Daily fantasy sports leader turned sports betting giant DraftKings may be one of the leaders in the US betting industry, but its stock has been sinking like a stone since the fall. On Monday, DraftKings’ share price closed below $11, its lowest point since the company went public in April 2020.
Monday’s closing price was $10.99, up slightly after hitting an intraday low of $10.92. It finished 16.4% on the day. The stock had a slight bounce on Tuesday, closing at $11.36.
The stock is down 84.2% from its all-time high of $71.98, reached in March 2021.
Perhaps interesting, DraftKings’ first quarter results, reported Friday, were fairly positive. It reported revenue of $417.2 million, beating Wall Street estimates of $414.85 million. That’s 34% increase year-over-year. The number of unique players was also up 29% to 2 million. Average revenue per player was up 11% to $67.
So what’s the problem? DraftKings is simply not profitable and now especially, in a bear market, investors are not keen on unprofitable companies, even if they might have a promising future. Earnings per share were worse than expected, -$1.22 per share versus an estimated -$1.16. Total earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) were -$289.5 million, compared with -$139.3 million in Q1 2021.
Strong customer growth does have DraftKings optimistic. The company now forecasts 2022 revenue to grow 49% to 56% to between $1.93 billion and $2.03 billion. On the flip side, EBITDA losses are expected to hit $760 million to $840 million. If there is a bright side to that, both estimates are improvements from the previous estimates of $1.85 billion to $2 billion in revenue and adjusted EBITDA losses of $825 million to $925 million.
DraftKings CEO Jason Robins remains upbeat about his company’s prospects, telling Action Network’s Darren Rovell that gambling doesn’t track to the overall economy.
“Our category has actually done really well during tough economic times,” Robins said. “People who take the time and put in the work to look at the past will find that in rough economic periods, gaming actually weathers the economic turbulence well. We should be beating the narrative out there.”
He also noted that DraftKings raised money at the right time, before the current downturn in the market, so “it’s literally the first time in our 10-year history that we are controlling our own destiny.”
Arguably the biggest reason for DraftKings (and other betting companies’) massive net losses despite customer and revenue growth is that achieving that top line growth is expensive. With sports betting continuing to be legalized in states across the US, DraftKings and its competitors have been spending tons of money, be it in traditional marketing or betting promotions, to gobble up market share.
Several companies have already slowed down that marketing spend, seeing it as an unsustainable way to compete.
