It's a good time to be a professional football fan, and it seems it's a good time to be DraftKings (DKNG +0.92%). Going into the National Football League's (NFL) first weekend of the 2020-2021 season, the online sports betting company is seeing plenty of action from fans seeking to win some cash from games.
"Right now, we're just seeing huge numbers across the board, virtually every metric is way up year-over-year," said the company's CEO, Jason Robins, in an interview with Yahoo! Finance on Friday -- two days before the league's first slate of Sunday games.
Image source: Getty Images.
Although the company has benefited from the general trend of sports betting becoming legalized in new states, Robins said this growth is occurring in spite of this new trend, not because of it.
"Even in the existing states we were in at the start of last NFL season like New Jersey and West Virginia, we've seen enormous year-over-year growth in those markets as well," he said. "So, certainly from our perspective it seems that more people are betting on the NFL than ever this year."
Both New Jersey and West Virginia pulled the trigger on legal sports betting in 2018.
Robins did not provide details of any specific company metric or metrics that were rising.
Despite coming to the market in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic after its April initial public offering (IPO), DraftKings has been a very popular stock. Many investors are optimistic about the future of legalized betting, and they like DraftKings' assertive moves in signing sponsorships (it's the "official daily fantasy partner" of the NFL, for example) and expanding into new markets.
