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How I Built a Fortune: DraftKings Co-Founder Speaks | Matt Kalish DSH #789
00:31:43
Get ready to dive into the incredible journey of Matt Kalish, co-founder of DraftKings, on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 📈🎙️ Discover how Matt transformed a simple fantasy sports idea into a monumental success, leading the charge in spo
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- [00:01]
A
So, yeah, things like that can just happen. I feel like that's how I felt.
- [00:03]
B
About the MVP this season because I wanted Luka to win it, but he wasn't even top two in most people's voting.
- [00:09]
A
Yeah, Luka's a major problem. I think in the future he's a serious candidate. Every year I feel like he should be top of the list.
- [00:17]
B
Yeah, if they get one more piece, they could possibly give the Celtics a six, seven game series, I think.
- [00:22]
A
Yeah, yeah, he's a big problem.
- [00:26]
B
All right, guys, we got Matt, co founder of DraftKings. Thanks for coming on today, man.
- [00:30]
A
Thanks for having me.
- [00:31]
B
This is great. It's been really cool to see the evolution of the company since I was in high school.
- [00:35]
A
Yeah, 12 years now, roughly. And, you know, we started with fantasy sports and now obviously the culture in the country has changed a lot. So sports betting is in about 50% of the US and being on the forefront of that really, really amazing experience. And I think the best is still yet ahead as well. So it's quite the ride so far though.
- [00:57]
B
Was sports betting even in the picture when you started the company? Was that even on your radar?
- [01:01]
A
It wasn't, we played initially. It was fantasy sports. Poker had been a huge thing in the US for, you know, probably the early 2000s up until around 2009 when it got shut down. And there was tens of millions of people playing Internet poker and obviously tens of millions of sports fans that didn't really have any good way to predict things or engage in the U.S. maybe it was an office pool or like a bookie or some kind of a legal offshore sportsbook, but not a lot of ways to predict things in sports. And so we felt like the combination of those two worlds, like the skill based gaming, poker kind of with the lack of options in sports, was a good situation for a fantasy platform to really, I think, meet the need a little better, which was people wanted to play every day.
- [01:50]
B
Right.
- [01:50]
A
They loved doing drafts, they loved predicting things. They wanted a chance to win big prizes as well. So, like, all that stuff led to DraftKings initially when we launched. And there was really no path to sports betting. Though at the time this was 2012, it was highly unclear how that would even come out.
- [02:06]
B
It wasn't legal yet.
- [02:08]
A
Yeah. And so, I mean, I guess anything's possible, but there was no real way to know that that could ever, you know, open up in the U.S. yeah.
- [02:16]
B
Who would have thought, man? So a mixture of good timing and then just being there at the right place, right?
- [02:20]
A
Yeah. Definitely. I think we built up with just the fantasy platform. You know, in the first five, seven years we built up over 10 million users on the platform and the same people that were playing Fantasy, you know, are highly, they have a lot of affinity for sports betting and other prediction games too. So in the event that it ever opened up, I thought we had a really good audience. But um, yeah, we didn't sort of bet the company on that either. I mean we, we weren't expecting it until it actually happened.
- [02:49]
B
How's Fantasy these days? Is still as popular?
- [02:51]
A
It is, yeah. Fantasy still very popular. I think there's a lot of people who like the simpler predictions though that you find in a sports book. Yeah, you know, just who's going to win or you know, point totals and player props and things like that. But Fantasy hasn't slowed down a ton. There's still a tremendous amount of I think interest in DraftKings but also the season long formats that everybody plays. There's definitely been some new models though. Like a lot of people have jumped into what they call best ball. Best ball is you just draft your team at the start of the year and then you have to manage the team at all. And much more passive. You can just draft and then watch. And I've noticed that kind of like lighter touch fantasy game that's become a little more popular recently.
- [03:36]
B
That would be my style if I got back into it. Cuz I, I used to play fantasy and that was a full time job, dude. Yeah, you know those waivers and yeah.
