Everything everywhere all at once

Robinhood CEO makes the pitch for being the ‘everything trading’ app

Feb 14, 2025

Vlad Tenev sets sights on prediction markets, seeks regulatory clarity.
DraftKings: December hold knocks Q4 adj. EBITDA. Call later today.
In +More: Deutsche Bank sees signals in MGM Resorts buyback noise.
Earnings TL;DR: MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts.

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One direction

Vlad the inhaler: After the one-day dalliance with a market on the Super Bowl, Vlad Tenev, CEO of the everything financial trading app provider Robinhood, stressed on the company’s Q4 earnings call that prediction markets were “the future, not just as an active trading asset, but also news and information.”

Noting Robinhood’s debut with a Presidential election market last November, he said the product was “very successful” with over half-a-billion contracts traded in the week leading up to the vote.

Number one in heaven: Speaking more widely, Tenev asserted his ambitions for the company. “Our priorities remain being #1 in active traders, #1 in wallet share for the next generation, and building the #1 global financial ecosystem,” he said.

👀 Of note, the company’s new Gold Card, launched last year, has over 100k cardholders while the fee-paying Gold subscriber base is now over 2 million customers.
“Customers love trading everything in one place – stocks, options, crypto and now futures. No one else does this at our scale,” Tenev said.

To boldly go: Tenev’s prediction market wording bears resemblance to the statement issued late last week by Caroline Pham, the acting CEO of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announcing a prediction markets roundtable.

Pham said prediction markets were an “important new frontier,” which could assess sentiment to determine probabilities that can bring truth to the Information Age.
Her comment that the CFTC must “break with its past hostility to innovation” suggests Robinhood is pushing at an open door.
The news that a16z’s Brian Quintenz is set to be President Trump’s pick for permanent chair reinforces this impression.

The outer edges of the envelope: On the call, Tenev suggested what the analysts could expect later in the year was a “comprehensive events platform that will give access to prediction markets across a wide variety of contracts.”

However, he added that, “as with any new innovative asset class,” there was as yet a lack of “regulatory clarity” but that Robinhood was “pushing the boundaries here,” in particular with sports.
Hood’s wink: Recall, in December the company signalled during an investor presentation it was “keenly” looking at offering sports-based events markets.

Powerhouse: Tenev was speaking after Robinhood revealed it had broken the $1bn barrier for quarterly earnings, representing a 58% YoY increase. Adj. EBITDA rose 160% YoY to $1.4bn with an EBITDA margin of 48%.

Token words: Another area of intense interest for Robinhood is the crypto ecosystem and the potential of broadening its token offering. Tenev said Robinhood is “uniquely positioned at the intersection of traditional finance and crypto,” though again it is waiting on regulatory clarity.

The platform has added seven new tokens since the election, taking its total to ~20.
But this is set to accelerate: rival Coinbase currently offers trading on 250 tokens.

What we’re reading: Has the meme-stock kid finally come of age?

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DraftKings’ earnings

Tumble brag: The company reaffirmed its 2025 adj. EBITDA guidance of $950m-$1bn and nudged its forecast for revenues up by $50m to a midpoint $6.45bn. But the documented sportsbook hold issues in October and then in December saw Q4 adj. EBITDA tumble by nearly 41% YoY.

It left FY24 adj. EBITDA at $181m vs. the loss of $151m in the prior-year period.
Recall, in November the company cut its guidance for FY24 adj. EBITDA guidance for the second quarter in a row, lowering its estimate for the year to $240m-$280m.
The company said the results in December knocked a further $104m off its expected adj. EBITDA.

Break out: The company also broke out sports-betting and iCasino figures for the first time, with the first generating $825m in revenue in Q4 while the latter contributed revenue of $426m. Both represented their best quarters in the company’s history.

Bowl bets: The company said Q1 was off to a decent start with both revenue and adj. EBITDA exceeding expectations in January. It said it broke its own daily sportsbook handle record on the day of the Super Bowl at $436m.

Further, it said that with SGPs increasing by ~40% YoY, it meant the company also enjoyed the highest sportsbook single-day GGR in its history.

Quick takes: JMP analysts said Q4 was “not as bad as was feared” and said guidance for 2025 was conservative. “It has been clear that YTD trends are off to a solid start, highlighted by the Super Bowl exceeding expectations,” the team added.

Truist said they believed the shares would “respond positively.” They were up over 5% in after-hours trading.

E+M PRO reminder

Sign up: An Earnings Extra edition will be sent to subscribers of the E+M PRO service after DraftKings hosts its call with the analysts this afternoon. Click here to subscribe and start receiving Earnings Extra editions for £99 a month or £999 a year. Group subscriptions are available.

E+M PRO subscribers have this week received extra editions covering the Q4 earnings of Red Rock Resorts, MGM Resorts and, earlier this morning, Wynn Resorts.

+More

Bullish: Kalshi has announced it is partnering with brokerage provider Webull for event-contracts trading, but the broker said it has no plans to introduce sports-based contracts. “I do not believe that the regulatory environment is comfortable with that sort of process yet,” Webull CEO Anthony Denier told Bloomberg. “It is not worth it.”

Is this thing on? Discussing MGM Resorts’ Q4 earnings (see TL;DR below), the analysts at Deutsche Bank said the curbing of the company’s buyback activity in the quarter, when it only purchased $121m of its own shares will “surely lead to speculation that perhaps a deal was being evaluated, a thesis further augmented by recent management departures in the space.”

Done, dusted: Aristocrat has completed the strategic review of its casual gaming ops and finalized the sale of Plarium Global to Sweden’s Modern Times Group. The Big Fish business will now be solely focused on evergreen titles with no new titles to be added; the company will “retire” the Pixel United reporting unit. It will be replaced by Product Madness, which consists of the core social slot business.

