DraftKings Inc. ($DKNG)

Thank you again, everyone, for being here. We are very excited to have Alan Ellingson, CFO of DraftKings. And I think your fireside debut. So we are very much looking forward to that. We appreciate you joining us today. There's obviously a lot to cover given all the dynamic changes going on in the industry with your business and the different markets that you operate in and especially as you guys are ramping up with prediction markets.

But before we jump to all of that, since you joined DraftKings in 2020, I'm wondering maybe you can help us frame the company has managed through a few different periods of, let's call it, adversity or different challenges around you. Help us think about like what lessons the company or you specifically have learned. And then how do we apply those to prediction markets of what's taking place right now?

Yes. As you mentioned, it's been a fantastic 6 years since I joined the company. Been an insane ride watching the industry grow and evolve state launches, new product launches, regulatory environments change. One of the things that is just a testament DraftKings' key core competencies is its ability to operate in a very complicated environment, highly regulated, very complicated evolution of products, evolution of offerings, evolution of the way that we run businesses, media and everything else to find the way to follow the data to success. And ultimately, being successful in a dynamic environment like we have in our industry requires that you follow the data, you spend the time, you need to put the effort in. Nothing is a given, and I love the engagement of the ownership, the founder-led mentality at DraftKings that pushes us towards figuring out how to solve the problem and to be successful. And time after time, whether it's in Fantasy or in Sportsbook or in iGaming and now in Predictions, we've looked at the problem, we've evaluated how we should go after it, and we've executed and been very successful. And it gives me a lot of confidence that as we roll into the prediction markets here in the coming weeks and months that we're going to be successful.

Okay. So this rapid rise of prediction markets has obviously led to greater worries from the investor side, at least about the core business of online sports betting. So as you are building out DraftKings Predictions and the Super App that you guys have leaned in on, how is the company viewing this risk versus reward of continuing growth in Predictions overall with obviously managing the underlying business?

Yes. Look, first, glad you pointed out the underlying business. The core is fantastic. We're excited about the strength we see in the core. Predictions is an opportunity. It's a huge opportunity. And it aligns so closely with where we're already very strong on the Sportsbook side. And so sports trading and prediction markets in general is just another way that we can access and engage with our customers, and customers that we already understand and we already work with, and we already communicate with and share our offerings with. So we see Predictions as a monstrous opportunity as a great way for us to leverage experience that we already have, understanding the concerns and the skepticism of the investment community as we are engaging and building up our product to be the best. But we see it as the next evolution of DraftKings, and we're excited to see what it comes out of it.

Okay. So as we think about these players, Kalshi, Polymarket specifically, clearly, there's some big reported private market valuations out there. When we think about those platforms and how they're using these investments, for likely product innovation and even marketing dollars. Talk about the competitive environment for consumer attention and how these dollars are shifting or evolving.

It's really hard to speak to deals other people are making and what they're seeing in those deals, the values they're putting on it. I can say first that we've been in this industry for well over a decade now if you include our DFS years. We do understand the value of the relationships and the assets of these other companies bring to bear. We are comfortable paying the appropriate price for it. And we have great relationships with a lot of the big media companies, ESPN and NBC and Amazon, and we understand that we have our media mix model to help us monopolize or capitalize on the value that they bring to the table. We're rational. We spend our money effectively. We know what we want, and we know the assets that bring value and we go after them. And we let the rest of the market do what they think they need to do, but we'll follow the data.

Okay. So if the TAM you guys have laid out in terms of this larger TAM is as big as you are expecting, can you talk about the level of investment that's needed? I know we've tried to frame this year. But as you think about competing in this space, how can you leverage your existing scale and again, those core businesses and the brand and awareness that you have? Is it a unique way that you can really play into this prediction market?

