DraftKings incurred more than $100 million in revenue losses in the fourth quarter of 2024, showcasing the latest example of a record-setting football season for the betting public.
DraftKings reported a loss of income operations of $139 million in the fourth quarter of 2024 in its earnings report released Thursday. The company does not break out revenue losses from marketing and promotions or its other vertices such as Jackpocket or iCasino, but with the earnings report showing profits from those offerings, it can be extrapolated that winning sports bettors cost the company upwards of $100 million in revenue losses.
The company managed to lose more money in Q4 2024 than it did in Q4 2023 despite launching in more states and offering additional high-margin betting markets.
The nation’s second-largest sportsbook operator by market share’s Q4 loss announcement comes a day after MGM, the nation’s third-largest sports betting purveyor, announced its BetMGM book had lost nearly $85 million.
FanDuel, the No. 1 operator by market share, has also indicated a losing 2024 football season ahead of its parent company’s earnings call next month.
Record-setting NFL season
The eye-popping losses come from a nearly unprecedented run of success by favored NFL teams.
NFL favorites won 75% or more of their games in 10 separate weeks of the 18-week NFL season, the highest such total since at least 1983, according to DraftKings. The 40-year average for favorites winning at such a clip is 4.6 weeks.
Though DraftKings improved its handle to $14.9 billion during the last three months of 2024, an improvement from $12 billion in the same stretch a year prior, revenue only grew to $825 million in Q4 2024 compared to $734 million in Q4 2023.
DraftKings, which was founded in 2012, included a slide in its Q4 2024 earnings presentation that details the number of weeks NFL favorites won 75% or more of their games all the way back to 1983: pic.twitter.com/z42KnyZJQ7
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) February 13, 2025
The losses also came as DraftKings has touted its new single-game parlay and live betting offerings which have generated higher profit margins than traditional moneyline, totals, and point spread bets. Despite a record-setting “structural” hold percentage of 10.5% in 2024, the company’s “actual” hold percentage was 9.4%, only a slight improvement from the year prior.
“Actual sportsbook hold percentage continued to increase year-over-year as parlay handle mix trended higher, despite the most customer-friendly NFL sport outcomes in over 40 years,” CEO Jason Robins wrote in a letter announcing the results.
DraftKings sees positive future
DraftKings officials reaffirmed in Thursday’s earnings release that the comparatively low fourth-quarter winning percentage was a small speed bump toward increasing profitability.
The company expects structural hold percentage to reach around 11% in 2025, the highest rate in company history. DraftKings also increased its full year revenue guidance to $6.45 billion from $6.4 billion, which would also be a company record.
Though DraftKings continues to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in quarterly operating revenue, the company has curtailed these losses compared to prior years. The company is still projecting long-term profitability after incurring billions of dollars in losses since launching its mobile sportsbook in 2018.
“Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, I am excited to further enhance our customer economics through new initiatives such as extending our lead in live betting and advancing cross sell efforts to and from new verticals,” Robins wrote in Thursday’s release. “Our focus remains on driving sustainable growth in revenue and profitability.”