- [03:44]
A
What got me into Fantasy originally was baseball too, which was. I was a distance runner in high school and college. Yeah, I did. What was your 800 in the mile? Okay. Yeah, I was even longer. I did cross country at least a mile. Maybe 2 mile or 5k was my, my length.
- [04:01]
B
What was your 5k time?
- [04:03]
A
I ran 1550.
- [04:05]
B
Jeez.
- [04:05]
A
Yeah, fast. I actually got into college off running. I would say I had a 421 mile in high school. Crap. I ended up going to Columbia. Would have never got into any school like this. I mean they were not looking at my academics. I don't think on that. I was fine in school. I mean I had maybe like top 20 in my class but I wasn't the valedictorian.
- [04:27]
B
You weren't Columbus.
- [04:29]
A
And so I needed the running and yeah, I got in Columbia which was a great I think situation. But on these runs, you know, we were running 80 miles a week so we would talk about baseball stats and that's when I got into. It was a Lot of the people on the team, they just knew every stat for every player. And we would talk for hours about that every week. And from there I kind of got into football and other sports.
- [04:55]
B
Did you start the company with your co founders from the track team, cross country?
- [04:59]
A
Yeah. So after college, I had a few corporate jobs. I started initially in technology, and I got a computer science degree. And throughout my career, I moved sort of from very technical to a little bit more sort of marketing and creative and operations type jobs. But, you know, early on, I met my partners at first, Jason Robbins at Capital One. We were in business analytics and worked together for three years, built a really good relationship. We both had a lot of entrepreneurial interest, but just didn't have the right thing we wanted to work on. And then we moved together to this other company called vistaprint. I've heard extremely boring product, but what was cool was digital marketing at the time. You know, it was like a skill set that was very valuable. And this was, you know, call it 2009, 2010. There wasn't a ton of great companies where you could go and run digital marketing channels with a big budget and learn and test and like, build up that expertise. And so we went there, learned a lot about digital marketing and direct response, and then met Paul Lieberman, who's our tech founder. So.
- [06:11]
B
Got it.
- [06:12]
A
Paul still today runs our product in tech. And us three, you know, eventually ended up leaving Vistaprint and started DraftKings.
- [06:19]
B
Wow. The dream team. And the fact that you guys stay together this long is impressive, but just that alone.
- [06:23]
A
Yeah, yeah, I think we maybe got lucky with this. But whenever people ask me about founding teams or like they want to start a company and. And I'd say the number one thing I notice is a lot of founding teams don't have a great tech founder. And we were very lucky with Paul that, you know, he coded our original site. He's not somebody that would be our CTO today. You know, it's probably beyond what he would want to be doing, but at the time when you're getting the ball rolling, I just noticed, like, a lot of. A lot of founding teams don't have a great tech founder, and it holds them back a lot. Like they think that they can outsource it or whatever. And what's always been great about Jason, Paul and I, I think is it's very complimentary in terms of our skill set and what we do for the company. So, yeah, yeah, it did kind of end up being, I guess, a. A dream, dream team or like a Very compatible team, for sure.
- [07:17]
B
No, that's great advice, because entrepreneurs don't really think about the tech side of things.
- [07:20]
A
Yeah.
- [07:21]
B
Like, when they're building a company, that's, like, kind of the last thing they hire, you know?
- [07:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's some teams, too, I think. Very technical, focused on the product, but don't know how to market. Hit it with a market fit and really make it earn dollars, you know?
- [07:38]
B
Yeah.
- [07:39]
A
So, yeah, you got to have the total package.
- [07:40]
B
I think you need both. Congrats on the Celtics championship this season, man.
- [07:45]
A
Thank you. Thank you. I was, believe it or not, even being up 3. 0, I just knew what the consequences would be if they blew it. And, look, Boston was not gonna be okay if we blew that. Seriously.
- [07:57]
B
I think. Yeah, I think there have been some trades. Yeah, I think one of the. Jalen or Jason would have had to go if they lost that series.