Well, the good news is, as a company, especially as we embed Predictions products into our Super App, is we can leverage a lot of the existing relationships we have in media and a lot of the existing processes we have to be able to capture synergies from the markets and expand. As I mentioned, these customers have a lot of the same mentality framework and engagement that we see on the sports betting, iGaming or Fantasy or lottery or Pick6 or daily fantasy -- like all these products attract the same sort of a mentality, the same sort of customer engagement, and it's something we're really efficient at understanding and engaging with them on. And so there's a lot of value overlap there. It also means, though, that our national advertising, for example, can go even further because we're bringing people towards a singular app. And so in California, where historically, somebody see the DraftKings ad show up on the NFL game, they're like, oh, it's a DraftKings app. I can't use that. I'm going to go grab something from the fridge or something. Now they're like, actually, DraftKings app, I can use that in my state. That is a product that resonates with me. It is something that's valuable. So we're taking existing spend that's reaching north of 50% of the population right now for our Sportsbook, and we're enabling it to reach 100% of the population in the U.S. or the other half that we can't actually -- or didn't have as much relevance. And as the product evolves and our markets all start to evolve on the prediction side, suddenly, you start to see a product that is so similar to what the Sportsbook is offering that it's basically indistinguishable whether you're in California, you're doing prediction markets or you're in New York and you're doing sports betting, you can get the same customer experience. And ultimately, that is massively expansive to the TAM. And it is something that is in our wheelhouse to be successful right now with our existing technology and our existing infrastructure, and it gives us a lot of confidence that when we're ready to take that next step and push aggressively on the product, we will actually see a lot of good traction from it. As for the investment, which I know you led the question with. We've messaged a 2026 investment, $200 million to $300 million of EBITDA impact from prediction markets. Realize that we're analytically focused. We follow the data. And if the value is there and the LTVs are there and we're getting good customer acquisition costs, we'll explore what happens in 2027. And maybe we spend less, maybe we spend more, but we will follow the data because we have this model that we fundamentally adhere to almost religiously at the company, which is customers need to pay back the customer acquisition costs within a fixed period of time. And we live and die by those models. And if you can't follow the data in this, then you can't measure and you can't manage the money that you're spending. So it's early to say what the impact of the spend this year is going to be and way too early to predict out the future. But it is going to be something we're going to be focusing on very closely as we start to lean into marketing spend here in the coming weeks with the World Cup and then in the NFL launch in September.

Got it. So you just mentioned some of these sports partnership -- or the sporting events. But when you frame it from the perspective of the league partnerships that you have, talk to us about the benefits of having those league partnerships. From the other side, NHL and some of the other leagues have struck these partnerships with Kalshi and Polymarkets. NFL, NBA seems to be on the sidelines for now. So just talk about the broader benefits of having these league benefits, the partnerships with the leagues and maybe how that's evolved?

Look, there's a definite value to having the partnerships, and you can quantify that and ascribe a certain dollar number to having those partnerships. And where those partnerships are available and the cost of that matches the dollar value, we will absolutely pursue them. And in situations where the dollar value that's being requested by the league exceeds the value, we'll try to renegotiate and come to a place where we can get to an arrangement. We do think the leagues benefit by having a relationship with us, just like we benefit from having a relationship with them. We have fantastic relationships with the leagues. We work with them a lot on everything. And we help support the game integrity initiatives that they have. And at the same time, they support us and help us to promote the responsible gaming message and other messages. And we work with them very closely even if we don't have an official relationship.

Okay. Curious your view, there's clearly a lot of regulatory backdrop to this conversation. So the environment for Predictions today with the CFTC pretty staunchly defending these products against the challenges of several states is seemingly where we're at, sitting here today. So how does that inform your strategy and as you're rolling out and ramping up the investments on DraftKings Predictions?

Yes. I think what everyone in the industry wants right now is just a clear, concise, well-articulated set of the rules of the road for this industry. And we're really grateful that the CFTC is stepping up and engaging and actually engaging in the dialogue and trying to say, here are the rules and here's how we get there and here's what can and can't be allowed. And I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done to figure out how do we align what the states want, what the CFTC is able to do, what the framework needs to be. But we're just glad the dialogue is happening. Having a forced conversation, having the CFTC, they're engaged in rule making right now. We submitted our recommendations for the rule changes. That's a great indication that people are talking and moving forward. And I know that there's a lot of work that needs to be done between now and some point in the future when all this gets figured out. But people are talking and engaging, and that's a great step forward.

