DraftKings records ‘significant growth’ in Q1 with ‘efficient’ acquisition

DraftKings Co-Founder and CEO Jason Robins has praised the company’s operational performance in Q1, which was headlined by efficient acquisition and retention following its launch in both New York and Louisiana
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DraftKings Co-Founder and CEO Jason Robins has praised the company’s operational performance in Q1, which was headlined by efficient acquisition and retention following its launch in both New York and Louisiana

Publishing its Q1 financials, DraftKings recorded revenue of $417m, up 34% year-on-year, driven by its B2C activities which recorded 44% YoY.

As aforementioned, the company expanded its standing in the mobile sports betting and igaming space, launching in New York and Louisiana. It means that DraftKings is live in 17 sports betting states and five igaming states, reaching 36% and 11% of the US population per vertical respectively. 

It also has plans to expand further, with Maryland, Puerto Rico and Ohio legalizing sports betting, whilst targeting Kansas – pending legislation passing through the state Senate. 

Despite making significant progress in acquiring new customers, such acquisitions do not come cheap and DraftKings paid the price, with its net loss swelling to $467.7m up from $346.3m in Q1 last year. 

However, such losses were expected, with adjusted EBITDA ‘outperforming the midpoint of guidance’ for Q1, despite losses more than doubling to $289.5m from $139.3m one year ago. 

“DraftKings delivered significant growth across our key revenue and performance metrics,” Robins remarked.

“We are not seeing any impact from inflationary pressures on customer demand, and we continue to improve the user experience by adding breadth and depth to our DFS, mobile sports betting and iGaming products. We are also improving our efficiency in acquiring and retaining customers and have a strong pipeline of new jurisdictions to enter.”

Boasting its strong customer acquisition and retention strategy, DraftKings noted an uptick in Monthly Unique Payers to two million paying customers, a 29% increase YoY. 

Furthermore, its average revenue per MUP was $67 in Q1 2022, increasing by 11% YoY, attributed to strong customer engagement and continuous revenue mix shift into igaming products.

Following ‘strong growth’ in Q1, the company raised its full-year revenue guidance from $1.85bn to $2.0bn to a range of $1.925bn to $2.025bn, which would equate to YoY growth of 49% to 56%.
Jason Park, DraftKings CFO, added, “We are pleased with our strong revenue and Adjusted EBITDA performance in the first quarter, which was driven by healthy underlying customer behavior and our ability to capture efficiencies. Therefore, we are increasing the midpoint of our fiscal year 2022 revenue guidance by $50m and improving the midpoint of our fiscal year 2022 Adjusted EBITDA guidance by $75m.”