DraftKings Inc (NASDAQ:DKNG) reported its second-quarter financial results after the closing bell on Wednesday.
Below are the transcripts from the Q2 earnings call, which took place Thursday morning.
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OPERATOR
Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the DraftKings Q2 2025 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker’s presentation there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised to withdraw your question. Please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mike Delalio, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Mike Delalio (Senior Director of Investor Relations)
Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. Certain statements we make during this call may constitute forward looking statements that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors as discussed further in our SEC filings that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our historical results or from our forecasts. We assume no responsibility to update forward looking statements other than as required by law. During this call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe may be useful in evaluating DraftKings operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for DraftKings financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in our Earnings Release slide presentation and Business Update which can be found on our website and in our Quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. Hosting the call today, we have Jason Robins, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DraftKings, who will share some opening remarks and an update on our business. Following Jason’s remarks, our Chief Financial Officer Alan Ellingson will provide a review of our financials. We will then open the line to questions. I will now turn the call over to Jason Robins.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, Mike. Good morning everyone and thank you all for joining. DraftKings set records for revenue and adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter as revenue growth accelerated to 37% year over year. We are pleased to be maintaining our fiscal year 2025 guidance with Revenue expected to be closer to the high end of our range as strong underlying momentum in the business and sportsbook friendly outcomes in the second quarter position us to absorb an exciting new state launch. We are sharing five key takeaways today. First, we are in the early innings of adjusted EBITDA growth. Product enhancements are driving strong revenue growth while prudent cost discipline and efficiency initiatives across the organization are delivering meaningful adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. Our second quarter adjusted EBITDA was over $300 million and double our prior record. Looking ahead, we have conviction in our profitability expanding further as we Drive towards our 30% adjusted EBITDA margin target over time. Second, DraftKings is positioned for success this fall with the upcoming NFL and NBA seasons. We continue to innovate our number one rated Sportsbook product, delivering an experience that moves uniquely at the speed of sports. This manifests in a best in class live betting product along with hyper flexible merchandising and social features that allow customers to engage with the biggest sports narratives as they unfold in real time. Third, sport outcomes tend to normalize over the long term, but typically benefit either the sportsbook or our customers in the short term. In May and June combined, Sportsbook outcomes benefited the company and added $110 million to our revenue. Fourth, we continue to monitor events surrounding federally regulated prediction markets and are actively exploring ways to enhance shareholder value through this opportunity. As always, we value our relationships with both industry stakeholders and policymakers and we’ll work collaboratively as we evaluate next steps. Fifth, we continue to allocate capital to target the highest risk adjusted returns and maximize shareholder returns over the long term. In the first two quarters of this year, we repurchased 6.5 million shares through our stock repurchase program while continuing to invest in organic growth initiatives. With that, I will turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Alan Ellingson.