- [08:04]
A
Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, that was the story last year.
- [08:07]
B
Yeah.
- [08:07]
A
We had so, like, Robert Williams, Brogdon, Marcus Smart. They just said, like, we didn't win. We got to make some changes, you know, Brought in Jrue Holiday and poor Zingis. And, Yeah, a lot of people, I think, around Boston were, like, more than a little upset about the Marcus Smart trade. They really love that guy and turned out to be probably the greatest trade in the history of the league.
- [08:33]
B
Yeah, Drew was a great pickup.
- [08:35]
A
Yeah. Yeah, that was a crazy one. I mean, and you look back at the deal we got for poor Zingis, too. Steel, we're getting picks. We're getting him. You know, really just masterful work, I thought, by the front office. And.
- [08:49]
B
Yep.
- [08:49]
A
Yeah, they. They're winners, man. They want to win.
- [08:51]
B
Well done.
- [08:52]
A
Yeah. There was this one story I read about Wick. Wick Grossbeck, who's the owner or the managing. I think there's, like, a few owners, but he's the managing operator as well. And he basically said, like, to the. To the ownership, he said, you guys all made your money somewhere else. This is not going to be about making money. This is going to be about parades. Like, expect to lose money on this investment that you're making. You know, it was like a culture lifestyle. Like, we'll do what it takes to win. And so I always thought they operate that way, like, relentless. They need to win. They'll make the plays. They'll make the trades. Do whatever it takes, you know? And, yeah, finally this year, that paid off.
- [09:33]
B
But what a great mindset, because a lot of teams are scared to dish out tons of money. For players.
- [09:37]
A
Yeah. Yeah. You see that for sure. Especially they got these crazy luxury taxes and everything. Now you can pay. I think it's like, if you go over a certain amount, you're paying 70% of that amount in luxury tax, you know, 100 million plus dollars. It could get expensive, but, like, that's the culture.
- [09:55]
B
Yeah. It was one of the most dominant playoff runs I've seen in my lifetime. Yeah, they only lost three games.
- [10:00]
A
Yeah. Look, I'm. My wife and I. And my. I have four daughters. Two of them are too young to be going. Two are old enough. Like, after Covid, when they started bringing fans back, we got season tickets, and The Celtics were 40 to 1, I think, to win the championship. This was before, like, people on the team were like Dennis Schroeder and Jay Rich and some of these guys that ended up getting traded. And we brought in Derek White and kind of mixed up the team a little. But we got the seats probably at the last minute. It would have been possible, you know, especially in a city like Boston, where the fan base is rabid. So we got these seats, started going to every game. This was our third season with season tickets, probably been to 150 games. And the run they've been on is just crazy. I mean, two finals east, you know, we lost in the east championship last year in Game 7. But, yeah, it's such a time commitment, and it's become just a huge part of my life, and my family loves it. I've met so many friends through just being out, going to the games. It's incredible.
- [11:07]
B
Future's bright, man. I saw Tatum's postgame speech, and he was damn near crying.
- [11:10]
A
Yeah.
- [11:11]
B
I mean, it was cool to see him get one for real. He had a lot of pressure.
- [11:14]
A
Yeah.
- [11:14]
B
These athletes are under so much pressure to win.
- [11:17]
A
Yeah.
- [11:17]
B
And only one out of 30 teams wins every year.
- [11:19]
A
Yeah. I feel like people would have been very happy to just write Tatum even now, you know, he wins the title, and nobody really wants to give this guy any credit for, you know, basically, like, you know, leading the team in every statistical category consistently throughout, you know, the last three years, throughout the whole finals run, he's, like, got more points than anybody ever under 27. It's pretty dominant. He puts numbers on the. On the stat sheet. I don't know what else to say. Yeah, this poor guy, man. Nobody wants to give him any credit. So I think he just has to keep proving it year after year and not expect anything from anyone. And. Yeah, in the end, though, I think the numbers Talk the achievements, talk the rings, the. You know.
