Speaker 1: It's the big Super Bowl weekend and fifteen billion dollars
Speaker 1: in sports betting is about to get even bigger. For
Speaker 1: more on the sports betting business and how the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl plays a role, we're joined by Jason Robbins from DraftKings. Jason,
Speaker 1: you're the chief executive of one of the largest sports
Speaker 1: books out there, but you're also facing some tough competition,
Speaker 1: especially from those that are actually using contracts linked to
Speaker 1: sports games but aren't the traditional sports books. I'm talking
Speaker 1: crypto dot com call sheet. What kind of competition are
Speaker 1: you seeing.
Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of different forms of gaming
Speaker 2: right now, and those aren't exactly gaming. They're classified as
Speaker 2: I think financial contracts. But a lot of different forms
Speaker 2: of gaming are appearing. Those are in the regulated market.
Speaker 2: There's actually a much larger illegal market. It's competitive with us,
Speaker 2: and they're much more difficult to compete with because they
Speaker 2: don't have to follow any rules or regulations. So definitely
Speaker 2: a lot of competition out there right now, but we
Speaker 2: feel like we have the best product in the best
Speaker 2: customers experience, and in the end, we think that'll win the.
Speaker 3: Day and regulator after regulator, you convince, Jason, what are
Speaker 3: the winnings for you this weekend. Do you think how
Speaker 3: many bets will be placed? What are your takeaways?
Speaker 2: Oh, I can't really say what I think the numbers
Speaker 2: will be. But each year the Super Bowl gets bigger
Speaker 2: and bigger, so I expect this to be our biggest
Speaker 2: day ever the Sunday, I should say, to be our
Speaker 2: biggest day ever. Hard to know exactly what the numbers
Speaker 2: will be, and right now it's a pretty balanced line,
Speaker 2: so you know, in some ways that's good because that
Speaker 2: means it won't be as volid ale. Although right now,
Speaker 2: because we have so much money on player props, it's
Speaker 2: much bigger deal. Whether you see Saquon Barkley, Jalen Hurts
Speaker 2: and Travis Kelsey get in the end zone and who
Speaker 2: actually wins the game.
Speaker 3: Don't get our producers started on parlaying as well. But
Speaker 3: I'm really interested, Jason more broadly on what this means
Speaker 3: for your marketing efforts. Ultimately, this must be a massive
Speaker 3: draw for people to then come back time and time again.
Speaker 2: Well, Super Bowl is not only the biggest betting day
Speaker 2: of the year, it's our biggest day of the year
Speaker 2: for customer acquisition activation. So it's a huge day for
Speaker 2: us marketing wise. We have a ton of stuff going
Speaker 2: on all week leading up to the game and obviously
Speaker 2: throughout the game, so big time for our marketing team,
Speaker 2: and they've done a great job each year. We've won
Speaker 2: the customer acquisition battle the last two Super Bowl I
Speaker 2: think the last three Super Bowls, so we're very confident
Speaker 2: in them and feel like we're gonna have a great
Speaker 2: showing this year too.
Speaker 1: There's another thing that's taking more people to their televisions
Speaker 1: to watch the NFL. That's Taylor Swift. She's driven major
Speaker 1: viewership since she's dating one of the Chiefs players, and
Speaker 1: I'm curious DraftKings is capitalizing on this increase viewership in
Speaker 1: any way.
Speaker 2: Well, more viewership always is better for us, and I
Speaker 2: think it's sort of this positive cycle where people bet
Speaker 2: more and they tend to watch the games more and
Speaker 2: they watch longer, and then more people watching needs more
Speaker 2: opportunities from them placed wagress with us. So that's a
Speaker 2: really good thing for our business. Obviously for the ratings
Speaker 2: of the NFL. And I don't know how much Tailor
Speaker 2: is contributing to it, but if she is, and thank you, I'm.
Speaker 1: Not much of a gambler, But what can you tell
Speaker 1: us about your current user base. Have you seen any
Speaker 1: major shifts in who is putting wagers online?
Speaker 2: You know, it's definitely been growing in terms of female
Speaker 2: audience obviously, you know, for us, that's an important vector
Speaker 2: because right now our audience is largely male, so we
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of room to grow on that front.
Speaker 2: In general, though the demographics haven't changed a whole lot.
Speaker 2: Typically tends to be you know, on average age in
Speaker 2: the mid thirties to late thirties, lots of people we think,
Speaker 2: you know, coming from technology and educated backgrounds, typically a
Speaker 2: you know, higher income consumer. So those tend to be
Speaker 2: the demographics we see and that really hasn't changed since
Speaker 2: we launched, but definitely seeing more women betters coming in,
Speaker 2: which is a great thing.
Speaker 3: I'm interested in sort of the fundamentals of the business
Speaker 3: in large part not dictated by you, But how what
Speaker 3: the outcome of the games are, I mean, customer friendly
Speaker 3: wins with something that hit the numbers and the last
Speaker 3: time that you came on and discussed them, So how
Speaker 3: do you managed to navigate that and control your own destiny?
Speaker 2: Well, there is always that, and you know this is
Speaker 2: a business where we are taking a side of the action,
Speaker 2: so there's going to be volatility in the results over time.
Speaker 2: That normalizes. So the things that we can control or
Speaker 2: what we focus on, which are making sure we provide
Speaker 2: a great, great product for our customers and trying to
Speaker 2: create more ways for them to bet and more ways
Speaker 2: for them to engage, and you know, making sure we
Speaker 2: have a really great back end operation to our trading.
Speaker 2: Risk management is a plus, using our marketing to help
Speaker 2: drive parlays and other forms of betting that we think
Speaker 2: are good for margins and good customer So those are
Speaker 2: the things we focus on and the outcomes will be
Speaker 2: the outcomes. There's been some years that we've had good years.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, we had a good year. Last year,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty twenty four wasn't. But it definitely can
Speaker 2: vary year to year and that's part of the business.
Speaker 2: But overall it doesn't really change fundamentals or the trajectory
Speaker 2: of our business.
Speaker 1: Well, growth drivers going forward for Generative AI, of course
Speaker 1: is being kind of the key driver for a lot
Speaker 1: of companies out there. How is Draftking starting to incorporate
Speaker 1: this across the business? Any chance we could see any
Speaker 1: tasks taken over by AI versus a human.
Speaker 2: In the short term, we think generative AI is a
Speaker 2: huge opportunity and it's really more about getting better outcomes
Speaker 2: for our customers. Efficiency internally is simply a means to
Speaker 2: an end for that. So everything from how do we
Speaker 2: make sure we have great customer service and using chatbot
Speaker 2: and AI do that, to making sure that our products
Speaker 2: are as interactive as possible and easy to use as possible,
Speaker 2: lots of areas for us to play AI really across
Speaker 2: the entire business. A good chunk of our code. I
Speaker 2: think I read a memo recently about fifteen percent something
Speaker 2: like that of our code right now is being written
Speaker 2: by generator of AI. So we really feel like we
Speaker 2: have a long way to go, but also are seeing
Speaker 2: some great traction with internal adoption.
Speaker 3: Jason Robbins has been great having you on thirty one
Speaker 3: buys on the stock zero Sells, and I'm sure you
Speaker 3: might be having a great time this weekend. Jason Robin
Speaker 3: draft King, CEO, thanks for stopping by.