort of offer you a bigger opportunity or a bigger value driver down the road?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: It’s really both. We’re seeing progress on both new customers coming in and immediately exhibiting behavior of higher parlay mix, but also existing customers increasing their parlay mix and parlay betting. So definitely both. But as far as going forward, I think same story, both are going to be levers for us. There’s still a lot of room there, I believe.
And the great thing is that customers love the product. So it’s very sticky. So even if you have to utilize promo to try to get people to try it and here and there continue to promo just for pure engagement, We’re seeing a lot of the customers that initially adopted parlay betting through promo continue to make parlays even when they’re not getting promos. So that’s really a great sign for us.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings3: That’s helpful. And if I could ask separate follow-up around AI, I’m curious how much, I guess, you’ve sort of integrated that tech into the pricing and risk management framework at this stage. Are
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings0: you using that
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings3: as a means of sort of better understanding elasticity or capturing inferences from sort of ticket flow on the fly that might be, I guess, little bit less obvious to a human that was looking at the same data? Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: A little bit, but it is pretty early. I think that’s actually a huge opportunity for us. I’m glad you mentioned it. We are still very early days in terms of implementing, but it’s an area we’ve identified that we think there’s a lot of opportunity for sure.
Analyst: Thanks again.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Steven Sheikhat with Citi. Your line is open.
Analyst: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Now that we’re a few months into the launch of DraftKings Plus in New York, I was hoping you could comment on your initial learnings from that offering and if you anticipate maybe expanding that product into other states down the line.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Thanks. Yes. So we had a very limited launch because we weren’t sure if we were going to make changes to the product and didn’t want to have a bunch of people sign up and have to do that. So as a result, it’s taken a little longer to get the excuse me, specifically significant results on some of the things that we were looking at. That said, so far, we’ve been very encouraged by what we’ve seen.
It’s been a very small user cohort, as I mentioned, by design, but, it’s been really a success amongst those customers. We’ve had really high satisfaction ratings from people. People are not canceling the subscription and they’re seeing value in it and it’s also generating value for us. So we are cautiously optimistic. It’s something that we can do on a more broad basis.
But we also, like I said, don’t want to roll it out more broadly until we’ve done quite a bit of testing because we don’t want to have to make changes to the program after we’ve gotten hundreds of thousands or even millions of customers to sign up for it.
Analyst: Great. Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Barry Jonas with Tru Securities. Your line is open.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings3: Hey, guys. Good morning. I appreciate the chart you made showing the historical resiliency of digital gaming amidst the Great Recession. But I guess as you look at the database today, are there certain segments or cohorts doing better than others worth highlighting? Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: No, not really. We haven’t we’ve actually looked at that quite a bit. And we haven’t seen anything to suggest that there’s different cohorts, no matter how you slice it, that are performing differently. We looked at it by state, we looked at it by higher versus lower spend customers, We’ve looked at it by tenure, quite a few different ways, looked at it by sport preference. And we really aren’t seeing a big change in anything.
Everything looks pretty much as we expect. So far, we’re seeing no signs that there’s any macroeconomic effects happening on our customer base. And as you noted, I think based on other data we’ve seen from third parties, it really has been a trend in gaming that you don’t see actually much impact, if any at all, from any sort of recession or economic downturn.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings3: Great. And then just how are you thinking about capital allocation here, share repurchases? Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: As we noted, we did repurchase, what was it, 140,000,000 of shares in Q1. So definitely pleased that we were able to do that. And we have, as you also know, committed to $1,000,000,000 as a buyback that’s been authorized by the Board. So that continues to be something that we’re planning. But obviously, if anything changes in terms of either that or additional buybacks, we’ll certainly let you know.
Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Ben Shahin with Mizuho. Your line is open.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings4: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My first is on external marketing spend. How are you thinking about the magnitude of this spend this year relative to maybe the start of the year? Has it changed at all?
And I guess I would preface it with two dynamics as I see it. Number one, Jack pocket exiting Texas. And then number two, the softer digital ad spend environment that you referenced earlier. I guess does the combination of those two change anything for you? And not sure if there’s any other dynamics you would flag or if I captured at all.
Thanks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Yes, it’s a good question. So at this point, it’s pretty much where we expected it to be. There’s been, as you noted, a little bit of softening on the digital side. So we’re certainly looking at opportunities to maybe spend a little bit more there, but that is more than offset sorry, that is offset by reduction that we see in Texas from jack pocket exiting. So it’s kind of a wash and we’re sort of right on track with where we thought we’d be.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings4: Sorry, maybe just a follow-up there. I guess if it’s softer digitalized then wouldn’t that be less expensive for you? And then wouldn’t Jack pocket exiting Go ahead.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Sorry. No, no. If it’s softer, sometimes it’s an opportunity to lean in a little bit more, right? Because you have a spend that wasn’t efficient before that now is efficient.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings4: Understood. Makes sense. And then related If
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: you were buying literally the same volume of ads, though, you’re correct. But when the market softens, sometimes that’s an opportunity to spend a little bit deeper. But like I said, these are low double digit flexes either way. So it’s kind of a rounding error even if you didn’t include either of them. We’re pretty much right where we expected to be and expect that will be the trend for the rest of the year.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings4: Understood. That’s helpful. And then on just one more on Jackpocket. I guess, what’s the desire to integrate this into the DraftKings app? And then any updated thoughts on profitability?
I think in the past, there was some medium term kind of bogeys out there you had provided. Should we expect an update here at some point just given the changes in a few markets?
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: So on the first question, we’re actually actively working on that. So I do expect that it will be integrated sometime, I believe, in the back half of the year. And we’ll have it fully on our platform, on our PAM. So that will also hopefully help with conversion and other metrics on the wallet. As far as profitability goes, we said that it will be profitable this year.
We do expect that it will be probably about breakeven, maybe slightly up or down from profitability level largely due to the Texas exit. So it’s something that obviously we hope to get over the profit line, but also it’s a growth asset and we want to make sure we’re properly investing in it too. It’s still growing very quickly even with Texas. So I think a lot of opportunity on that front.
Michael Dell’Elio, Senior Director of Investor Relations, DraftKings4: Thanks. Appreciate it.
Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, does conclude the Q and A portion of today’s conference. I would like to turn the call back over to Jason for any further remarks.
Jason Robbins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DraftKings: Thank you all for joining us on today’s call. We are really optimistic about the rest of 2025 and are well positioned for continued success in the future. Thank you for your continued support.
Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s presentation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.
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