Okay. So you talked about the road map ahead on the product side for DraftKings Predictions, and you've laid that out pretty clearly at your Investor Day, updated again on earnings. So help us understand why these features and the functionality that you're planning to introduce is going to be so important to accelerating the position that you have and some of the financial opportunities that are associated with it.

Yes. What we've observed, especially like on the Sportsbook side, is that when people engage with the Sportsbook platform, what they're trying to do is they're trying to tell through a bet what they fundamentally believe will happen in the event. It's the narrative of the chain of events that's going to happen that resonates with them, whether it's this person is going to hit a home run, this person is going to score a touchdown, the next pitch is going to be a strike. Whatever they feel comfortable saying, this is who I fundamentally believe as a sports bettor. And so the more markets you can create and you can price for them, the more they were willing to engage because they can tell the story that they want to tell through their bet. And so for prediction markets right now, the offerings are very limited. And so the trades that you can engage with are limited to main lines and a couple of more big market type of trading. And we would like to create more markets and more opportunities. And so the road map is to create those opportunities to build out an offering for Predictions that allows the same sort of flexibility. And so we launched Combos earlier this week. That's going very fantastic. We have a DCM in the Railbird Exchange that we purchased that we're integrating right now, and we expect to launch in the coming weeks. We view World Cup as a fantastic opportunity for us to acquire customers and to lean into a version 2 of the product that we think is going to be really fantastic. And ultimately, we expect to have a best-in-class product in time for the NFL launch, which we believe is the key tentpole moment for this industry.

Okay. There's also different revenue streams within Predictions. So maybe just help us understand how your view of the mix of revenue within this more complicated world. How does that evolve over time? Clearly, there's the brokerage layer, there's the exchange, the market making that you guys have already started to enter. So how do we think about those different revenue streams evolving?

Yes. As you look at prediction markets as an exchange product, there's a certain expectation that the ecosystem that is the exchange itself will capture a certain set of the economics of a relationship between a market maker and a market taker. And the relative strength of the different positions, whether it's the broker, whether it's the exchange, whether it's the market maker, whether it's the clearinghouse, will determine what share of the economics they get of that overall pie. The same economic principles apply to, for example, Sportsbook and iGaming. If you're playing a slot machine, you sort of expect a 96% to 97% return to player on the thing. And so you're okay with the economics of that 3% to 4% take from the casino operator every time you spin the wheel. And so there's a similar expectation of economics return to the exchange. The more of that ecosystem that you own, the more of that total pie you can claim for yourself and you have the leverage to because you own the FCM, you own the DCM, you own the DCO, you own the market maker. And the evolution of what parts of the revenue gets split between them is something that will be interesting to observe in the coming years as the markets evolve and as we get more confident on where the leverage in the equation is. But the benefit we have to what we're trying to do with our product right now is by owning the complete tech stack and having all the components of it as we have a complete flexibility to capture as much of that economics as the markets will bear, which on the Sportsbook side is a pretty decent percent.

Okay. So you've also laid out some long-term targets for gross margins in Predictions that are actually meaningfully higher than your Sportsbook product. So as you view this mix and what's happening. I know, obviously, very analytical approach, as you talked about. But how do you think this mix can really evolve, think about over the next, call it, 5 years?