Alan Ellingson (Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you Jason. I’ll hit the financial highlights including our second quarter 2025 performance and our fiscal year guidance. Please note that all income statement measures discussed except for revenue are on a non GAAP adjusted EBITDA basis. As Jason mentioned, in the second quarter we achieved company records for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Revenue increased 37% year over year to $1,513,000,000 and we generated $301,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA representing a 20% adjusted EBITDA margin. Sportsbook Net revenue increased 45% year over year which exceeded our expectations. Net revenue margins increased over 230 basis points year over year and also set a company record at 8.7%. Sportsbook handle increased 6% year over year to approximately $11.5 billion. Live betting handle increased 16% year over year as we continue to innovate and extend our lead in that category. Structural sportsbook hold percentage increased 100 basis points year over year to 10.9% and actual sportsbook hold percentage exceeded 11.5% due to sportsbook friendly outcomes. Our parlay handle mix increased 430 basis points year-over-year, Sportsbook promotional reinvestments as a percentage of gross gaming revenue improved year over year by nearly 600 basis points due to both sportsbook friendly outcomes as well as continuing optimization of promotions. We also expect to continue benefiting from existing customer accounting for a higher percentage of our Overall customer mix. IGaming Net revenue was consistent with their expectations and increased 23% year over year. Driven by strong growth in active IGaming customers. We are continuing to see engagement with jackpots increasing rapidly as gross gaming revenue increased over 100% year over year. Our adjusted gross margin increased to 48%, increasing more than 400 basis points year over year. As a result of higher sportsbook hold percentage and improved promotional efficiency across our product offerings, our operating expenses, including marketing, continue to be in line with our expectations. We are leveraging our scale and brand to drive highly efficient customer acquisition while continuing to exert cost discipline across the organization. We are also already seeing some benefits from utilizing artificial intelligence and other new technologies. Now I’ll touch on our fiscal year 2025 guidance. In May, we guided fiscal year 2025 revenue of $6.2 billion to $6.4 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $800 million to $900 million. Today we are maintaining those ranges. More specifically, we are on track to deliver revenue close to the high end of the $6.2 billion to $6.4 billion range due to sportsbook friendly outcomes in the second quarter as well as continuing strength across our core value drivers. We are on track to deliver adjusted EBITDA near the midpoint of the $100 million to $900 million range as our higher annual revenue positions us to absorb our anticipated mobile Sportsbook launch in Missouri. Notably, our guidance now includes anticipated financial impacts from DraftKings launching mobile sports betting in Missouri later this year. Our guidance also now includes anticipated financial impacts from higher tax rates in New Jersey, Louisiana and Illinois. The company guidance for fiscal year 2025 does not include the potential launch of a predictions market offering. We are also providing the following fiscal year 2025 guidance detail. We now expect our Sportsbook Net revenue margin to exceed 7.5% ahead of the range of 7 to 7.5% that we had provided last quarter. We continue to expect an adjusted gross margin of 46%, an increase of more than 300 basis points year over year compared to fiscal year 2024. We continue to expect stock based compensation expense to represent 6% of revenue in fiscal year 2025. We continue to expect free cash flow of approximately $750 million in fiscal year 2025. That concludes our remarks and we will now open the line for questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. At this time we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press Star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster.
Equity Analyst at Bank of America
Hi, good morning everyone and thank you for taking my question. Jason, I want to start off with a multi part question on prediction markets if I could. So three parts here. First, just how do you think about sizing the potential investment or opportunity for DraftKings at this early stage? Second, what’s the importance of owning your own tech stack? I think we see some parallels to the way Online Sports Betting (OSB) was built out. I’m curious for your thoughts there. Then lastly, just how important is it to be a first mover, especially if there’s a bit of a land grab here as some of these platforms start to ramp up marketing around NFL. Thank you very much.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Sean. Good morning. Let me kind of take those in order. I think TAM is a tricky question because obviously the products are at a very nascent stage, so it depends on how they get built out. But I think the existing sort of states that we have live OSB in provide some kind of benchmark. As you think about tam, in terms of the second question on tech, I think it’s too early for us to say. We’re obviously evaluating different options and following the space, but not really intimately familiar yet with what the different technology components are. So really tough to say. And then I think on the first mover question, I do think that being an early mover in a space like this can be important. I also think that being a literal first mover may not be as important and there are downsides to that as well. So we’re evaluating. Obviously we have a lot of stakeholders, state regulators, relationships with tribes, others that we want to make sure we consider as we think about what our different options are. And you know, we’re keeping a close eye on it and figuring out what we want to do.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Equity Analyst at Jefferies
Good morning and thanks for taking my question. So I wanted to, you know, I guess you already delved deeply on prediction markets, but I feel as though there probably are, you know, a dozen issues related to that as it, as, you know, as it relates to DraftKings. Have you done any work in terms of sort of the crossover, you know, customer, you know, are there, you know, you touched on the relationships just a bit, which I think is, you know, seemingly one of the important issues. And you know, you also noted, you know, state regulators are those, you know, conversations that are in some stage of evolution or, you know, do we know, you know, where they’re at? And I think the ultimate part of the question is how you’re thinking about the stock and the cash flow. Today’s a positive day because we get to raise numbers a little bit for one of the first times in a while. I know there’s probably 10 questions in there and I apologize for that.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you. Well, I’ll try to answer them, but I think a lot of the things you mentioned are considerations and why we’re taking a measured approach as we think about it. And obviously, you know, hard to kind of comment on specific discussions that we may or may not be having. But I think you can assume that at this stage, you know, we’re more in monitoring mode in terms of active discussions like that. So, you know, a lot of what I think we need to see will come from watching how things unfold with others that are currently offering prediction markets. And I think we’ll kind of have to see how that goes and evaluate. It’s all happening in very fast, real time. So definitely a lot to think through.
