Draftkings Stock Jumps 8% on Michael Jordan Advisory Role

Author: Tim Phillips

Date: April 19, 2024

American online fantasy sports betting firm Draftkings Inc (NASDAQ: DKNG) saw its shares pop 8.0% after it revealed that basketball legend Michael Jordan will be coming on to its board of directors.

The former Chicago Bulls player will advise the company’s board on strategy, product development and marketing and will receive an equity stake in DraftKings in return.

Tim’s Take:

Online sports betting has taken on a new lease of life in the Covid-19-induced lockdown. That’s especially true in America, where fantasy sports betting is big.

Within the space, DraftKings is the leading player. The company allows individual punters, such as you and me, to place fantasy-sports related bets in order to win money. The company generates revenue by taking a cut of a larger overall prize pool as more people enter an event and play off against each other.

There are many reasons to like the stock at the moment. The demand for fantasy online sports betting has exploded, coinciding with the resumption of sports events in the US.

Add to that the company’s growing user base (it has over 720,000 monthly unique players) along with higher average revenue per user, and you can see why investors are excited.

Regulatory uncertainty on gambling

However, the uncertainties in the business model – both on the regulatory front and after the pandemic has passed – are still too great for me to see whether the company can flourish over the long term.

Many states in the US still haven’t granted approval to DraftKings to operate. Investors betting on increasing legalisation as one of the key investment themes are doing exactly that – gambling on favourable regulatory change.

And when live-action sports events and other entertainment options do return (whenever a vaccine is available and life returns to some sort of normal), will DraftKings still be posting these sorts of growth numbers? I’m not convinced.

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