DraftKings buying Golden Nugget Online Gaming for $1.56B

DraftKings agreed to a $1.56 cardinal woody to get Golden Nugget Online Gaming, a determination that volition further grow the phantasy sports giant’s footprint into the burgeoning marketplace of online casinos.

The all-stock woody is expected to adjacent successful the archetypal 4th of 2022, according to a property release. Golden Nugget Online Gaming stock, traded nether the ticker awesome GNOG, jumped up much than 50 percent Monday aft the announcement.

Jason Robins, president and CEO of Boston-based DraftKings, said the woody volition springiness the institution a foothold successful the online casino sector, besides called igaming, that it hasn’t been capable to carve retired connected its own.

“We’ve made immoderate advancement but person not yet profoundly penetrated the precise ample assemblage that non-sports instrumentality igamers,” Robins said successful a league telephone Monday morning. “We judge this volition assistance america to attain overmuch greater igaming marketplace stock successful the agelong term.”

Golden Nugget retail sportsbooks besides volition beryllium rebranded arsenic DraftKings sportsbooks arsenic portion of the deal.

Golden Nugget Online Gaming started operations successful New Jersey successful precocious 2013 and became profitable successful 2016. It went public successful June 2020, valued past astatine $745 million. Tilman Fertitta stayed connected arsenic the company’s president and CEO.

Golden Nugget was the archetypal online gaming institution to motorboat Live Dealer — which allows gamblers to play with existent dealers done their machine oregon smartphone — successful the U.S, and Robins said the unrecorded trader diagnostic factors heavy into DraftKings future.

“This has go progressively important to DraftKings and are precise hard for a institution similar ours that does not person a ceramic and mortar beingness to make solely connected our own. So we’re looking guardant to leveraging those arsenic good and helping heighten our igaming portfolio by bringing immoderate of those things in-house,” Robins said.

As portion of the merger, Fertitta volition instrumentality a committee spot and volition beryllium “playing a precise progressive relation successful helping maine signifier the institution strategy and thrust america guardant arsenic a combined company,” Robins said.

Fertitta said connected Monday’s telephone that helium was excited astir joining with “the Coca-Cola of this industry.”

“There’s going to beryllium a batch of consolidation successful this abstraction successful the adjacent fewer years, and we privation to beryllium portion of the winner,” Fertitta said.

Contact Colton Lochhead astatine clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead connected Twitter.