David Katz (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)
Okay, I’ll take it. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Equity Analyst at Morgan Stanley
Hey, thanks. As we think about longer term opportunities to streamline costs and or offset some of these tax increases, can you just help us think about what opportunities exist within state access fees, data rights fees and or payments or otherwise. Thanks.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think you’re right that there is a good amount of opportunity across the COGS stack. So certainly some of our agreements that are older, we believe there’s some opportunity to reduce the rates there and a win win because it’ll be probably more revenue for the partner in dollars, but less as a percentage. And then on the payment side, we haven’t really spent as much time as we could and it’s one of those things that we keep kind of saying we know is out there and at some point we’re going to put a lot of effort towards optimizing and we believe there’s tremendous value to be unlocked there as well. So definitely I think we view that as, you know, those two things as big upside. And there are also other parts of the COGS stack too. We’re constantly optimizing our systems to be more efficient so our Amazon Web Services bills don’t go up at the pace of our revenue. And a number of other AI initiatives that we’re embarking on now can also really help on that front, as well as on the fixed code cost side. So I actually feel like as much as we talked about the revenue growth and the demand, and obviously we’re very excited about that and really excited about the growth we had this quarter, I think that there’s also a ton of opportunity on the cost side and the teams really are allied around AI, which is exciting too. I think that’s just really, you know, we’re really just scratching the surface now. There’s going to be some big unlocks that come from that over the next several years.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of BTIG. Your line is now open.
Equity Analyst at BTIG
Thank you. I’ve got two. Jason, I’m going to take the bait on AI. You said that we’re scratching the surface here. There are some significant advancements. It sounds like you’ve obviously referenced this in shareholder letters and on calls in the past, but are we at a point where maybe that could start to have a more discernible benefit on the top line as opposed to just sort of expense optimization? Second question is on iGaming. You guys called out some headwinds and adjustments that you guys wanted to make for promos and rewards last quarter. Just curious, now that we saw a revenue acceleration, did it have the benefit that you were looking for and was that benefit sort of fully realized in Q2? Thanks a lot.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
I think iGaming is starting to ramp back up to where we want it to be, but still not quite where we want it to be yet. So the momentum is there, but I do think there’s more work to be done and I feel like there’s more upside to the rate that we’re growing at now. In terms of your first question, I do think that more of the focus, because it’s just something we could do more organization wide is on the expense side. The simple sort of areas are really any kind of workflows that are manual. Now, all of those can be automated and we don’t necessarily need to rely on our engineering team to be able to do that. We can rely on those running the programs and those running the processes to do it with the tools that we provided them. And then separately we’re biting off usually we kind of try to focus. And so I think we view there’s a small handful of top line potential top line driving AI initiatives that we are heavily focused on over the next six to 12 months in areas like trading is a good example where there’s just so much going on at once that adding AI agents to be able to monitor and react certainly can provide some upside. So there are areas like that that I do believe will have impact on the top line. At this point we don’t have enough data yet to say what that impact could be. So we haven’t really contemplated it in thinking about this or next year’s guidance. But I do think that there is going to be upside on the top line that we unlock as we embark on these initiatives.