I think it's really hard to say what Predictions is going to be over time. But to your point, prediction markets themselves are a higher-margin product. They don't quite have the same overhead that sportsbooks or casinos have. There's definitely opportunities if we mix heavier into prediction markets for great margin expansion coming from that. But we're going to have to follow the data for the next few months just to see what size that could look like. And while we're very optimistic about the eventual size of the prediction markets -- let's -- the numbers out there for the existing prediction markets are still extremely small compared to what existing market Sportsbook is doing. I saw a metric came out a little bit ago that says that one of our chief competitors, their run rate parlay revenue was like $300 -- combo revenue was like $300 million for the year. To put that into context, the existing legal sportsbook market in legal states, regulated states is probably going to do north of $10 billion of parlay revenue this year. So it's fantastic that prediction markets is getting some momentum and they're growing, but $300 million of run rate revenue compared to $10 billion in half the number of jurisdictions, there's a long way for Predictions to go. I'm optimistic. We do think it's going to be a fantastic growth story. We do think it's going to be incremental to the TAM. We communicated at our Investor Day, we thought it was north of $10 billion of GGR at maturity. But give me a couple of quarters of data, and I'll have a much more confident answer about how that's going to affect my gross margin in the years to come.

Okay. Last question on Predictions, I promise, and we're going to shift to that core business. But you talked a lot about the data that you have. Help us maybe understand the data advantage from your other products and really how can that translate into Predictions as you're thinking about Combos and launching that or anything else that brings unique to DraftKings.

And this is actually where it gets really exciting from a DraftKings competitive advantage because not only on the consumer side, the FCM side, do we understand what kinds of markets our customers want to see, how they want to be engaged with, how they want to be interacted with, how we should design the flow and create the markets or engage the markets that are the most popular. But on the market-making side, we have extensive models to price out risk to understand the correlation of events and activities within sports, things that you can't just plug into an AI and, like, have it spit out a model for the real risk or the real odds of an event happening. We have decades of data and analytics, understanding of how certain things affect other things. And so the combinations of all this experience and learning and these algorithms that help us to price real-time events and real-time changes to be able to have the best up-to-date, up-to-speed experience on the back end, so we can price risk and give people the markets that they want to be able to price those markets effectively, with knowing how customers want to be interacted with and how they want to be fed markets and what they want to see when they open up the app, creates a really powerful moat that other competitors in the markets who are first exploring this are just going to barrage out there. Keep in mind, on the Sportsbook product, we have hundreds of thousands of markets available every single day. If you've taken all the different levels and the different point totals and rebounds and assists, all the different sports that we offer. And we feel comfortable enough with our models that we're able to get pricing for all of those things. We can create an experience on our Sportsbook that the public market FCMs and DCMs or private FCMs and DCMs, plus the quant houses who are first starting to explore the Sportsbook, have a lot of room that they're going to have to take to catch up to where we are today. And that's a differentiated advantage that we think is going to be really beneficial to driving people to our Sportsbook initially and then to our prediction markets when we launch that fully up. But even more, it's going to drive the market makers to want to follow those players who are in the markets, and we can create an ecosystem where we have the players because they're getting the experience they want and then we draw the market makers in because that's where the players are at.

Very helpful. So let's shift to the core business, if we can. So there has been a noticeable slowdown in OSB handle, looking back over the past few months. But then you also did just share how April was a reacceleration in handle for DraftKings. So maybe just help us frame or think about, again, same-state basis looking forward, what should investors think is sustainable growth for handle going forward?

Well, first, thank you for highlighting the strong growth in our core business. We -- our Sportsbook, for example, we grew revenue 24% in Q1 year-over-year, which is fantastic. And April is seeing a reacceleration of handle. We see strong growth for the core business in Sportsbook. And there's a couple of components to it. One is our mix shift continues to expand. And as you expand mix shift, you don't need as much handle to get more revenue. This is akin to, like, measuring the success of a grocery store by the weight of the shopping carts that are leaving. It doesn't matter if it's a bunch of cans, everybody says a bunch of cans and suddenly comes in then goes out with a bunch of baked goods. The cart weighs a lot less, but the margins are significantly higher. And so you don't really care as much about that. You still care. Every metric is important to measure, but you have to look at things holistically. And at the end of the day, what we really want to focus on is how are we doing on the gross profit per customer. And this is where -- it's my favorite slide. I've managed to get in the Investor Day deck, but it's buried a little bit in there. It shows the gross profit by -- for our annual cohorts by year. And what it shows is that every single one of our annual cohorts since 2018 has had increasing gross profit year-over-year. That means customers we acquired in 2018 are giving us more gross profit this year or generating more gross profit this year than they have in any of the prior years. And then last year was any of the prior years, every single one of them is growing. Because we are expanding our product base, we are creating more engagement. We're optimizing our promo spend. We are giving them a better experience, and they're engaging and we're getting a bigger share of their disposable income because they love the product, they love the engagement, they like what they're seeing. And that's not a story that you tell through handle or any other metric. It's a story you tell through profits. And at the end of the day, that's what investors care about is what you deliver to the bottom line. And we love that. We love the fact that it's highly indicative that people love our product. They want to engage in our product, and they do it over a long period of time because our New Jersey first cohort, it was 2018, it's 2026 now. They're still with us. They're still engaged, and that is a fantastic story.