- [12:09]
B
Are you shocked he didn't win MVP Finals?
- [12:12]
A
I kind of was. Like, I maybe saw it coming a little because of how the media was talking about it. Saw it coming. It was. Look, if you're just looking at the stats, he was the. He was the mvp. But I think people wanted to put a lot of credit on the run. Jaylen has had all these crazy, like, clutch shots, even not in the finals, but, you know, against the Pacers, he hits this three with two seconds left to tie it. And they went in overtime. And, like, the momentum swings, the defense, the, like, intangible stuff. I feel like a lot of value got put on the intangible stuff. And that being said, like, you know, both of them, I thought deserved it.
- [12:53]
B
Yeah, it was close. I wonder how they picked that. Is it like a committee or do you know how it's.
- [12:57]
A
Yeah, it's writers. They have writers. I think it's 11 or 13 writers. These are people from, like, the Athletic or ESPN or whatever. They all just vote and the majority wins. So in this case, I think it was like five people voted Tatum and maybe eight or Jalen Brown or something like that.
- [13:14]
B
That seems like a weird way to pick it to me.
- [13:16]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [13:16]
B
You know what I mean? Cuz if you're a writer, you're going to have some bias.
- [13:20]
A
Yeah, definitely.
- [13:21]
B
Like, you're covering the. The game kind of emotionally.
- [13:23]
A
So I noticed there was this funny one, Marcus Smart got defensive player of the year, kind of a similar thing. It's the writers. And everybody in analytics land was just, like, baffled. How did Marcus Smart defensive player of the year? This guy, I really respect his analytics chops. Heralibus Vulgaris, you know, Harala Bob on Twitter.
- [13:47]
B
Okay.
- [13:47]
A
Big name in gambling. Like, one of the best, most successful NBA gamblers ever. He was on Mark Cuban's team on the Dallas Mavericks, helping him with analytics.
- [13:57]
B
Wow.
- [13:58]
A
Like a genius level, like, stats, analytics, analytics guy. And he said, Marcus Smart's like, the third best defender on the Celtics. Like, how did he win? You know, Tatum. There was arguments for that, like Tatum and Jaylen Brown and even guys like Robert Williams, like people that you could make a real argument, had more defensive impact. And. But still, though, I mean, I think writers, they see the game, they factor in intangibles a lot more. It's not just the stats. And so, yeah, things like that can just happen. I feel like that's how I felt.
- [14:33]
B
About the MVP this season, because I wanted Luca to win it, but he wasn't even top two in most people's voting.
- [14:38]
A
Yeah. Luke is a major problem. I think in the future, he's a serious candidate. Every year I feel like he should, like, be top of the list.
- [14:47]
B
Yeah. If they get one more piece, they could possibly give the Celtics a six, seven game series, I think.
- [14:52]
A
Yeah. Yeah, he's a big problem. I think Lucas there. There's a bit of a run of the centers. I feel like taking all the MVPs.
- [15:01]
B
Yeah.
- [15:01]
A
You know, like.
- [15:02]
B
Yeah. Jokic and Yanis.
- [15:03]
A
Yeah. Giannis, like, like all these guys. And it's easy right now. I feel like, to give it to those guys when they're scoring 30 points and blocks and all the. Like, the stats are crazy, so I get it. But, yeah, if I could start a team with one guy in the league, it would probably be Luca. I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to think, like, who else even has a really good argument for that? It's probably Luca. I mean, he's. He's a serious problem.
- [15:31]
B
Yeah. Do you sports bet at all? Are you allowed to?
- [15:33]
A
I do. You know what's funny is probably one of my least forms. I love gambling. I mean, I'm in the industry, obviously, but it's because I love the products, but I love casino games. I love fantasy. I. I probably sports bet the least of anything in terms of gambling, to be totally honest. I'll do the big events. I had a Celtics future, so I finally hit that. Oh, nice.
- [15:58]
B
When did you put that in?
