Everyone knows that FanDuel and DraftKings are the biggest names in the daily fantasy sports business. But there’s something else that investors looking to finance the companies are told on a regular basis…both companies are losing piles of cash every quarter.
Word of the cash hemorrhaging from the companies came in the form of a merger document that’s been used to entice investors into financing the deal. The documents were obtained by Axios, a financial news site, and contain some pretty stunning details.
For starters, the two big dogs lost a combined total of slightly more than $151 million last year. These losses were reported on combined earnings of around $183 million.
When viewed individually, the picture painted in numbers is still pretty bleak. In the first 10 months of 2016, FanDuel generated $91 million, but lost $59 million. DraftKings brought in around $160 million, but lost around $92 million.
As shocking as these numbers are, they pale in comparison to the losses the two companies generated in 2015, when you couldn’t go more than a few minutes without hearing one of their ads on any given medium. During that heady era DraftKings and FanDuel lost a stunning $500 million.
Neither company, however, is in jeopardy of shutting its doors anytime soon due to a lack of cash as both have cash on hand and investors that are willing to gamble with them.
Oddly enough, the bad news in the DFS giants’ financials could actually be spun into good news. According to a report in the New York Post, the companies will be using their losses to justify their proposed merger to the Federal Trade Commission. The idea here is that the losses prove that they’re in a viable and competitive market.
That argument may be a tough sell to regulators and investors alike. For now, however, FanDuel and DraftKings are still chugging along, blissfully losing millions.