That's a good way to frame it. So when you think about the overall competitive environment, again, focusing more on online sports betting, clearly, FanDuel seems to have gotten a little bit more aggressive on promotions recently. Just talk to us about how all of these players, clearly, Fanatics, Bet365, they're all looking to compete for this profitable market. So help us frame the current competitive position that DraftKings holds within the broader space here.

Look, I think we see it largely a very rational competitive environment right now. I think it ebbs and flows. I think that there are certain tentpole moments where operators will push a little bit and then there are other moments where they pull back. It will be interesting to see how the World Cup plays out. I think it's a fantastic engagement opportunity, acquisition opportunity. We're excited to see what a World Cup looks like on the U.S. territory. And with all the improvements we've made to the app, I think we will have a great experience out of it. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we follow data. And it's not about what our competitors are doing. It's about what we should be doing and how do we treat our customers the right way, how do we engage with them appropriately and what is the right level of spend to optimize the profitability and the engagement of the customer. And you don't get that by looking at what your competitors are doing as much as you get it by following your own data and understanding how your customers want to interact with you. So we feel really good about the environment, and we feel really good about our plans.

So let's go to your plans. So clearly, I think an important part of those plans is those media partnerships that you were talking about, and I'm sure you get some pretty meaningful data from that partnership. So as we think about ESPN, NBC, Amazon, you mentioned, how does that help drive users to DraftKings? And then maybe if you want to share anything specifically about the NBA season and what you're getting from those partnerships?

Look, we love our media partners. Not only do they give us some great access to ad and other assets, but the interaction and the interface that allows us the eyeballs that gives us dynamically throughout the events is great. If you watch NBC on Sunday night -- NBA on NBC on Sunday night, you're going to see DraftKings prominently on that. And by the way, NBC viewership on Sunday night, I've heard is up 30% year-over-year. So props to them and the engagement that they're driving with those assets. ESPN, we enjoyed working with them in the past. We're glad to have them as a partner again. As a national advertising in an area where now we have a nationally available product, it's the same spend, but it's getting twice the reach because now we're able to push prediction markets on the Super App in states where that's available, and we're able to push Sportsbook on the Super App in the states that are available. And so this narrative of available everywhere is a huge value, and our partnerships enable that and allow that to happen. Again, we follow the data. We follow the analytics. We make sure that we're getting efficient value out of them. But I can say that I think those are fantastic partners. We love the fact that we get to work with them. We think they benefit from us as well and the eyeballs that we draw. And I think it's a very symbiotic relationship that has been working very well, and we're very happy to have it.

When you think about your overall marketing budget or marketing spend, is there anything you can share in terms of how the balance between local and national has really evolved given maybe even factoring in these recent partnerships? And maybe what the opportunity is to really lean even further into national as that continues to roll forward?

Yes. It's definitely shifting more heavily national, especially as ROSB has exceeded 50% these past few years with the launch of Missouri and Arkansas. And especially now that we're launching the Super App and then with sports everywhere, the mentality, we can definitely play into that. There's still always going to be a need for local spend, whether it's on casino, for example, where we're only in 11% of the population, just a couple of states or to be more focused a little bit around specific events that matter to one state or doesn't matter to another state. But the shift has happened largely towards a national spend for a decent enough chunk. And the cost per user that we get, the acquisition cost benefit we get from that has been a definite tailwind to the business and helped us to reduce our CACs meaningfully over the past few years.

