Reverse ferret
DraftKings backtracks on player surcharge
Post-close announcement follows Flutter’s ‘no winners tax’ comments.
Flutter raises guidance for FanDuel.
Sportradar produces ‘beat and raise’ earnings.
Startup focus is crypto-based games developer BitBlox.
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U-turn
Walking it back: DraftKings has rescinded its plans to introduce a player surcharge in higher tax states announced less than a fortnight ago, after Peter Jackson, CEO at major rival Flutter Entertainment, said it had “no plans to introduce a surcharge for winners.”
Listen and learn: DraftKIngs’ backtrack came after the market closed via a posting on X, in which it said “we always listen to our customers,” and that after hearing the feedback it had “decided not to move forward” with plans that were unveiled alongside its own Q2 earnings.
“We are always committed to delivering the best value to our loyal customers.”
Just me, then: At the time of the announcement, CEO Jason Robins said “every company has to do what’s best for their own business” and argued that if DraftKings had concluded a players surcharge was the answer to higher taxes “then others would come to the same conclusion.”
However, this has proved not to be the case.
Rush Street Interactive was the only one prior to last night to publicly state it wouldn’t go down the same route.
Penn Entertainment had been more equivocal, with CEO Jay Snowden saying during its Q2 call the company would “observe” the customer reaction. Similar comments came from BetMGM co-parent Entain.
Analysis from HoldCrunch, meanwhile, had suggested DraftKings would lose more in market share than it might gain from introducing the levy.
Now what? Analysts at Truist said DraftKings would now face questions as to what it will do to mitigate the impact of higher tax rates in the four states where the surcharge was to be applied from January 1, namely Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
The team noted Flutter’s comments last night that it felt “moderating levels of generosity or indeed reducing local marketing is the best response.”
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Smashing it
Gimme a beat: Flutter CEO Peter Jackson spoke about FanDuel enjoying an “exceptional” quarter after the company upped its revenue to $6.2bn, 2% better than previously, and adj. EBITDA guidance for the year up 4% to $740m.
“We’ve got the best product in the market,” Jackson said.
“We’ve got the best pricing in the market, and we intend to work very hard to keep a long way ahead of our competitors.”
FanDuel boasted of having 38% total market share, 51% of sportsbook NGR and 25% of iCasino, which Jackson noted on the call has now moved to an in-house tech stack.
By the numbers: US revenue rose 39% to £1.53bn while adj. EBITDA was up 51% to $260m. Jackson said Q3 adj. EBITDA for the US business would be negative before rebounding in Q4.
Total revenues came in at $3.61bn, up 22%, with the total ex-US business up 11% to $2.08bn.
UK & Ireland revenue rose 17% to $928m, international was up 16% to $807m but Australia fell by 9% to $349m.
Group adj. EBITDA was up 17% to $738m, with the ex-US business up 4% to $478m. Free cash flow came in at $171m vs a cash outflow last year and leverage fell to 2.6x.
He who Laffer’s last: Asked about the calculations in higher-tax jurisdictions, Jackson made the point that Flutter was “familiar with the Laffer curve” and the concept of the tax-take declining when rates rise.
“There are optimal points for taxation to be set,” he added.
“There’s a happy medium for tax rates that enables operators to maximize market growth, provides the best experience for customers and, over time, maximizes revenue for states.”
The graduated tax in Illinois that “punishes those who have invested the most to grow their businesses is wrong.”
The net effect was customers would be driven to offshore operators or “potentially to onshore operators who are operating unregulated and untaxed sport parlays under the guise of sweepstakes.”
Podium: Flutter was this week the subject of a rumored buyout of the Betnacional outfit in Brazil and, when asked about potential M&A, Jackson was enigmatic. “We look at more or less everything that gets traded in our space,” he said.
On Brazil, Jackson said Flutter was “well-positioned” with the Betfair and PokerStars brands but that “we are ambitious, right?
“We like to have podium positions and I really would like to have gold medal positions,” he added.
+More
Hudl, a provider of cloud-based technology connecting video and data for the sports industry, has announced the acquisition of sports data solution company StatsBomb. The sale price was not disclosed.
Also in betting-related M&A, Parleh Media, which produces the Gaming News Canada newsletter, is to be snapped up by digital media company Lazarus Agency for C$5m ($3.6m).
Gaming & Leisure Properties has closed a $1.2bn offering of senior unsecured notes. The debt was issued in two tranches, with the first $800m due in September 2034 and the remaining $400m due in September 2054.
