America first
DraftKings’ CEO says timing not right for global push
International expansion “doesn’t feel like it has to be now,” says Robins.
In +More: Gambling.com upsizes debt; BetMGM sheds staff.
Earnings TL;DR: Flutter, Lottomatica, Genius Sports and mining the 10-Ks.
Venture playground: SSTrader is the growth company focus.
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Homebodies
You’re the first, you’re the last, my everything: Jason Robins, CEO at DraftKings, said any M&A this year was a “big if” and predicted the company “might go the whole year and not do anything” when it comes to deals.
Speaking during a fireside chat at a Morgan Stanley TMT conference yesterday, Robins poured cold water on hopes the company might venture into international acquisitions.
DraftKings has ambitions to be a global gaming company, but Robins said the management team “doesn’t feel like it has to be now.”
“If the right opportunity presented itself, we would consider it,” he added. “But it’s not like we are saying, hey, we’ve got to figure out a way to get global in the next 12 to 24 months.”
Wrapped in the flag: Robins reiterated his previous commentary that any international deal would need to pass a “high bar” to be considered. “We are fortunate in that we’re in a position where we feel we have many years of growth ahead of us in the US and Canada,” he said.
He added that the company also recognized the potential for “anything we might do” via M&A internationally to “be a distraction.”
“So the bar has to be extremely high for that,” he added. “We may get to a point where we say, look, that’s something that we need to really get more serious about for the next phase of growth. But we’re not there now.”
One eye open: More long-term, Robins also pointed out that it would be “irresponsible” for the company not to “have an eye” on international and to “pay attention to what’s happening to see if there are any organic or inorganic opportunities.”
“The fortunate position we’re in now as a company [is] we don’t feel like we have to do anything other than execute on the core and we’ll do just fine,” he said.
“And so it gives us the great luxury of being able to be extremely selective if we do choose to do anything else.”
Don't talk to me about Texas! DraftKings’ largest deal last year was the $750m it laid out for Jackpocket, yet when asked about any learnings from the deal Robins failed to mention the decision in late February of the Texas Lottery Commission to ban lottery couriers.
Watching brief: Asked about prediction markets, where the CFTC is holding a roundtable in the coming weeks to discuss the potential for allowing sports trading, Robins said the betting operators would “have to see how this plays out.”
Not full fat: On rival Flutter’s earnings call yesterday, CEO Peter Jackson said it "could be an interesting market.”
But he added that prediction markets lacked the breadth and depth of markets that are part of the full sportsbook experience.
“I think it’s worth recognizing that the products themselves lack the richness of a true sportsbook offering.”
The 49ers: Notably, after both Robins and Jackson spoke yesterday, the Nevada Gaming Control Board issued a cease-and-desist letter to prediction market operator Kalshi, accusing the company of “unlawful” gaming. See tomorrow’s Compliance+More.
Upsize: Robins was speaking on the same day that DraftKings announced it had closed on its previously announced new term loan debt, bringing in $600m vs. the $500m originally sought after encountering “strong” investor demand.
The company repeated the new cash will be used for general corporate pulses, though the expectation is that it is borrowing to fund a share buyback.
Come on in, the water’s lovely: Robins said that his CFO Alan Ellingson had “convinced” him to “dip a toe in the debt markets” despite not having an “immediate need for cash.”
“We’ll consider how we want to use it,” he added. “If we see the right opportunity, we could potentially accelerate some of the buybacks.”
He added that the debt deal was “more about getting our feet wet in the debt markets, getting lenders used to us and getting them comfortable with us.
“We were very pleasantly surprised in many ways with the reception we got.”
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+More
Headroom: Gambling.com has upsized the total amount of credit available to it to $165m, up from its previous facilities of $100m, while extending the maturity date to February 2028. The new facilities – a $75m term loan and a $90m revolver – are provided by a syndicate of lenders, including Wells Fargo, Axos Bank and First-Citizens Bank. Elias Mark, CFO, said the debt would give the company flex and support “organic expansion and strategic acquisition initiatives.”
BetMGM is reported to have laid off 83 staff at its New Jersey headquarters with the departures set for the end of this month. The news came in a public notice posted with the NJ Department of Labor.
Belle Corporation, the partner of Melco Resorts with the City of Dreams Manila property, said it is not interested in buying out the share of the property it does not own. The statement came after Melco said last week it was exploring its options with regard to its ownership stake.
The UK high-end bookie Fitzdares is shuttering its operations in Ontario as of the end of this month after two years in the market. The license was set to expire April 3. Note, the company saw the departure of CEO William Woodhams in January.
Adact now: Gambling sector-focused marketing outfit Optimove has bought Adact, a provider of gamification marketing solutions, for an undisclosed sum. Adact’s platform enables brands to create interactive gamification experiences, including lotteries, quizzes, prediction games and branded mini-games, and Optimove said the acquisition would bolster its own “AI-orchestrated” offering.
Earnings TL;DR
Flutter Entertainment
Podium retention: The largest gaming company in the world by market cap made the case for retaining its top spot after brushing off the problems caused by the customer-friendly NFL results in Q4 and promising adj. EBITDA profits in the year ahead of around $3.2bn.
Super heroes: FanDuel is the “clear #1” in the US and, internationally, the UK and Italy provide continued strength through the Sky Bet, Paddy Power and Sisal brands.