Okay. Curious about hold rate, right? It's been always a focus.

I haven't had a question on hold all quarters.

There we go. So let's have one now. So what is that natural ceiling? I mean there's been this ongoing debate over the past couple of years about this. And curious, what do you think the runway is given that the parlay mix that you talked about and pushing live betting? How much more do we have to go? Or what inning if you want to use the sports analogy?

I'm not going to use the sports analogy, it's overused. I will say there's more room to go. We continue to launch products that attract new audiences that are higher hold products. For example, in Q1, we launched same game parlay for golf. That is obviously going to be a higher hold product because it's the same game parlay and it's a new sport and people seem to enjoy and love it, and that's going to drive people towards a new activity that they otherwise might not have gotten. You'll find that the newer launch states have a higher parlay penetration than the older launch states. I think that there's just a natural evolution of people towards parlays over time. And I think that we're going to capture more of that. Younger generation seems to be more inclined to do parlays, older generation seems to be more inclined to do singles. And so there's a little bit of a tailwind from that. As to where it ultimately gets to, it's hard to say because every single country has a different profile of how they view and engage with their sports. The U.S. is a very sports-centric country, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee that it's going to be a very parlay-centric country. We're just going to follow the data. And we have found that when we follow the data, when we give people the proper incentives to try something new if it sticks, we let them stick with it. If it doesn't stick, we back off and we find their profile, and we're okay with them being who they are and spending in a way that is fun for them. We do think there's room for it to grow. We are trying to make sure that we're having the appropriate level of reinvestment to customers as they -- as the hold increases, making sure that the reinvestment back into the player promotion back in the player, justifies the experience that they're having. But it will be interesting to see how it plays out. We do expect some expansion, although we don't assume any expansion or any heroic expansion in our forecast for the full year.

Right. Jason, on the earnings call, talked about maybe one of the extra benefits of coming out of Predictions is the updated conversations you've had with the different states around taxes. And so maybe just help us frame how these conversations have really seemingly limited the tax increases that some of -- rewind a year ago that there was a lot of fear about where state taxes were going to be going.

One, we do have a fantastic government affairs team. They work very hard. They educate the states on the impact of raising taxes and what that ultimately is going to do for either pushing people into the unregulated markets in some cases or restricting the growth of the industry. And so they do a fantastic job every year of helping to educate states who see this maybe as more of a piggy bank and to realizing actually there's a symbiotic relationship we need to have if you're going to maintain the tax revenues you're giving. And states that pushed too hard, find themselves with an industry that's shrinking rather than growing. This year, the conversation has been a little bit easier, it feels like. I would say a little bit different because there is a federal competitor that is not taxed at all. And while right now, there's a product differentiation between a prediction market and a sports bet, and what you can do on the prediction markets versus the sports bet, those differences will continue to contract over time as people become more and more creative on how to get a combo, how to do RFQs, how to create certain types of markets on prediction markets. And then eventually, it's going to get to a place where there isn't a difference between the 2 or there might not be a difference between the 2. And states realizing this are a little bit more hesitant to make a change that might inhibit their ability to be competitive against the federal product in the out years. It's very difficult to unwind the tax change, an increase in taxes. It's not that hard to wait another year or 2 or 3 or 5 or 10 to raise the taxes, especially since there is this uncertainty. And the more we lean on this and educate the states, the more they realize that where we're at right now is actually a really good healthy equilibrium for most states, and they aren't making moves. Now I will never begin to be the expert on predicting what states are going to do in the future. But we have great relationships, and we continue to develop those relationships. And this just gives us one more avenue to talk about what that relationship means, and that's helpful.

So that's from the legalized state perspective. I'm curious, the other piece of this conversation is, can this accelerate any of the states that aren't legalized? So obviously, the big 3, California, Texas, Florida is what we like to focus on. So maybe just any updates in terms of the overall legalization efforts. And I think on the earnings call, talking about more of a potentially '27 impact.

