EXCLUSIVE: DraftKings CEO Says 'We're Seeing Really Strong Trends' After Q1 Beat, Guidance Raise

Strong launches in Ohio and Massachusetts, customer retention and market share wins are giving DraftKings Inc DKNG the confidence to raise full-year guidance in the competitive sports betting market.

Here’s what DraftKings CEO and co-founder Jason Robins told Benzinga after the quarterly earnings report.

DraftKings' Q1 Results: Speaking to the first-quarter results, Robins highlighted several items that he said led to a revenue beat compared to analysts expectations.

“I think we’ve been performing really well from a market share perspective,” Robins told Benzinga of the recent launches in Ohio and Massachusetts.

The states have been ramping “really quickly” when compared to other new state launches in recent years, the CEO said. 

Analysts pointed to the strong results outside the National Football League in the first quarter, which Robins detailed. 

“NFL is still the biggest, but NBA is getting close; college sports are huge, baseball is big, hockey too, golf has been growing nicely [and] soccer has been growing nicely.

Robins said one of DraftKings' focus areas is cross-selling across sports to users. The company saw a “huge uptick in retention” on a year-over-year basis after the NFL season ended in February.

DraftKings Raises Guidance: One item DraftKings analysts highlighted after the print was its full-year guidance raise for revenue and adjusted EBITDA.

"We’re seeing really strong trends," Robins said. 

The guidance has no new state markets baked into the estimates, including the recently legalized Kentucky, the CEO said, adding that it does not make sense to include Kentucky in estimates yet, as no launch date has been communicated.

Acquisition costs have come down for DraftKings, which is leading to improved guidance on EBITDA, despite the increased volume of customers, he said. 

“You don’t often get a window of opportunity like this to where you can both increase the scale and volume of customer acquisition and decrease the cost on a per unit basis.”

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