Equity Analyst at BTIG
Understood, thank. You.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from the line of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at JPMorgan
Hey, good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Two parter first one, structural hold accelerated,
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
100 basis points in the quarter. Is there anything specifically you caught that’s driving that? And can you talk about maybe if that resets your expectation for that 50 basis point year over year improvement? And then secondly, in late 2023 you guys had an investor day and framed out 2026 expectations. I think it was $1.4 billion of EBITDA. I know you’re not giving updated guidance today, but there’s been moving pieces in that, namely the tax increases as well as Alberta timing. Is there any way to just frame out the impacts from those one offs so we can better calibrate expectations for 26? And that’s it. Thank you. Yeah, great question. So on the first one I really think the big driver of structural hold improvement has been debt mix. Obviously there’s other things we’re doing to opt, but that’s really the big driver parlay mix was up 430 basis points which drove that structural hold up. So really excited about the progress there. And then in terms of next year, I think you’re right that when we did put out those numbers we hadn’t had some of these tax increases which have amounted to around $200 million if you look at next year. So there have been some underlying value drivers that have been outperforming too. So I think we’re able to offset some of that, but I don’t think we’ll be able to offset all of it. Got it. Thanks so much.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question is from MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson
Hi, good morning. There are some higher profile sports streaming apps set to launch in the next few weeks ahead of football season. ESPN and Fox one come to mind. So can you just talk about your openness to partnering with either these or other sports focused streaming apps in general for cross sell opportunities or potentially even look to enter into more formal exclusive relationships going forward? And then separately, after Flutter completed its Boyd deal with the restructured market Access agreement, can you discuss the opportunity for DraftKings to rework your own market access deals given your stronger position in the market today versus a few years ago?
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Yes, I do think market access deals are an area of upside along with many of the other cogs levers I mentioned earlier. So I think you’re right that there is some upside to be had there when we renegotiate some of those deals and some of them were long term deals but are still coming up in the next few years because a lot of them were struck in the early days of the market as you noted. Definitely something we are looking at. Also very excited about the launch of the direct-to-consumer apps you mentioned. I think it’s going to be great for sports viewership. It will help betting I think too early to tell what kinds of media buying or partnership opportunities might present themselves. Obviously we are anxiously watching though and seeing how that stuff unfolds and if there is a partnership that makes sense then we would certainly look into that.
Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Robin Farley of ubs. Please go ahead. Great, thanks. Two questions. One is it looks like the first quarter where your unique users on a kind of trailing twelve month basis was flat sequentially and I don’t know if the answer is as simple as you didn’t maintain the users that you didn’t want to. Maybe it’s that simple. And then the second question semi related is can you kind of tell us where you are these days with your split of you know we think about the sort of standard 80, 20 split that you know, 20% of customers providing 80% of revenue. What is that for DraftKings? Just kind of think about the tax implications for the larger players and also you know, thinking about the size of the smaller players that it’s aren’t as meaningful if you, you know, to your revenue outlook. Thanks. Thanks.
Equity Analyst at UBS
So on the first question the biggest thing that happened with MUPs was you know last year we had Jackpocket, obviously the numbers and this year we also had Jackpocket, but we didn’t have Jackpocket Texas which was, you know, a Very large state for the lottery business and obviously losing that cost them ups and something that affected the numbers year over year. And then in terms of the customer mix stuff you mentioned, we haven’t disclosed anything exactly. But we’re roughly in the range that you talked about, which I think is pretty normal. Keep in mind too, for us, 20% of customers is still millions of people. So we feel like we’re pretty well diversified across our base. And I wouldn’t assume that all those people are super high spend. A lot of the people at the bottom End are spending 25, 50 cents a dollar on bets. So it doesn’t take much to be in the top 20% of customers.