- [15:59]
A
Um, I had a couple. I did. I did one that was like the Michigan college football parlayed with the Celtics, and I just sitting on this thing. Um, and so I had a couple of things like that where I just work it in the bets and try to build up a little bit of a position there. So that was a nice one. That was a six figure, like my biggest win ever on sports betting, so that was really cool. But I would say I play like, more blackjack or Ivan with my wife. We'll play slots or whatever. I mean, everything.
- [16:30]
B
Yeah, I hate slots.
- [16:31]
A
Yeah.
- [16:32]
B
The girls love it, though.
- [16:33]
A
It's entertaining. I feel like. I feel like the argument for slots is you don't have to make a lot of decisions. Very entertaining. The bonus, all the. All the creative work that's gone in. Yeah, they kind of like activating IP or coming up with cool bonus rounds and things. I feel like has made these games really entertaining. So, like, I could sit there and just, you know, you hit the button. It's fun.
- [16:58]
B
Yeah. You Gamble on crypto at all.
- [17:01]
A
Yeah, I've had my crypto runs, I would say, you know, during COVID that became a pretty big. I went super deep, I mean, 2001 to 2002, extremely deep. And look, I. Through that experience, I think I decided it's not going to be a major part of my life, but it's, I would say, hobby. I mean, like, I follow the markets. I still have a lot of different, like, holdings, but I just felt like it. The way it sort of like interact with my ADD stuff or whatever, it was just not great. Like the NFTs and everything. I just found like collecting. Collect. I have, at the time, I had a lot of sports cards as well. Yeah, I feel like the way it just interacted with my brain was a little bit like. I don't know, I always felt like a little bit disorganized, cluttered, crazy. I'm like, I have thousands of things all over the place. I have to do taxes, I have to. So it was all the overhead of like managing all that stuff just kind of made me want to get simpler with my life. So at this point, I feel like with crypto, I'd rather just either invest in something someone's doing, like a product or a business, or just keep it pretty simple with like, yeah, have bitcoin, have like some limited amounts of like premium NFT stuff or whatever. Like stuff that's maybe less onerous to manage.
- [18:27]
B
You know, I got wrecked on NFTs.
- [18:29]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [18:29]
B
And sports cards.
- [18:30]
A
Yeah. You know, the person who got me into NFTS was Gary Vaynerchuk. He sent me, and to his credit, he sent me crypto punks and he sent me a couple other things initially. And I'd say the one thing I made a lot of money on in NFTs was crypto punks.
- [18:45]
B
Did you sell it, though? Because they're down.
- [18:46]
A
I still, I mean, I've sold a lot. Like I have probably 10 right now. Oh, you got a lot? Yeah, I still have 10.
- [18:53]
B
Damn. Yeah, they're down to 25 Ethereum right now.
- [18:56]
A
Yeah, Yeah. I think it's like a little under 100k market cap or. Sorry, like the floor price.
- [19:01]
B
Yeah.
- [19:02]
A
And I think it was 200k a month or two ago. So it definitely has. With the like shitcoin and the salon and everything, it's definitely not the focus for people. And yeah, if that's happening to crypto punks, everything else is decimated. I mean, zero, practically. It's. It's a really tough market. You Know, like, what I liked about NFTs and what I always thought was the potential was I just didn't believe that the raw material of like physical cards or like it's so not valuable. Like the one cent of making a baseball card that is not expensive. So the value has to be in the art, the scarcity, the demand. You know, like there's some other form of value that's not the physical material. Right. So therefore, like, what's the difference between digital or physical? Like, to me, that was the, I guess, bold case. So. So I really still think that's true. But the blockchain, like, NFT stuff with all the. There was just like a lot of, I think technical wise, like a lot of complexity to it, hard to pick up in mainstream. A lot of hype. There's also a lot of like, scams. A lot of. A lot of people just like losing assets or somehow, some way just getting scammed or frauded or whatever. And it's tough. Like the, the I think current tech and how that worked with the collectible space just wasn't good enough and it just couldn't hold on. So, yeah, I don't know what will happen in the future there, but I think if they can't get to sort of tech and a user interface that's more easy for people to just adopt, that feels as easy as opening baseball cards and putting it in a plastic holder. And like, if it can't be that easy and if there's this many scams and this many people, like losing money to fraud or tech problems or whatever, it's just not, I think, ever gonna get to that level, so.
