DraftKings CEO Jason Robins Talks Product Growth

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

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Romaine Bostick (0:07)

All right, we're here, of course, with Jason Robins, the co-founder and CEO of DraftKings here on Kickoff Weekend for the National Football League in the US. And Jason, we got our first game last night, obviously a rematch of the Super Bowl match with the Seahawks defeating the Patriots. The big question so much isn't who won on the field, but I guess what the business actually looked like for DraftKings on day one of the biggest sport in the US.

Jason Robins (0:34)

Well, it's always an exciting time of year for us and for all sports fans when NFL is starting. It's a big start to the biggest sport. And also this fall is when the entire sport calendar is very active. Usually, the summer is a bit of a lighter period this year.

We had the World Cup, obviously, which was a big thing in the middle of the summer. But usually, it's a little lighter, just baseball and a few other things going on. But now, in the fall, we have all four major sports going at once, coming up in just a short while. And so, this is really kind of the kickoff of it with college football, of course, starting, and then NFL kicking off last night. And I'm really just excited that the season's here. It's going to be a huge season for us, I think. We have now our sports product available nationwide, which is the first time we've really been able to do that. So, I'm pretty excited to see what that brings.

Romaine Bostick (1:29)

So, I mean, just comparing, I know we're just kind of starting the fall here, but as you look to your numbers from last year, are you anticipating meaningful growth year over year in all of those key metrics, both in terms of the handle growth, the share of wagering that's occurring live, as well as some first time depositors?

Jason Robins (1:50)

Yeah. I mean, I think that our expectation is absolutely that we see growth across all of our products, but I think the biggest growth is going to come from the prediction space. Sportsbook is growing nicely, though. Definitely seeing great growth there. iGaming is growing, so still seeing very healthy, strong growth there, but predictions, this is the first NFL season that for the whole season, we've had our offering available on a broader basis. So I think that's gonna be a huge part of this fall story.

Romaine Bostick (2:20)

Do you have any insight, at least for last night at that first game, like how much business actually went to the prediction markets, part of DraftKings relative to the sports book?

Jason Robins (2:30)

Yeah, I don't wanna put out any numbers just yet, but we will certainly be providing some updates on that in the not too distant future. But as you can imagine, given this was the first time, week one we've had, or game one, I should say, that we've had a predictions product, you know, it's pretty big and nice for us.

Romaine Bostick (2:48)

I am curious just about kind of the balance between these sort of two sides of the business, the traditional sports book and the emerging predictions business, particularly in light of the legal fight that you and others have been having with Kalchi and some of the other prediction market pioneers in this space. We had that recent ruling in that Ninth Circuit and now I believe New Jersey has now filed that Supreme Court petition. And we just learned, I think, a couple of days ago that that was docketed.

Are you prepared right now to actually file an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on this issue? And if so, what side are you taking?

Jason Robins (3:25)

Well, we're not involved in any of these things. So we're going to stay on the sidelines. We're obviously an interested party in seeing what the outcomes are. But we've chosen to operate in states that do not have legal online sports betting, that we are licensed to do.

And we have not been involved in any of the court cases and we'll continue to take that position.

Romaine Bostick (3:47)

What, can you tell me what you want the outcome of the Supreme Court case to be?

Jason Robins (3:52)

You know, I think the most important thing is that there's clarity. I think, you know, unlikely but obviously an unfortunate outcome would be one that's not totally clear and results in additional litigation. It would be nice to just get a clear answer and understand what the rules of the road are.

And we're happy to operate under whatever that clear answer might be. We just need to understand what that is and hopefully we'll get there soon.