Do you need help with your bagging? The Ohio-headquartered grocery store chain Kroger has launched a betting site that directs players to Penn Entertainment's ESPN Bet. According to a hometown news site, Kroger Play signage at 1,200 stores and gas stations nationwide offers a QR code for players to sign up with ESPN Bet and DFS site OwnersBox.

Codere Online has said it has been granted a continued listing on Nasdaq and will present its Q4 and FY24 earnings on February 20. The company said it continues to work diligently with its new auditor to complete and file its 2023 annual figures. Recall, its last auditor Marcum resigned in late December due to an “inability to complete certain audit procedures.”

Read across

Kind of blue: Stake’s UK-facing business has been given its marching orders by the UK Gambling Commission after its logo appeared on an X post from a porn star posing in front of a Nottingham Trent University building. Meanwhile, English football clubs have been given a warning over the promotion of unlicensed casino activity. In Compliance+More.

Earnings TL;DR

MGM Resorts: Offering greater insight into its own digital operations, MGM Resorts broke out digital earnings for the first time in its Q4 numbers, showing the unit – which does not include BetMGM – growing revenues by 15% to $140m.

Catching a flat: Group revenues were down 1% to $4.35bn, with MGM China and the Regionals business in positive territory, but with the Las Vegas Strip down 6% on a previously flagged poor F1 comp.
FY24 revenues rose 7% to $17.2bn, helped by a 25% leap for MGM China to $4bn. The unit also enjoyed a 25% segment adj. EBITDAR uplift, with CEO Bill Hornbuckle calling the business a “high-performing outlier” in the Macau market.
The shares enjoyed a near 18% bump yesterday.

Everything but the rent: CFO Jonathan Halkyard also disclosed a new “more familiar” measure for adj. EBITDA (earnings after rent), which was down 16.5% QoQ to $528m.

BetMGM’s iCasino performance was hailed, with Hornbuckle noting its podium position market share was 3x the fourth-placed competitor.
The share buybacks program will continue after a mammoth $14bn worth of stock was bought in 2024.
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra edition for more (paywall).

Wynn Resorts: Wynn’s positioning with high-end consumers in Las Vegas and Macau continued to pay off, with CEO Craig Billings noting the company’s success in “distancing” itself from its competitors.

Billings added that Wynn was “expeditiously” plowing on with the “most exciting development” project in the industry at Al Marjan in the UAE; it recently closed on a $2.4bn financing of the project.
Hub and spoke: Following the acquisition of Aspinall’s in London, Billings said Wynn was well-positioned for further “new market opportunities in gateway cities.”
Las Vegas continues to hit record numbers and the year has started strongly despite tough Super Bowl comps.
Macau remains “competitive but stable” with the higher-end premium outperforming.
Behemoth: Billings said Wynn builds “big, battleship-sized assets,” adding that in New York it would avoid the “winners’ curse” should it prove to be the beneficiary of a license.

In brief

Mohegan: Revenue climbed 17% in Q4 to $499m with adj. EBITDA up nearly 8% to $85.1m while net losses were pared back to $85.9m, an 11% improvement on the prior-year period. The figures were boosted by the growth at the INSPIRE resort casino in South Korea.

The international business was up 71% to $136m. The domestic casino business saw revenue rise 6% to $312m while the digital offering rose 47% to $53.1m.

Monarch Casino said Q4 revenue rose 5% YoY to $135m while adj. EBITDA was up 10% to $47m. In Reno, the company is nearing the completion of its $100m renovation program at the Atlantis. It said it continues to evaluate M&A potential.

Quick takes

Sportradar: The new deal extension with MLB announced last week puts the provider in a strong position due to the average length of its exclusive sports content deals now being extended out to around six years, said the Deutsche Bank team.

They added that as and when it comes around to renewals, Sportradar’s inherent strengths mean it will be “competitive,” with the equity positions of NBA, NHL and MLB helping to “align interest.”

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+More careers

The big move: Odds tech and data provider Abelson Info has effected a rebrand to Abelson Sports, with Jeevan Jeyaratnam taking on the newly created role of chief betting officer, having previously headed up the Abelson Odds division.

Ed Abelson continues as CEO while Simon Temple remains as COO.

Light & Wonder has promoted Nathan Drane to the post of chief product officer. He has been with the company since 2021. Former CPO Richard Schneider will stay on as senior advisor.

Connections

The big deal: The Australian-based fantasy sports and sports-betting operator Dabble has partnered with BetMakers Technology to assist its launch in the UK. Dabble will integrate BetMakers’ price manager technology and racelab form product.

Bet365 and Evolution have launched live dealer operations in New Jersey. Enteractive is to provide its customer engagement and activation services to BetMGM. Novomatic’s Greentube has launched its online slot portfolio with a second unspecified operator in Connecticut. An online sports-betting operator called Betzmark has debuted its online casino with content from LuckyStreak. Pragmatic Play’s online casino titles are now available on the Ivy Casino platform in the UK.

Venture capital firm Yolo Investments manages in excess of €500m in capital across 100 exciting fintech, gaming and blockchain companies. The Yolo Investments' Gaming fund, regulated by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, has taken positions in fast-growth suppliers and operators, including Dabble and Enteractive. Yolo Investments (yolo.io) wants to hear from readers of this newsletter. Get in touch with your pitch, or for a chat about innovative products which can plug into our investment ecosystem.

Upcoming earnings

Feb 14: DraftKings (call)
Feb 18: Gentoo Media, GiG Software
Feb 19: Raketech, Tabcorp
Feb 20: Better Collective (call), Churchill Downs (call), Codere Online
Feb 21: VICI Properties, GLP (call)

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