CEO Peter Jackson was dismissive of the disruption caused by adverse NFL results. “More favorites won than would normally have happened,” he said. “I think that’s a simple answer.”
Choose life: The company showcased its customizable YourWay betting offering, with CEO Peter Jackson claiming it was solving “real-world” problems for its customers and would be a major innovation globally.
Quick takes: The company will complete on its Snai and NSX deals in the months ahead but, noting the leverage of 2.3x, analysts are already pointing to further, bigger, M&A deals ahead.
See the Earnings Extra being sent later this morning for more. E+M PRO subscribers only.
Lottomatica
In the blood: Asked about looking outside of Italy for further M&A, CEO Guglielmo Angelozzi said any deal would be dependent on whether the company thought it could “add value” whether through the application of tech or through gaming scale.
“We’re not going to sit on excess cash,” he promised. “M&A is in the DNA of the company.”
However, he went on to suggest that another option for deployment aside from accretive M&A was share buybacks and dividend returns.
To this end, the company will be seeking authorization at this year’s AGM to buy back up to 10% of the company’s outstanding shares.
Staying power: The company saw 50% YoY growth in online revenues in 2024 and a whopping 61% uplift in Q4 alone. “Online growth is here to stay,” said Angelozzi.
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra. E+M PRO subscribers only.
Genius Sports
The vision thing: Appropriately enough for a company promoting the benefits of its BetVision offering, Genius Sports’ CFO Nick Taylor said it entered 2025 with a clearer vision of the 12 months ahead as it unveiled guidance for the year, with adj. EBITDA expected to grow by 46%.
“Our strategy hasn’t changed,” Taylor said of the guidance. “We’ve simply entered the year with more visibility and confidence.”
For 2024, Genius saw revenue rise 24% to over $500m while Q4 revenue leapt by 38% to $176m and adj. EBITDA near-enough tripled to $32.3m.
The company indicated there were “no gaps” in its business model but did suggest that tuck-in acquisition would be considered if they were accretive.
CEO Mark Locke said the company had looked at some of the “bigger deals out there” but, crucially, they were “fairly unattractive.”
Quick takes: Macquarie analysts noted Genius raised $144m from top shareholders to be used for corporate purposes and M&A.
Price action: Genius defied a difficult day for the markets generally with a near-12% share price leap.
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra. E+M PRO subscribers only.
Mining the 10-Ks
Money in the bank: For all the talk of a sub-standard market share, the Disney organization can console itself by counting the cash rolling in from the guaranteed $150m that Penn Entertainment has to spend in advertising as part of the ESPN Bet agreement.
In Penn's 10-K, the company stated it spent $407m in 2024 on media and advertising for its interactive segment.
The 10-K footnotes showed $179m of that went directly to Disney as part of its licensing agreement.
A further $67.9m in warrants as per the investment agreement was included in that $407m figure.
This compares with $144.9m spent on advertising in 2023 and $76.1m in 2022.
See Monday’s Earnings Extra. E+M PRO subscribers only.
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Venture playground
Growth company news
Kero Gaming (today’s Venture Playground sponsor) has announced a deal with EveryMatrix and its OddsMatrix sports-betting odds feed business for the distribution of its suite of traditional and contextual soccer-led micro markets.
The pair said that basketball, baseball and American football will follow later this year.
Growth company focus – SSTrader
Who are you? Founded in 2021 by Georgi Apostolov, a trading director, and Tihomir Ganev, a full-stack developer, the Bulgaria-headquartered AI analytics company is led by Boris Chaikin.
What’s the big idea? SSTrader started as a platform enabling traders to build custom prediction models, using intricate filters – such as shots on target, corners and game momentum – to automate betting strategies. Recognizing a growing appetite for AI-driven content, it expanded to introduce more core products:
AI Tipster Smart Feed – a real-time data feed providing advanced insights, including expected goals (xG), pressure index, expected corners and live player props across various sports. The feed “empowers operators to deliver highly personalized, market-specific content,” says Apostolov.
ChatSST – the “world’s first chatbot for soccer predictions”, claims Apostolov, “makes top-tier analytics accessible” to all. The bot will soon cover basketball, tennis and American football.
AI Smart TV (aka SST AI Television) brings a “Bloomberg-style” sports data channel to retail bookmakers, delivering real-time predictions, trends and analytics.
KPIs: SSTrader’s initial platform organically gained hundreds of subscribers. A subsequent integration with Bulgarian operator Palmsbet.com saw a 75% adoption rate of the chatbot.
Funding backgrounder: The company remains bootstrapped. “This independence ensures our primary focus remains on the delivery of transformative AI solutions rather than short-term gains,” explains Apostolov.
Funding news
Tickets to the dance: The micro-markets provider nVenue has completed a new funding round, bringing in new strategic investors FDJ Ventures, The Collectiv and DigitalWin, and including a further follow-on investment from lead investor KB Partners. The sum was not disclosed.
The involvement of FDJ is a “win-win,” according to the director of the Ventures arm, Pierre Brousseau, who said the company hoped to help them with the resources available from “FDJ x Kindred.”
nVenue CEO Kelly Pracht added that FDJ’s experience in OSB and gaming “brings tremendous value as nVenue introduces real-time betting technology to new markets.”
FDJ Ventures is FDJ Group’s investment fund in startups and has a €110m+ investment capacity in startups operating in a variety of tech areas including gaming.
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