DraftKings Inc. (NASDAQ:DKNG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Bernard McTernan: Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Revenue growth has just been really explosive over the last couple of years, but the guidance for ’24 has the year-over-year growth stepping down. What are some of the tailwinds that have been supporting the revenue growth slowing as we move from ’23 to ’24?

Jason Robins: Yeah. I think it’s really just the size of the base increasing. I mean if you look at the absolute revenue growth, it’s actually close to $1 billion in our guide for next year. So very healthy growth, just certainly, as the base gets bigger, that percentage is going to be harder to keep in the 50, 60 plus range. So I think that’s really the big thing. Obviously, there’s an effect on new states that can either increase or if there’s a lack of new states to decrease that. So that’s something, as you think about long-term TAM always to keep an eye on. But I think really what we’re seeing next year because we still do see very healthy growth across all of our state cohorts. It’s just a matter of we’re coming off of a very large base of revenue. And adding $1 billion of revenue doesn’t give the same percentage or nearly $1 billion, I should say, doesn’t give the same percentage increase as it did in the past.

Bernard McTernan: Understood. Thanks, Jason.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Brandt Montour with Barclays. Your line is open.

Brandt Montour: Hey. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. So just one on iGaming, another quarter of sequential market share growth there. I’m curious if you call out sort of your OSB share, OSB momentum cross-sell as the main driver of that sequential share lift, how much growth in comparison to that, are you getting from penetration in the Golden side and sort of getting more of those older customers, those slots customers and growth from that angle. And if you saw any benefit in the quarter from disruption at a certain competitor that had a headline stuff in the news.

Jason Robins: Yeah. So I think really, the iGaming business, I mentioned a few questions ago, I think is under talked about. It’s just such a strong business, steady growth. And we just continue to be able to cross-sell better and acquire more efficiently as we get more data and test more things. So I think there’s a ton of upside as you see more states legalize iGaming there. We don’t have to reacquire a lot of the customers because such a large percentage of our share does come from cross-sell. The other thing I’d note that we got a little bit of boost on is we launched Golden Nugget in Pennsylvania. That was the first state, that Golden Nugget is actually on the DraftKings platform. So – very excited about that. We saw some really strong early results there and continue to feel really positive on the trajectory there.

And then we do expect to see more benefit from continuing to migrate Golden Nugget in other states. Pennsylvania was a new launch. We actually haven’t migrated any states yet. That’s all on the docket over the next couple of quarters, we’re going to migrate pretty much – we’re going to migrate every state for Golden Nugget online gaming. So really, I think that’s something that also contributed to a little bit of the share increase, and hopefully, there’s some more juice in that as we migrate these other states and continue to optimize the iGaming.

Brandt Montour: Great. Thank you.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Clark Lampen with BTIG. Your line is open.

William Lampen: Thanks. Good morning. Appreciate the question. I actually wanted to follow up on some of the comments that were just made around Golden Nugget. I know you launched the stand-alone app in Pennsylvania. In fact, kind of as you were saying, that means [indiscernible] migration is done or at least most of the heavy lifting is behind us. if I heard right, it also sounds like with direct cost guidance next year, that there really isn’t much in terms of savings contemplated. Could you remind us, I guess, as you’re moving the legacy product onto the Golden Nugget stack. Is this something that’s really going to benefit share? Are there other efficiencies that accrue to you guys, I guess, from move on to that stack or is it mainly I guess, sort of the share and then exploring, I guess, sort of first-party versus third-party product mix opportunities? Thanks.

Jason Robins: Yeah. So it’s a great question. We actually will get cost of goods sold synergy. There’s some timing things with contracts that have certain time frames that affect the timing of when those synergies will actually fully materialize. And what we determined is they’re not very material to next year, but they are there, and we do expect to see some impact on the cost savings side. And then as you also alluded to, I think there’s some upside on the revenue and share side as well given that we have pretty consistent data showing that our product and our platform converts new customers better, monetizes existing customers better, retains better. So really feel like there’s some upside there as well. And Golden Nugget one, the same kind of story.

We haven’t built in a massive share increase or anything there. So it will be interesting to see what we can do with that brand. Obviously, we have high hopes and are very excited about the migration coming up. And hopefully, there’s some upside in that for us. And it’s certainly been a contributor. I mean, as I noted, we did gain share on the DraftKings brand, too. But when you combine the two brands, we’re almost a 30% share now in iGaming, which is if you think about where we thought we could cap out a year or two ago was lower than that. So we’re pretty bullish on the iGaming opportunity and feel like lots of exciting potential tailwinds in the 2024 product road map there.

William Lampen: Does it enable you guys to be a little bit more aggressive, I guess, with first-party products next year also or should we think about, I guess, sort of the same relative mix that we saw sort of this year and in the past?

Jason Robins: I mean, certainly, as the iGaming business grows and you can amortize those investments over a much larger revenue base, it’s going to make more and more sense to invest in first-party products and bringing more and more things in-house, even on some of these tail games and things like long tail games, I should say, and things like that. So iGaming is such that we’ll always have third-party partners. There’s just certain content, whether it’s IP that we don’t have the rights to or otherwise that you want that others have. But I think as we continue to be able to build that base and have a larger revenue base to amortize our product investments over it’s going to make more and more sense to try to bring some of the longer tail games in-house.

And of course, we’re always and that hasn’t changed and won’t change trying to innovate and come up with new games that are differentiated and gain market share and also we’ll have the effect of, of course, cannibalizing third-party games as well. So that’s always something we’re doing. But I do think that as we increase the size of it, there will be just an economic argument that emerges on some of the longer tail games that doesn’t exist today.

William Lampen: Yeah. Makes sense. Thank you.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Michael Graham of Canaccord. Your line is open.

Michael Graham: Thank you. I want to follow up on the product development topic for a minute. You had such a great pace of innovation over the last couple of years. Like can that accelerate over the next couple? And related to that, one of the things we’ve seen historically from the great big tech giants, I’m thinking like Netflix, Google, Facebook, they’ve been able to institutionalize an engineering-led product development ethos that has really enabled them to kind of extend leadership over time. I’m just wondering how prominent that is in your strategic thinking?