DraftKings aims to be valued "like the great tech companies," CEO says

DraftKings CEO and co-founder Jason Robins said this week that his long-term vision for the company involves betting of all kinds, including verticals beyond sports, and that he eventually wants to be compared to and valued like the major tech companies, such as "Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Apple."

In an interview with CNBC, Robins said he is pleased to have started a trend in the special purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) market in Wall Street, as the online sportsbook debuted as a $3 billion company and quickly gained a market valuation of over $12 billion, though he said that market may be overheating, as it is "not a fit for everyone."

Robins said sports betting is just the start of DraftKings ‘vision’ to be the hub of gambling on many aspects of life. The company has online sports betting now in nine states, and most recently it launched in Illinois. With brick and mortar sports betting in two additional states, Mississippi and New York, DraftKings CEO noted that Tennessee, Virginia and Michigan have already passed legislation and are in the process of writing the regulations, considering who they will give licenses to. 

“Hopefully those three states will be not too far off in the future. I hope that many more states will choose to go the route of legalization," Robins stated. "There are a lot of good arguments for it. It’s a massive illegal industry that is currently operating in an unregulated world with no tax revenue being generated. I think right now, in particular, tax revenue is going to be even more of a focus for states after some of the recent events. I think there’ll be a lot of budgets that are hurting. We feel like we’re here willing to be taxed, ready to go. Hopefully, that’ll be an attractive proposition for a lot of states as they consider their next year’s budgets."