The CEOs of the US’ two largest sportsbooks, Amy Howe from FanDuel and Jason Robins from DraftKings, met for a cordial discussion at G2E 2022. Both were highly encouraged by the 67.5% growth that legal sports betting had experienced year-over-year for the first half of 2022, prior to the NFL season kicking off.
Robins commented: “The NFL is like our holiday season. It’s the time when most new customers are coming into the market and it sets the tone for the rest of the year and going into next year. It’s a really good litmus test for the industry, if you see that the NFL, which is the most popular sport in the country, is growing then you know everything is doing well.
“We’ve been really happy to see that 67% growth. It was a strong first half of the year and, by all accounts, it looks like it's going to be a strong second half of the year.”
Howe was greatly encouraged by the start of the NFL season. She said: “We start planning for the next NFL season as soon as the last Super Bowl is over. What’s exciting is that 50% of our first-time bettors are moving toward the parlay and player props. There’s an uptick in the use of our more engaging products sooner.”
Both CEOs agreed that building physical casinos wasn’t a pressing issue. Robins pointed to DraftKings' successful acquisition of Golden Nugget Online, stressing that he didn’t plan to rebrand. His reasoning was that customers associated Golden Nugget with traditional casino gaming, and DraftKings with sports – and that there is no need to change that.
Robins further added: “We don’t know how to run a big brick-and-mortar facility the size of a casino, it would have to be done through a deal.”
Howe agreed that her chief concern was driving loyalty and retention to FanDuel’s online platform, even though building physical casinos had been discussed.
The panel ended with a 'kumbaya moment,' with Robins and Howe full of praise for one another. This was particularly noteworthy, given the fact Robins has publicly clashed with other execs in panels before.
