Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Let's dive in to one that is showing stronger user growth down one point six percent.
I'm talking about DraftKings.
We're looking at Jason Robbins, the CEO now, who managed to deliver what was record second quarter performance.
Your revenue up thirty seven percent year.
On year, and you're talking about delivering revenue closer to the high end of twenty twenty five for the full year. So what's the investor digestion going on?
Do you think? Well?
I think right now, we have a ton of momentum in the business. We also had some good luck on the sport outcome side in Q two, so that was nice, and we're geared up for what is the most important time of year coming up with NFL and then obviously college sports, NBA World Series, NHL just a big, big time a year. It's when we make our most revenue and acquire most customers and make our most adjusted ebitas.
So really excited for that. I think we have some great plans in place, and you know, really expecting strong growth in the back part of the year.
I mean, your shares are up twenty percent year to date, so it might be why we come off a little bit from our highs overall, But what about the core value drivers here? Like we're talking about, you know, the sports book friendly outcomes.
You talk about how the calendar.
Is looking good for you, But where else do you focus on investing because you'r CFO in particular, Alan talking about some growth initiatives and everyone's wondering about these prediction markets that might or might not come to bear.
Well, even if you adjust for the outcomes, we were still up twenty five percent revenue wise year over year, so really healthy growth. And I think we're seeing, you know, just very strong demand in our underlying customer cohorts. And I also think the advancements we've made on the product side have been huge. We've really built out our parlay offering. Now we have the best in class and leading offering
when it comes to in game betting. That's become the real growth driver of the industry right now, by far more growth happening and live betting than anywhere else. So I think really we positioned ourselves well from a product and customer experience perspective. Our marketing has been very effective. I also think on the internal side, we've gained a ton of efficiency through use of AI, which means we're getting more done for the customer and also saving money.
Okay, like, what how you managing to interject generative AI across the board?
I mean, the simple thing that we've been able to do is get everyone in the company to realize that they can drive value and it doesn't have to be the engineering team doing everything. So much of tooling right now through AI can be used by non engineers and everyone throughout the company knows that there's tons of manual workflows that can be automated through AI, and we've been
on a tear doing that. We've also been working on select projects that are customer facing too, things like optimizing our trading engine because a human can't possibly take in all of the data and all the things happening at the same time when a live game is going on, So having AI agents support that and help make lower level decisions, I think is also a huge unlocked that we're pursuing. So I think the best is yet to come as far as AI, and we've got a ton of organizational momentum around it.
And when you talk about the adoption by your own employees, thinking about how they can drive efficiency is efficiency what's necessary at the moment when you do have a few well known headwinds coming up in terms of just costs, I mean the tax implications that you're getting Illinois, or what's happening over in New Jersey for example. I'm also thinking about well, Missouri, you're like expanding, but that takes a cost upfront.
Now, you're absolutely right. I think that being able to self fund some of these things through efficiency gains with AI has been a big driver of our focus. Also, I think there's other parts of the cost structure that we found that we have value that can be achieved too. So really, you know, it's always a balance for us. We're obviously very much in growth mode now we had thirty seven percent year over year revenue growth, but we also are constantly looking at how we can be more efficient,
and we view the two is very linked. Oftentimes, where you do things that are more efficient, it freeze up better time to be spent on, you know, better things for the customer as well.
So I go back to the expansion potentially into prediction markets. I mean, I know it's about federal regulation in many ways, Jason, but what gets you there.
What gets you tipping your toe into it?
Oh, I don't know that we are going to We're still evaluating our options. Obviously it's brand new, and you know we're watching it unfold right before our eyes, and we're learning a lot as we get educated on the space. So right now that's been our focus and you know, we'll see what happens from there.
You have but one cell rating morning Star. What would you say to analyst over a morning style that convinces them to say, look, at the moment, our price point is where its should be.
Actually, I'm looking up the wrong one.
Let me go to my proper DraftKings analyst recommendations.
Sorry, live interaction with the terminal.
Right now, I have analyst recommendations a zero of cell ratings, but you have five buys what holds? What gets your five holds to a by rating?
Jason, I think just continuing to prove ourselves performing over time is what gives people confidence in a company. And we've been public five years now, so we have a bit of a track record, but we're still a relatively new public company and I've only been profitable for the last year or so, so I think really showing that we can now grow our bottom line while continuing to post impressive top line numbers. That's our focus and I think that'll get more people on board.
Thirty two buys fives holds zero cells. Jason Robins Draftking CEO, we thank you very much.
Indeed,