EKG LINE: CAN YOU HAVE TOO MUCH IN-HOUSE CONTENT?
A weekly newsletter with gambling industry insider insights from the Sports Betting & Emerging Verticals team at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming
CAN YOU HAVE TOO MUCH IN-HOUSE CONTENT?
Our app testing suggests DraftKings makes the best online casino products in the U.S., with three apps (DraftKings, Golden Nugget, Jackpocket) in the top ten in our last testing round.
That is driven at least in part by in-house content, per CEO Jason Robins.
Appearing at a Morgan Stanley conference in March, Robins was asked what makes a good online casino product. His first answer? Content—and specifically in-house unique content that runs smoothly without glitches or crashing. As a result, he said, around half of DraftKings’ online casino handle now comes from in-house content.
That is almost certainly an industry-leading mark. Our Online Game Performance Database (OGPD) shows ~4% of U.S. online casino GGR comes from in-house games. That’s not quite a like-for-like comparison since Robins appeared to be talking about handle rather than GGR, and DraftKings would over-index on lower-hold table games vs. slots. But DraftKings is clearly an outlier.
The upside of more in-house games is clear: better economics, more differentiation, and perhaps better game stability.
But are there any downsides? Casino players often want to play a small handful of well-known slots (like current OGPD number one Cash Eruption from IGT) and focusing CRM and app real estate on your own games over these titles could put off some high-value customers.
DraftKings of course has better data on its customers than us, but it’s at least a small word of caution for other operators pursuing the in-house content path.
2. PODCAST: WHO’S WINNING THE A.I. ARMS RACE?
Host Brad Allen is joined by industry founder Stephen Taylor-Matthews to discuss:
Selling his company to Underdog
Why Flutter, DraftKings, and bet365 are leading on A.I.
Listen to the episode here.
3. TRENDING UP / TRENDING DOWN
Trending up: Free spins mechanics. Hard Rock has joined the growing number of U.S. online casinos focusing on free spin mechanics, after integrating the promotional tool from Games Global. Free Spins will initially go live on Hard Rock Bet in New Jersey.
Trending down: Sports betting hold … again. Favorites are 50-13 straight-up through the Elite 8 in the men's March Madness tournament, and on track to surpass the 51 favorites who won outright during the 2007 tournament. All four top seeds are also in the Final Four. “Not ideal,” as one trading source put it.
4. NUMBER TO KNOW: PENN MAKING MOVES IN ONLINE CASINO?
That was Hollywood Casino’s share of U.S. casino app downloads in March, per Sensor Tower data, equivalent to 79k downloads.
That was good for second spot in the market behind BetMGM at 34% and ahead of Caesars Palace in third at 16% (FanDuel and DraftKings were not ranked).
The standalone Hollywood Casino app ranked second in our recent product testing round, boding well for its ability to retain these new customers.
Penn said its weekly online casino GGR in PA increased by 38% after launching the standalone Hollywood app there in December.
Penn is targeting a 3.5% nationwide online casino market share in 2025, up around 140 basis points form its current 2.1%, per our estimates.