DraftKings Inc. (NASDAQ:DKNG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jason Robins: Well, there’s always seasonality in the business. So naturally, we’re going to do best during heavy sports periods on the cross-sell fronts, more activity in the platform. So, we’ve embedded that in. But yes, I think as far as like when you adjust for that and look at where we are today, I would say, yes, although the January report is brand new. So I can’t say that we necessarily like looked at the implications of that. But more so, what we do is we look at the underlying cohort data, and we bake in adjustments for seasonality as well as any other initiatives or efforts or actions that we plan on taking.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Joe Stauff with SIG. Your line is open.

Joe Stauff: I wanted to follow up and ask on user growth. Jason, you had mentioned, and certainly, we can observe this that states are — they’re ramping so much faster. And so I guess, what is the right way to think about kind of how long it takes you to reach that sort of golden cohort now it is, I guess, maybe versus a year, 1.5 years ago? And then I had one follow-up, please.

Jason Robins: Well, it’s a great question, Joe. I think this is a tricky one because as we compare states, there’s differences in time of year. So, we talk about Arizona ramping quickly. That was in September. And then you try to compare that to a state like Ohio or Maryland that launched Maryland towards the end of the year, Ohio Jan 1, or Massachusetts that we expect to launch in March. And you have to — there’s only a limited number of data points when you have all those different variables to really be able to say. But I think that’s sort of a big-picture level. The implication is, one, there’s probably some deeper investment upfront. So I think that what we’ve been really happy to see is that we’ve actually, at least through 2022, been able to absorb that by finding efficiencies throughout the rest of the business.

If you look at the letter, we basically funded all of the state launches in 2022 through finding cost efficiencies elsewhere in the business. But then the other implication of it is that the inflection towards contribution profit positive happens sooner. You get greater operating leverage sooner, which means more upside from a revenue and profitability standpoint sooner. So, I think that’s kind of the way to think about it. Exactly how it ends up netting out over the course of the year, I think we need a little bit more data to see. But at a macro level, that’s kind of how I describe it. And it is — no matter what, whether you take seasonality, anything else, it is unequivocally observably true that states are ramping much faster than they were three, four years ago.

Joe Stauff: That makes sense. And then maybe just a follow-up on structural hold in general. You certainly mentioned that the new in-house NBA same-game parlay sort of capabilities that you had launched, and I was wondering I know at least for part of your NFL product, you do outsource same-game parlay. I’m wondering if your ’23 guide includes bringing that in-house.

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