DraftKings has officially announced a company-wide restructuring that by all likelihood will lead to layoffs in various departments and roles across the organization.
The sports betting giants revealed to SBC Americas that this reorganization is, among other things, their effort to reduce the company’s general and administrative expenses.
A spokesperson explained:
DraftKings has decided to reorganize some teams to better align their people with the most important priorities and areas of investment for the company. Unfortunately, these changes will impact some roles across the organization.
The company admitted that the choice was tough; however, they also focused on the changes being made considering the company’s future power and growth. “Making such decisions is extremely difficult, but they are necessary if the company wants to be ready for growth in the future, ” said the statement.
DraftKings’ reorganization is happening against the backdrop of the company grappling with rising costs. Data from Citizens Capital Markets reveals that the company’s general and administrative expenses rose 22 percent year over year, while product and technology costs were 26 percent higher in 2025. DraftKings’ entry into prediction markets by launching its own platform accounted for a significant part of this expense increase.
Jordan Bender, the Managing Director of Gaming Equity Research, in his note anticipates that DraftKings might layoff around 5 percent of its global employees who are distributed across 13 countries.
The company could save approximately $30 million annually if it decides to layoff 5 percent of its staff at the median salary of $100, 000. The Boston, based company had a headcount of about 5, 500 in 2025, which means that if the prediction is correct, then more than 250 employees would be negatively impacted by the cuts.
This would be the second time in three years that DraftKings layoffs have been done. In 2023, the company let go of 140 staff members, which was approximately 3.5 percent of the total employees. Most of these job cuts were in locations outside North America, like Europe and the Middle East.
Strong Earnings and Financial Outlook
The news of the job cuts came less than two weeks after DraftKings had announced strong earnings for the fourth quarter of 2025. The company posted revenues of $1.9 billion, which was 43 percent higher than the same quarter of the previous year.
EBITDA, after the adjustment for non recurring items, rose considerably to $343 million from $89.4 million in Q4 2024, and net income jumped to $136.4 million from a net loss of $134 million the year before.
Going forward, DraftKings is forecasting its full-year 2026 revenue to be around 6.6 billion dollars, which is an increase over the 6 billion dollars anticipated for 2025. Additionally, the gaming company is anticipating that its adjusted EBITDA will fall somewhere between $700 million and $900 million, thus following the $620 million number they indicate was achieved last year.
Bender informed the analysts that the projection figures already include the savings from the restructuring. Even with these excellent results, the DraftKings stock price has declined by approximately 35 percent this year, which indicates that the market is still somewhat skeptical of the company despite its expansion plans.
Prediction Markets: The Next Big Growth Frontier
DraftKings is reorienting its business by putting great emphasis on prediction markets. In late 2022, the company launched its standalone DraftKings Predictions app, after acquiring Railbird, a derivatives exchange overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
CEO Jason Robins called the launch a turning point, saying:
Predictions is the most exciting new growth opportunity we have seen since PASPA struck down in 2018. Early signals are strong.
Railbird is going to be the chief partner for DraftKings Predictions. However, the company has also been experimenting with event contracts via CME Group.
Moreover, the company has grown through a partnership agreement to add Crypto.com markets to its platform. If we believe the analysts cited by Robins, the DraftKings Predictions app could eventually be a $ 10 billion a year gross revenue machine, which would make it one of the company’s riskiest but probably most rewarding growth avenues over the next several years.
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