DraftKings Predictions Goes Live: Q&A With SVP/GM Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto

On Friday, DraftKings launched its new standalone mobile app, DraftKings Predictions, marking the sports betting behemoth’s official entry into the emerging prediction market industry.

The launch puts current prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket on notice, as well as sports betting rival FanDuel, which has yet to launch FanDuel Predict, its own version of a prediction market app.

DraftKings Predictions is now available across 38 states, giving users access to sports event contracts in certain states where traditional sports betting remains banned—most notably California and Texas. For now, DraftKings Predictions is launching only with sports and finance events, but more categories are on the roadmap.

To lead this new vertical, DraftKings tapped financial markets veteran Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto as VP and General Manager of DraftKings Predictions. We sat down with her to find out more about the product and what the future holds for prediction markets.

Q: What are some surprises a traditional sportsbook or DFS user will encounter using DraftKings Predictions?

A: So I think there’s a couple of things that make the products different from a customer perspective. They will obviously see content on the platform that isn’t sports related, so they’ll see financial products, they’ll see economic products, etc. We’re gonna be building out a full suite of products related to cultural events, weather derivatives, and elections.

So the breadth of content is really gonna be far greater than you’ve ever seen at a sportsbook because it extends far beyond sports. The second experience the customers will have is that this is a market driven product, and so unlike sportsbooks where you are interacting with the house, in this ecosystem, you’re gonna be interacting with exchanges and participants on exchanges, so the trading functionality — buying and selling contracts on a very fluid basis, being able to see market prices — will be much different.

I think one of the really exciting parts of the product is its competitive pricing. The way markets behave, the way that the business behaves is very different from a sportsbook-like experience.

For a third, what I think the difference is from our peers in this—and similar but different from our sportsbook—is our responsible trading program, which is different than responsible gaming because we’re clearly in a financial services vertical here and in a trading arena, but we do have the ability for customers to use similar type tools that we have in our sportsbook product to manage their trading activity.

Q: Will users have the ability to be market-markers, or to what extent will market making be in-house and from other exchanges?

A: Our product is unique and different in many ways. The app that we are going live with is an app that allows our customers to enter orders that we will be submitting to an exchange. Our Day One exchange is CME Group, so that will be the marketplace where our customers are interacting. They have market makers on their exchange, which our customers will be interacting with, as well as other customers that could be posting orders on that market.

For Day One, our customers will be sending orders to the market; as we grow and develop the functionality we can add ways for them to post orders as well.

Q: How can we expect to see DraftKings Predictions being integrated with DraftKings major media partnerships like ESPN, NBC Universal, and Barstool Sports?

A: We are excited about all of the things to come. We have really big relationships in these spaces and it’s one of the strengths for DraftKings in terms of entering this prediction market space, but it’s still too early to talk about how those might materialize over time.

Q: What do you find most compelling about prediction markets and the industry more generally?

A: I think this is a really exciting new arena for financial markets overall. Every couple of years you see growth in a new asset. The last couple of years has been crypto; before that it was options. So there’s always a really new, interesting thing taking place in the financial market. In this case, I think the next big thing for financial markets is prediction markets. Prediction markets allow customers to express their views, in terms of price, on outcomes of future events, and there’s a huge information advantage that comes as a result that can cascade into many different areas for financial markets.

Q: What do you think the biggest challenge is for prediction markets to gain mainstream adoption?

A: I think they are already on their way to mainstream adoption. 
Most of this customer base today is retail, and I think the familiarity for customers of how these products work—how they trade, how they participate—is probably the biggest challenge in terms of education and how to get involved in the space. I think DraftKings entering the space with a familiar product in terms of user interface and a trusted brand is really going to help take prediction markets to the next level.

Q: Do you think prediction markets are sustainable as a business model without sports event contracts?

A: Sports event contracts are a huge part of the overall volume in the industry today, and it’s been an exciting start. But the industry didn’t get started with sports. They came at a later date, so I think there’s still tremendous potential for the markets to develop over time, even without sports.

Q: We have seen a lot of long-tail markets on other platforms. What’s your philosophy on those? Where do you draw the line between fun markets and markets that go too far?

A: I can’t speak for other platforms, but at DraftKings, we definitely have a philosophy that you want to make sure that our markets have integrity, that they are not manipulated, that they’re fair and they’re transparent and they adhere to all of the rules that not only the government requires as part of its licensing process, but also our own standards uphold too.

Q: What kind of expertise has the team from Railbird brought to DraftKings?

A: We acquired Railbird with a team and they have brought a lot of expertise in terms of standing up and building out the exchange platform. We are looking forward to growing that platform and going live in the near future.

Q: What does success look like for DraftKings Predictions a year from now?

A: We’re looking to be leaders in the prediction market space, and that covers a couple of different areas: Having the most engaging product, the broadest content, and the best customer retention in the space. I think we’re definitely on our way to achieving all of that.