GLP said it would use the debt to fund its previously announced transactions, to repay debt or other general business purposes.
Betegy, Pliable and Splash Tech are the three latest additions to Kambi’s third-party supplier ecosystem. Meanwhile, Salsa Technology and First Sportsbook have expanded their partnership to launch in Brazil.
Following its recent acquisition of the Australian Betr, BlueBet has rebranded its Australian operation under that name.
Progressive ’radar
All cylinders: Sportradar made “notable progress” in Q2, according to Jefferies, after it produced a beat and raise earnings report showing revenues up 29% to €278m and with adj. EBITDA rising 22% to €49m.
The company now expects FY24 revenues of €1.07bn and adj. EBITDA of at least €204m.
The betting content and solution business saw revenues rise 30% to €229m while the sports content, tech and services division was up 22% to €49.3m.
Bill of rights: On the call with analysts, CEO Carsten Koerl noted the success of the managed trading services arm, which has added 46 additional sportsbooks in the YTD and saw revenue rise 21%.
More generally, he noted the company has recently extended its partnership with FanDuel to 2031.
On fears of escalating rights deals, Koerl said Sportradar doesn’t see any “major uptick” in the next couple of years.
“We will lose and replace some rights,” he said. “We have the main pillars of our portfolio. This year, MBA and ATP was a major step up for us.”
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Earnings in brief
DoubleDown Interactive: CEO In Keuk Kim said the social casino-to-RMG operator is now “fine-tuning” its plans for the SuprNation business it incorporated in November last year following the $36.5m acquisition.
He added that DDIs financial strength – it has cash on the balance sheet of $269m – gave it an “excellent financial foundation” to pursue opportunities to expand into new markets both organically and via M&A.
By the numbers: Total revenues for the company rose 17% to $88.2m while adj. EBITDA was up 34% to $37m. Social casino was worth $80.3m while the SuprNation iCasino business generated revenues of $7.9m.
Melco Resorts: Revenue rose 22% to $1.16bn while adj. property EBITDA was up 13% to $303m. Within that, the flagship City of Dreams in Macau saw revenues rise 14% to $576m. But, CEO Lawrence Ho admitted on the call with analysts the company was currently “reinvesting” in the gaming floor to maintain its premium mass leadership.
Talking about the promotional environment at the beginning of Q2, Evan Winkler, president, said that after “flooding the floor” with snacks “everyone in Macau was at risk of diabetes.”
“We pulled that back,” he added.
Catena Media: New CEO Manuel Stan and an equally new top management team has its work cut out after the affiliate provider said revenues continued to fall in Q2, down 14% to €12.8m, with adj. EBITDA cratering to a mere €0.7m. Margins are now just 5%.
As previously advised, the downturn was related to the changes made by Google affecting Catena’s media partnerships.
Raketech: Revenue fell slightly to €17m while adj. EBITDA was down 20% to €4.4m, with growth in sub-affiliation operations failing to make up for a decline in its own Casumba affiliate marketing. The company said a “comprehensive business audit” has been completed in connection with the recent Google update.
Venture playground
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Startup focus – Bitblox
Who are you? The Isle of Man-licensed Bitblox was first incorporated in April 2023, and the idea was really to create a new vertical that “disrupts the online gaming space as we know it,” says CEO Brandt Page, whose background lies in investment banking..
“We settled on the idea of offering crypto prediction games based on the price of Bitcoin,” he adds, but simplified and with elements from other areas of gaming, such as slots and crash games.
What’s the big idea? There are, of course, already plenty of slots and games that allow players to gamble with cryptocurrency. But Bitblox is the “only games provider to offer crypto prediction games.”
“The concept is very easy to understand: players can guess whether the price of Bitcoin will go up or down over a period of either 20 or 60 seconds,” says Brandt.
“Ultimately, we’re giving bettors the chance to understand crypto without having to touch it.”
At launch in May, Bitblox tested its ‘Up or Down?’ game with a range of different players and the feedback was that players wanted the time interval to be quicker. So the company developed a ‘Turbo’ version.
The crypto-games provider already has its eyes on the LatAm markets. “Players have shown a preference for quick content, making our games well-suited to bettors across the region,” says Brandt.
Funding backgrounder: Bitblox has a number of angel investors on board and is currently in the process of closing out a seed round.
Growth company news
Sports-betting community provider BetBoard and Splash Sports, the parent company of OfficeFootballPool and RunYourPool, have signed a new affiliate partnership.
BetBoard will feature as a Startup Focus in the August 28 Midweek Memo.
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