DraftKings to assess global expansion outside of US

Jason Robins has suggested DraftKings could eventually make a play in international territories to diversify revenue streams away from its domestic US market.

Speaking to analysts after the firm’s Q1 2021 financial results, the CEO and co-founder said he was excited about the US, which is well on its way to becoming the largest regulated online betting market in the world.

He did, however, hint that international expansion may be afoot, as the rest of the world’s regulated jurisdictions combined could provide a much bigger prize pool than a handful of US states.

“Our ambitions are to be a global company and we think there’s a lot of exciting opportunities out there,” Robins said.

One analyst was keen to highlight the potential global opportunity for DraftKings using the example of Indian firm Dream Sports, the company behind DFS brand Dream 11.

It reportedly reached more than 100 million registered users in March.

Dream Sports, which also owns FanCode and DreamX, is valued at $2.5bn and secured $400m in new funding from investors in March, its second major cash injection in the space of six months.

DraftKings by comparison reported an average of 1.5 million monthly unique players (MUPs) during the first three months of 2021. The analyst suggested there must be a global demand for DraftKings and its product offering given the obvious appetite for DFS in Asia and elsewhere.

However, Robins would not be drawn further on the specifics of a potential expansion plan, adding: “We’re obviously closely following that daily fantasy company [Dream Sports] and following regulatory developments and markets around the world.

“Lots of things are opening up, not just in the US, so I think that provides a huge runway for our growth.

“It’s something we haven’t talked about as much because we’ve been so focused on the US, but there’s a huge opportunity there to keep our growth rolling for many years to come,” Robins added.

DraftKings has already expanded into some international markets including Ireland with its B2C product, while its in-house platform acquired as part of a three-way merger involving SBTech powers a number of European brands including Sweden’s Svenska Spel and, closer to home, Oregon Lottery’s Scoreboard sportsbook.

However, it remains to be seen what B2C or DFS international expansion would look like for the operator.

DraftKings reported a 175% year-on-year increase in Q1 revenue on a pro forma basis to $312m.

On the back of the strong top-line growth, DraftKings increased its fiscal year 2021 revenue guidance from between $900m-$1bn to $1.05bn-$1.15bn.

The firm has been on a media buying spree over the last two months beginning with the acquisition of Las Vegas-headquartered media firm VSiN in March before tying up a $50m investment in the rights to a podcast produced by former ESPN host Dan Le Batard in April.

The Boston-based operator subsequently appointed former Verizon SVP of corporate strategy and chief business officer Brian Angiolet to the newly created role of chief media officer to take charge of its long-term media strategy.

Discussing DraftKings’ pivot towards a more media savvy strategy, Robins said: “There is a ton of synergy between media and content and what our core products offer.

“Clearly there’s demand that gets driven for content by our products, and then in turn content drives further demand on the gaming product, so there is tremendous synergy there.

“We think between our data science capabilities and other analytics that we’ve employed that we’re going to be really effective at targeting the right content to the right customers at the right time and in using what we see in terms of content consumption on targeting better gaming offers.

“That’s really the crux of the strategy, to be able to take advantage of those synergies and to be able to add new revenue streams and new sources of user acquisition and engagement in that,” Robins added.