Operator
Great, thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Barclays
Good morning everybody. Thanks for taking my question, Alan. I was hoping maybe you could just give us a walk on the 2025 EBITDA reaffirmation at point. If you could quantify the tax change, the Missouri launch and then if there was anything more than sport outcomes on the good guy side, if you could break that out as well. Yeah, I think at this point we’re expecting given Missouri is going to launch early, early December, it will probably have around $35 million of EBITDA impact this year. I think we 35 to $45 million of EBITDA impact this year. Beyond that, the support outcomes was the big lever in Q2 that we saw, but we did see some really strong performance of our core fundamentals of the business. Not enough that we’d adjust the guide for it necessarily, or create a separate bridge item, but enough to give us some optimism in the back half of the year. Ultimately we looked at the guide, realized that there was a chance to wiggle a little tiny bit and decide decided just to keep it flat given that most of our revenues and EBITDAs come in the last half of the year with the NFL and the NBA. Felt really good momentum going into the back half of the year, but don’t feel like we need to necessarily lean too heavily into it this early on. Excellent. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Citizens. Please go ahead everyone.
Equity Analyst at Citizens
Good morning. Thanks for the question. Maybe a two part question for me. First, I’m getting your pregame handle was down year over year in the quarter. Should we expect that to grow in the second half and then more broadly, you’ve been one of the more vocal operators around in play, obviously. And are you seeing any changes to your customer betting patterns, size of wallet, shipping the wallets, just anything you can share there. Thank you.
Jason Robins
So I mean, it’s hard to say what pregame handle will do because we really don’t even look at handle in isolation. We look at all the levers of revenue and definitely when you have, you know, if you’re trying to maximize handle, you would pump promo into the market. So, you know, in a quarter where we had really strong hold rate, we had really efficient promotion, I would expect handle to be a little lighter maybe than in future quarter if those things weren’t the case. So it’s hard to sort of say because it depends on outcomes and promo rates and other things that are all moving parts. And we kind of look at that as we have multiple levers to grow our revenue and ultimately land the plane where we want to. So hard to say, but we are very excited about the growth that we’re seeing in in game. As you mentioned, we were up about 16% overall for the quarter in in game. Really led by baseball, which is up even more. So very excited about that. And I think there’s a ton of upside there if you look at the growth that we’re seeing and it doesn’t seem to be slowing. I think one, it’s going to be the source of handle growth for the industry in the next probably couple of years and two, outside of any new states, of course. And then two, we are the leader right now and have by far the best offering. We had over 90% uptime in all of our core live markets last quarter, which is an industry leading number. So. And we have a wider offering than anyone else in the industry. So I feel like we’re really playing from a position of strength in the area that’s likely to be the biggest source of growth for the handle side of the OSB market in the next few years.
Equity Analyst at Citizens
Great. Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Goldman Sachs
Great. Thanks for taking the question. Just on live betting, again, as you think about the time spent in the app or session count for customers engaging with in play, what are you seeing in terms around driving better conversion via personalization or even getting someone to engage with different matches or sports against those impressions. The second part of that is we’ve talked in the past about live betting potentially unlocking new cohorts of customers because of the product offering. Just what are you seeing around that front as well? Thanks so much.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think when it comes to personalization, we are still really early days of what we think we can do. So I actually think there’s a good bit of upside there and from some of the things that we have implemented to date, we are seeing really strong results in terms of engagement. So I do think there’s a lot of upside on that front and. Sorry, what was the second question? Can you say it one more time?
Equity Analyst at Goldman Sachs
Yeah, just around the potential for live betting to unlock new cohorts.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Oh, like new acquisition. Well, I do think one of the things that’s good about live betting is if you miss the start of the game, you can still get a bet in and a lot of people don’t know that. So I think as the education around that continues, it’s going to create more efficient in game customer acquisition for us and it will extend the window of time that we can acquire customers. I’m not sure so much that you’re going to get an incremental type of customer because so much of what people do is similar to pre match, different bet types, but it’s the same general activity. But I do think that having a larger window to be able to acquire customers and having the education out there that you can get your bet in anytime, even if the game started already will help.
Equity Analyst at Goldman Sachs
Great. Thanks so much.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Oppenheimer and Co. Inc. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Oppenheimer and Co. Inc.
