While there was plenty of news to be written about the presidential election, the top story for the sports betting world was the popularity of election betting.
Among the platforms offering election bets outside of the US was DraftKings, which had Vice President Kamala Harris marked as the underdog.
The platform’s election betting even found its way into the company’s earnings call last week, with CEO Jason Robins telling reporters the non-sports betting sector has plenty of growth opportunities.
Election wagers lead the way for non-sports betting
After Robins gave a summary of DraftKings’ third-quarter results, he took questions from analysts at multiple financial institutions.
Ben Miller of Goldman Sachs asked Robins if non-sports betting markets could be a chance for growth or a danger to sports betting revenue.
Robins said non-sports betting markets were “very interesting.”
“The market within that that’s dominant is election markets, of course, and particularly during presidential elections,” Robins said. “So I know there’s a lot of attention on it over the last few weeks. And I do think there could be a place for it outside of elections, but that’s really where the interest seems to be now from a … customer demand side. So [it’s] definitely something we’re looking at in advance of [the] next presidential election, and potentially there will be an opportunity to look at something sooner.”
Parlays, promos are customer favorites
Robins started the call by focusing on two areas of DraftKings’ sports betting business: parlays and sports betting promos.
DraftKings’ parlay business was up five percentage points year over year. One of the driving factors behind that growth was a series of new NBA betting markets the company launched. If the NBA is your betting sweet spot, expect to see an expanded list of bets as the season moves through its second month of action.
The company’s margin on promo bets as a portion of gross gaming revenue increased 3% year over year. The promo numbers are impressive considering DraftKings’ customer base increased in Q3 with higher promo offers than were previously available.
Overall, DraftKings sportsbook gross gaming revenue jumped 39% year over year, CFO Alan Ellingson said during the call.
What’s ahead for DraftKings in 2025?
As it stands now, DraftKings believes it will close out the fiscal year with total revenue in the range of $4.85 billion to $4.95 billion, down from a projected $5.05 billion to $5.25 billion this past August.
The company released its 2025 earnings expectations during the call, saying it believes it can close out fiscal year 2025 with revenue of $6.2 billion to $6.6 billion. If those numbers hold, year-over-year revenue gains could be as high as 35%.