We -- one is we are offering prediction market products in all those states right now. It allows us a chance to access those customers with a product that is Sportsbook-like. But obviously, Prediction trading is not quite Sportsbook. And we are having conversations with stakeholders there about what it means to be a regulated market, what are the benefits of being able to generate tax revenues, but even more importantly to a lot of them, being able to regulate the experience and being able to have a say on how players engage and when they engage, and what rules they wrote and how to operate in a way that makes them feel comfortable, that their citizens are being taken care of. And so having these conversations, we are definitely having more and they're more engaged and things are moving forward. But the path to legalization of a state is not just a light switch in the governor's office that they flip and suddenly it's legal. There are hundreds, if not thousands of steps that need to be taken, not just legislatively, but regulatory-wise, and there's organizations that need to be staffed, and rules that need to be put in place, and licensing processes, and that takes time. And so this is why I give massive kudos to our government affairs team, who is slowly taking these steps and pushing it forward. But in some areas, it's moving forward leaps and bounds this year because certain conversations are being had, which is we're worried about a certain inevitability of a federally regulated product. We'd much rather have a state-regulated product in place that is fantastic products, great engagement, much more robust that can draw on all those users that we can obviously get benefit from, rather than wait for our fate to be decided by a federal product in the future.

Makes sense. So the other side of the core business, if we can go there, is obviously iGaming. And so iGaming growth continues, despite the smaller legalization map to be really durable and exceeded our expectations looking back over the past few years. So just talk about the runway from the existing state basis before we even talk about more legalization. How strong is this business? And where does it go from here?

I think it's a very strong business. We've got lots of great customers that are loyal. We're continuing to grow the business. I think there's more room for us to grow even faster. I think we're getting healthy growth out of the business, very profitable. And iGaming has shown surprising resilience of growth over the past more than a decade among the operators who have been operating in New Jersey since the 2013, 2014 time frame. And I think there's more room. There's more market penetration available. We haven't reached our limits there.

So just -- I guess the natural follow-up is we did see a slowdown in Q1. So maybe just help us understand how quickly we can see that potentially rebound? Or what's going on behind the scenes on that?

One of the things that affects especially our iGaming business and Flutter as well, who is also very heavily sports-based, is there is some correlation between the sports engagement in certain states and the amount of iGaming activity in those states. And so if you go from a year where particular teams in Michigan and Pennsylvania seems to do extremely well in the NFL playoffs, to a year where they're not quite doing as well and there's not quite as much engagement from Sportsbook fans. You can definitely see some state-by-state characteristics that would lead you to believe that there may be some performance weakness in there. But if we look at our individual cohorts and the engagement we're seeing across our players and where those engagements coming from, we have a more optimistic outlook on what the growth profile can look like. We also -- we brought on a fantastic new leader of our iGaming business, Christian H. A. Bogstrand, who came from Bet365. Among other places, he's fantastic. He's engaging the iGaming business in a way that we've not done before, going after a customer base that isn't quite as sports-centric, more of the slots-first customer. And I think that we haven't been as aggressive there as we should have been. And now the focus is renewed. We've got some great product rollouts. I think Jason mentioned on the earnings call, the Flex Spins, which is very unique. We've got a couple of other fun products that are going to be rolling out over the next 4 to 6 weeks. I love where we're going with it. I like the strength of the business that I'm seeing. The core is really strong, and I think we can do even better.

Okay. Think about the legalization map for iGaming. Clearly, it's been limited thinking backwards, but Maine is set...

Maine is on the horizon.

To come aboard. So just help us think about, is that a new sign, new momentum here?

