{"id":2766,"date":"2026-05-09T13:46:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/?p=2766"},"modified":"2026-05-11T13:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:46:42","slug":"pales-in-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/bettingjobs-earningsandmore-partnership\/pales-in-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Pales in comparison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Nothing compares 2 U:<\/strong> The reason why Flutter opted for change at the top of FanDuel appeared obvious overnight after rival DraftKings delivered what CEO Jason Robins described as a \u201cfantastic\u201d set of quarterly numbers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Q1 revenue came in up 17% YoY to $1.65bn while adj. EBITDA soared 64% to $168m.<\/li>\n<li>The company said that if not for the Arkansas launch and the investment in the prediction markets offering, it would have exceeded $200m.<\/li>\n<li>In his shareholder letter, Robins said the company was \u201coff to a fantastic start to the year.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Pale comparison:<\/strong> In comparison, earlier in the week Flutter Entertainment said that while FanDuel\u2019s revenue rose 6% to $1.76bn, adj. EBITDA fell by 26% to $119m, with the company blaming the reverse on the after-effects from the generosity missteps in the prior quarter.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Implicitly, the lackluster numbers lay behind <a href=\"https:\/\/earningsandmore.substack.com\/p\/howe-ousted\">Amy Howe\u2019s departure as FanDuel CEO<\/a>, announced on Wednesday.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The DraftKings edge:<\/strong> FanDuel\u2019s market share lead was \u201calways transient,\u201d said Regulus, driven by Flutter\u2019s \u201cmassive advantage\u201d in SGPs and iCasino experience. \u201cBoth drivers can be copied in theory and have been effectively copied in practice by Draftkings.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In addition, the team said, Draftkings has \u201cdelivered more targeted bonuses, superior mass-market UX and consistently more effective VIP management.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Stifel was more sanguine, pointing out that while DraftKings is \u201cpacing ahead,\u201d the limited visibility on what is happening under the hood makes it \u201cdifficult to distinguish whether this is outcomes-driven or more structural.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The tale of the tape:<\/strong> Sportsbook was the prime driver for DraftKings\u2019 relative outperformance, with revenue increasing 24% YoY to $1.1bn. iCasino was not so impressive \u2013 while revenues were up 9% to $461m, it marked a growth rate deceleration from recent trends.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Deutsche Bank said adj. EBITDA was in line with consensus expectations but, they believe, ahead of recent investor expectations.<\/li>\n<li>But they noted that handle growth of ~1.5% was a deceleration compared with Q4\u2019s 12.7% YoY improvement.<\/li>\n<li>The team also pointed out that 1.5% marks a deceleration compared to the 4% spoken about by DraftKings on their Q4 call.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The road to perdition:<\/strong> Truist said DraftKings is \u201ccharging hard down the prediction path,\u201d and the company said that in April the predictions product enjoyed \u201cconsumer volumes\u201d of over $1bn and that annualized total volume traded exceeded $2.3bn.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>DraftKings has already launched its own market-making operation and this is \u201calready generating a positive return.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>It noted it was also prepping for the launch of a proprietary exchange and would begin offering combos.<\/li>\n<li>As of next quarter, the company said it would be including both sportsbook and sports predictions in its \u2018sports revenue\u2019 numbers.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cSports Predictions and sportsbook serve the same customers in the same live moments and leverage a shared underlying infrastructure,\u201d Robins said in the shareholder letter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cakeism:<\/strong> Regulus said DraftKings was \u201cputting on a braver face\u201d versus its major OSB rivals regarding prediction markets, suggesting that whatever the legal landscape it will \u201chave its cake and eat it\u201d by having a viable product without heavy investment in a market that \u201cmight not exist in three years time.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Citizens said the move into market making was an \u201cunderappreciated\u201d opportunity and \u201ccould serve as an upside catalyst.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Despite the investment in the sports predictions offering, DraftKings maintained its 2026 revenue and adj. EBITDA guidance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Diary date: <\/strong>The company will host its call with the analysts BMO in New York later today.<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/earningsandmore.substack.com\/p\/pales-in-comparison\">Click here to read the FULL article!<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nothing compares 2 U: The reason why Flutter opted for change at the top of FanDuel appeared obvious overnight after rival DraftKings delivered what CEO Jason Robins described as a \u201cfantastic\u201d set of quarterly numbers. Q1 revenue came in up 17% YoY to $1.65bn while adj. EBITDA soared 64% to $168m. The company said that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bettingjobs-earningsandmore-partnership"],"acf":[],"post_author_name":"","post_authors_type":"","post_authors_from_team_members":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2766"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2770,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766\/revisions\/2770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/2768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}