Hey great. Thanks for taking my question. Can you speak to any July handle trends or July hold trends you’re seeing and how the outlook for handle is. In the back half of the year? And then just touching back on iGaming. Can you talk about where you think. You are competitively with the iGaming first player versus the sportsbook first customer.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks. So I think first on the handle question a little bit of a different sport calendar. The Copa and Euros were big last year for soccer, so soccer handles was not as strong. But all the other major sports Handel was up double digits year over year. So you know, baseball, basketball, everything. Not basketball, excuse me, baseball, golf, you know, everything else, combat sports, everything was up double digits year over year. And also we didn’t have Olympics in July this year. We did last year. So that made a little bit of a difference too. So some schedule differences, but all the major sports were showing good strong double digit handle growth. And then Your question on iGaming, I actually think you’re right that that’s where the biggest opportunity and the most growth lies. I think we are leading the pack as it comes to the cross sell and conversion of Sportsbook into customers into igaming players and feel like for that reason we have really done well to own the table game space in a big way and I think where we have our big opportunity is with that slots casino first player that we, we believe there’s many, many more out there using competitor apps that we will be able to provide a great offering and maybe at this point don’t think of DraftKings as much as a place that they would go do that and think of us more as a sports brand. So I think there’s a lot of good stuff on the product side and feel really good about that and I think really there’s big opportunity to continue to build our brand and reach that slots first customers. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Craig Hallum. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Craig Hallum
Hey, good morning guys. One of folks on Illinois wager tax, you guys are passing that along as are fanduel fanatics, some of your main peers and competitors, I guess curious what your assumptions are and how you think about that market and what passing that on. I know it’ll be a new experience for the consumer but what you think that will mean from a market share standpoint and then also from an in market TAM standpoint.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
So you know, I think the short answer is I don’t really know because this is unprecedented. The way that Illinois implemented the tax, there really wasn’t a good solution here, you know, because if you take low dollar bets you either charge a pass-through or you don’t offer them. And we did see some other operators choose and instead to go with minimum bet sizes which I think there’s some pros and cons to different approaches. But we felt like this was the best approach. It gave the customer at least an option if they wanted to still make lower dollar bets even if they did have to pay the pass-through tax along with it. But again, the way Illinois implemented this, there really isn’t a great solution. I’m hoping that they fix it. There’s got to be a better way to do it. And at this point really hard to say what it’s going to do. I don’t think it’s going to have zero impact, that’s for sure. And that was part of what Alan mentioned. We had baked in as we thought about the impacts of tax increases in our guidance looking forward this year. And at the same time it’s really hard to know because we haven’t seen a tax like this before per wager tax. So it’s kind of uncharted territory.
Equity Analyst at Craig Hallum
Fair enough. Thanks Jason.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mizuho, please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Mizuho
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Anything you can share on the you. Helped us with the EBITDA guide for Missouri, but just expectations around the pace of customer acquisition. Anything you’re doing differently with this launch. Should this be faster than normal relative to some of the other metrics you’ve shared previously? I think in the past you’ve talked about kind of like mid single digit. Percentage of the population in the first 90 days and then any color on CAC expectations parallel to this. You may not want to touch it.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
But directionally ex jackpot. Was your external marketing close to flat year over year? Thanks.