- [21:08]
B
Agreed. Yeah, we'll see what happens. I was really pumped for the Metaverse. I even bought the Quest. I used it once. I haven't used it. I mean, I was just disappointed. Yeah, it was super blurry. The graphics were old. And the Metaverse I was really pumped about and just seemed to be a letdown for now.
- [21:22]
A
Yeah, yeah, I think so too.
- [21:24]
B
We'll see what happens.
- [21:25]
A
If you think about it, like, most people spend so much of their time on the Internet anyway, like metaverse. I played 30 days of game time in World of Warcraft when I was in college or like the first year out of college, I probably could have played it forever. I quit because I was like, oh my God, I spent 30 days of my life in this game. And that was 2004, maybe. Yeah, like, why is that not Metaverse? Or like, what are we even really talking about here? And I just feel like, people spend so much of their time on Internet platforms. Social anyway. Like, I don't really understand the vision of, like, what people are moving towards in that. In that world that's distinct maybe from. And I'm not saying it like nothing will get created that's exciting in the space. I just kind of decided, like, I don't think I'm going to spend my time there in a big way. And, you know, like, I'll follow it. I'll just kind of follow it and see if somebody does something that gets my blood pumping. You know what I mean?
- [22:29]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Anything exciting for DraftKings coming up that you're working on?
- [22:33]
A
Yeah, DraftKings is like insane right now. The 2018 was when we launched sports betting and at the time, you know, nobody really knew who was going to have the leading platforms in sports betting. A lot of people thought, you know, casino companies like mgm, Caesars, A lot of people thought the European gambling operators that were really big, like the whatever bet365 or whatever, like these companies, William Hill, the ones that had decades of experience in the space and the way it turned out, it was really DraftKings and FanDuel, you know, like the ones that had the big existing fantasy player audiences in the US that had maybe like five to eight years of like, relationship building with that audience. You know, we were really in a great position. So, you know, as states started opening up, initially it was just jersey for 2008 and a lot of 2009 and a couple more states come now we're in the majority of the country, you know, just crossed 50% US population coverage with sports betting and the frequency that states are just popping up and launching, it really is a state by state launch. It just keeps us incredibly busy. Even though, you know, we're. We're pretty scientific with it now. It's been just persistently just crazy. And then it's also an industry that's very competitive. It's probably one of the most competitive, most heavily regulated industries. There's always changes in, you know, the thinking about how it should work in the U.S. the rules can change. The, the type of media the industry gets is always evolving and changing and it's just like never a boring day. Pretty much.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah. But, yeah. Are you, Are you guys scared of any AI coming in and just wiping all the betters out because they're so good at sports betting?
- [24:30]
A
Not, not so much. I mean, I guess, who knows? Because I don't want to predict everything that could come up in the future, but we have pretty great tech. I mean, our tech is strong. I think anything that comes from an innovation standpoint in the same way that, you know, it could help and hurt. Right. Like, it could help our company be more efficient with how we set odds and everything.
- [24:55]
B
Yeah.
- [24:55]
A
In the same way that it could help anyone, you know, with precision on their end. So I don't know exactly like, all the forms that. That might show up, but I think most of the ways that the AI kind of momentum has been hitting us is how we can operationally be better. Like better quality, better quality assurance, copywriting, marketing, customer support, customer service. Like a lot of areas that I think are repetitive, heavily manual sort of tasks and things like that. I've just noticed, like, impact from some of the current tools and resources out there.
- [25:34]
B
Yeah.
- [25:34]
A
You know, a lot of this stuff we use in marketing and other functions like those platforms, a lot of them are integrating AI solutions as well into the platform. So you kind of like automatically, you know, the company's getting better through that technology automatically in a lot of ways.