Yes. I -- we're definitely seeing momentum come through. Again, I'm not the government affairs expert, and so I hesitate to go out on a limb on what I think the legalization is going to be on which states are going to go first. But you definitely hear momentum, and there are definitely states that are banding bills around and a lot of that is public knowledge. And then the conversations we're having behind the scenes seem to indicate that dominoes are falling, resistance is shifting. People are looking at this and saying, yes, maybe it's time. And if this follows the Sportsbook playbook, you're going to have one domino -- one fall and then a whole bunch of other states are going to say, okay, yes, if they go, we might as well go too. And I don't know which one that's going to be as a half dozen really good strong candidates. But I feel pretty good about legalization accelerating, as more states start to realize that they've got a budget deficit they need to deal with, or that their sweepstakes operators are already capturing significant amounts of dollars from their citizens and they're not getting any -- they're not generating any revenue, tax revenues from it, they're not able to regulate it as offshore illegal operators are capturing revenues and advertising to their citizens. Like the momentum towards regulating iGaming and legalizing iGaming is very real. And it's just a matter of getting all the people over the line on it.

When you think about the in-house studio, you talked about different games rolling out. How unique of an advantage is that for DraftKings? Thinking about how you can capture even more going forward within the current state of legalization?

Yes. Locally, in the in-house studios has done a fantastic job of allowing us to capture economics, especially in some of the critical table games, for example, where you're creating -- the game is standard. It's blackjack, it's roulette, it's baccarat, it's craps. And you create it in-house and you save yourself having to pay some third party to a revenue share agreement for it. And they've also had success though with their own in-house games. For example, Rocket, which I know is a fantastic game we launched a few years ago and has a great following, some great earned media around that. It gives us a differentiated advantage because we can create a profile of products that is not just the same IGT, Evolution, Light & Wonder games that everybody has, but is our own unique portfolio of games that can offer some distinction and differentiation. And we do absolutely love the fact that we've got all these partnerships that allow us to have the full suite of games that allows customers to have whatever experience they want and play whatever game they want, whether it's a Wheel of Fortune game, which -- fantastic partnership with them or whether it's a slot machine based off of the 3 little pigs. Customers want the experience they want when they load up the game, and having our own in-house studio means that we can follow some data to create games that are unique to DraftKings, instead of just being completely dependent onto our partner.

All right. So as we start to wrap up, you talked about acquiring Railbird as part of furthering your ambitions within Predictions. You've also made historically some other strategic tuck-ins after identifying new markets. So just help us understand the potential for further M&A, how you see that landscape in terms of the overall capital allocation priorities that you do have? And what are those other types of opportunities as you sit here today?

Look, our primary focus for capital allocation is investing in our core business in the U.S. and Canada to be successful. We have so much on our plate right now with the expansion of our existing core offerings like Sportsbook and Casino, and the legalization that we expect to see, but also with the launching of prediction markets and the opportunity to spend some capital, to grow into that business and to really capture market share. That's the top priority. That's where the money needs to be spent. That's where the investment needs to be because to spend anything anywhere else and forfeit that opportunity is -- it's not the right move for this company at this time. And so I see us being very diligent about capital spend for the next few years. And Jason likes to say, does that mean we're not going to look? Well, I don't think you're doing your job if you don't look, but you're also not doing your job if you're looking too much. And we're going to strike the right balance and make sure that we're very efficient with our capital allocation.

And how does shareholder repurchases, given that focus of leaning in on the investment side, still something?

I think we're going to leave ourselves the ability to be opportunistic.

Okay. All right. So as we wrap up here, maybe given the whole conversation we just had, is there something that you still think is just not well understood by the broader Street or something within DraftKings business today that can really shift investor sentiment given the pullback that we've seen?

I think there's a little bit of a lack of understanding of just how strong the differentiation and the technology that DraftKings has will translate into success in the prediction markets. And just how much overlap between what we already do and are really good at doing right now will translate into our ability to be able to monetize effectively in prediction markets. And I think there's some uncertainty about execution and that's fine. We're not ready to fully go all in on the product. But we've outlined a strategy that is extremely robust. If you look at the product, you evaluate the product, and you see what prediction market offerings are right now versus the Sportsbook offerings that are available right now, you'll see the difference and you'll understand that this is a huge opportunity that we are extremely excited about. And we think it's going to go somewhere.

Great. Alan, thank you so much for being here.

Absolutely. Thanks, Robert. Appreciate it.