OPERATOR
Yes, basically to the second question, but on the first question I think each state we get a little bit better, but I would expect Missouri to look largely like last couple state launches that we did. In terms of timing, I do think for some reasons that were restrictions in the last launch in North Carolina from the regulators, we probably got off to a little bit of a later start than we will in Missouri. So I think if you look at Missouri, you’re going to end up with a little bit maybe more acceleration than that one. But I think if you look back to the last few launches before that, Ohio, Massachusetts, it’ll look more like that. All that said, the timing of the year is different too. This is going to be happening right in the middle of NFL season, so that’ll probably change the pace in the curve. Also I would expect maybe a little bit more of an accelerated curve for that reason too. But overall I don’t think any reason to kind of model out too differently than what you seen us do in the past in terms of mid single digits. Maybe there’s some upside there. And I think the CACS will be fantastic because it’ll be right smack in the middle of NFL, NBA will be having all the major sports outside of baseball will be happening. So I think you’re going to see really good cacs.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Susquehanna, please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Susquehanna
Good morning Jason, Alan, wondering if you could talk about your approach for customer acquisition in the third quarter. Obviously a seasonal high point for that activity and just how we should think about you realizing further promotional efficiencies. And then for my second question, just to follow up on Jackpocket, with Texas out of the user base, just wondering if you could remind us what are the biggest states now kind of within the user base of Jackpocket.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
So on the second question, New York is now the biggest New Jersey is fairly large, so those are some of the big ones. But obviously there are jackpockets in about 18 states now, so lots of diversification across many states. As for your first question on the customer acquisition side, I think, as you noted, this is one of the most important times of year for us from a customer acquisition perspective. So obviously lots of good stuff planned. I feel pretty good about where we’re going to be competitive competitively. I think that we will be more efficient this year as we continue to optimize, but also we’ll have more mature states this year. So I don’t know where that’s going to net out. And then obviously we have the Missouri launch coming a little bit later in Q4, so that will be something we’re gearing up for as well.
Equity Analyst at Susquehanna
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Truist Securities. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Truist Securities
Hey, good morning, guys. It’s Patrick Keough on for Barry this morning. Thank you for taking our questions. I have two around tax mitigation for you. First, with the Illinois surcharge pending, could you clarify how that revenue will be taxed and how are you thinking about possibly rolling out surcharges to other high tax jurisdictions? Second, sportsbook pricing has been an interesting topic to us. We’re curious how you think about balancing that competitive dynamic with customer awareness and profit potential. Does tweaking pricing weigh in as you think about mitigation? Thank you so much.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think tweaking pricing is something you need to consider and some of it will depend on your first question, tax treatment. Our position is this was a pass-through and it shouldn’t be taxed. I think Illinois has taken a little bit of a different view on it. So we’re going to try to obviously resolve that before we implement the charge, which isn’t happening until September 1st. But the intent was to be a pass-through. I think if it ends up being treated as taxable revenue, then there’s really no benefit to do that versus incorporating into the pricing. So that is something that we’d have to consider. But right now I think this is of the current plan. And then in terms of other states, I think we have to see how this one goes. I mean, this will be a really interesting experiment to find out what the sort of net effects of implementing such a charge will be and that will give us great data upon which to rely as we think about other states that may have higher tax rates and what we want to do there.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Good morning. Thank you very much for the question. I actually want to ask about maybe some of the microbetting. With reports suggesting New Jersey is pursuing banning microbetting and really in the context to your live betting, I guess now over 50% are total handle. Can you help us understand how big microbetting component is and how much risk you think that ban could actually be? Thank you.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
I see that as very, very low likelihood. It was just a piece of legislation put out by somebody. I mean New Jersey offers online slots. I don’t know how they could possibly be looking at micro betting as the great scourge. But as far as microbetting in terms of size, it’s not that large for us. It’s single digit percentage of handle of live handle, I think even as well. So meaningful but not something that I would say is a huge component. But at the same time, bills get introduced all the time that don’t really, I think have much of a chance of advancing and I think this is one of them.
Equity Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Great, thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our last question is from Needham and Company. Please go ahead.
Equity Analyst at Needham and Company
Great. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to stay on in play betting and given the Simple Bet acquisition closed late last year, this will be the first NFL season of you guys owning the assets. Just wanted to see how you expect. It to play into your new products. You’Re bringing to market this NFL season. And how it plays into your expectations. For second half hand trends.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, Simple Bet has been great for us. I think the team is really gelled with our team and I think a big part really of why we are leading right now in live betting has been the addition of their team and their technology that we brought on. So really excited about having them here for a full NFL season and I think the work that’s been put in over the last year is going to show.
OPERATOR
This concludes the question and answer session. I will now turn it back to Jason Robbins.
Jason Robins (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you all for joining us on today’s call. We’re excited to be well positioned for continued success in the future. Thank you for your continued support.
OPERATOR
Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.
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