- [25:50]
B
I've had some of the top sports betters on the show and some of them use AI and they'll give them like a 1 or 2% edge. It's pretty fascinating.
- [25:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's look. I mean, that's a fascinating business. I used to play a lot of poker. I used to try to like make money. I wanted to make money playing poker. There's always an appeal to like, to me because I thought that that was such a tough thing to do. Like, you're kind of going out, you're playing games that aren't really designed. It's not a job. Right. Like, sports betting is not a. It's not built to be a career for people. It's sort of like some people, though, find these sort of like slivers through which, like, you know, I feel like I have an edge here or whatever. And so it's kind of like not inherently how the product's designed, but it creates like opportunity for people to build those sort of.
- [26:40]
B
Right.
- [26:40]
A
Things, strategies, tools, whatever, and. And try. So I always thought that that was fascinating, like. Like this like, sole proprietor mindset where you just go out and you're like, I'm just going to figure out how a way to make dollars off this.
- [26:54]
B
Like.
- [26:55]
A
But that's a tough business, man. I mean, that's really tough. I feel like a lot of people on the Internet try to make that sound easy. You know, the buy these picks or like Vox or something. No, that's. That stuff's like, to me, that's the worst. Like, I think it. It builds, like, some false hope in people's mind. Like, oh, I can just read an Internet article for two seconds and, like, print money. Like, you can't. You can't. If you gamble, like, you're gonna lose money pretty much. Right. And yeah. So I always, though, have been very impressed with people that can, like, find a way to make a living off the. Off those things.
- [27:33]
B
Very few people.
- [27:34]
A
Yeah, it's like, a tough thing to do. Really tough.
- [27:36]
B
And they stay silent for the most part. The ones that are gassing up their numbers are usually just making money off picks.
- [27:41]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [27:43]
B
Were you a profitable poker player?
- [27:44]
A
I was for a minute. Well, I never played for a lot of money.
- [27:47]
B
Okay.
- [27:48]
A
So, like, I'd never really had money my entire life, to be honest, up until DraftKings going public three, four years ago. Because when I was growing up, my parents were in the military, my dad worked in a prison, My mom was like a hairstylist. Very. This was in New Hampshire. I grew up combination of Mass in New Hampshire, like, in suburbs. The first time I even, like, knew about Ivy Leagues or, like, cool colleges, like, that was through running because I was getting recruiting calls from the coaches, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a good opportunity for me. Whatever. So I think it was really, like, after college, I started, like, getting a bit. A bit more of a horizon on what's even possible out there or whatever. And I just didn't have any money, though. I didn't know ways to earn money either. So poker I liked because I could put in maybe, like, 50 bucks. I could study the game and try to win and. But I was playing cheap, like, low. Low, like, one, two. Yeah. So I would say in like, five years of poker, I probably won $20,000.
- [28:50]
B
Oh, that's it.
- [28:51]
A
And playing very low stakes. And that mattered to me a lot. And yeah, it wasn't really till, like, my corporate career started kicking in that. That didn't matter. Yeah. Yeah.
- [29:02]
B
That must have been a crazy moment then going public.
- [29:04]
A
Yeah. Yeah. That was nuts. It's definitely a big. The guy, like, underestimated how much life, like, like, how much overhead there is as well to being in a situation like that. Like, all the systems, all the, like, you need tax person, you need, like, whatever. All this finance stuff that comes and hits you that, like. Yeah, I don't. I don't know.
- [29:26]
B
Like, they change overnight, right?
- [29:28]
A
Yeah, it's like a change to lifestyle and change to, like, how to even like, operate your house and stuff. So, Yeah, I feel like a couple years were just chaos, you know, and just getting infrastructure set up and everything, and. And, you know, now I feel like we got a good grip on it, but I learned a lot about, like, how there were options and all these different things work. But, yeah, that was. That was pretty crazy. Actually. The biggest thing I did after we went public, the one, like, splurge was the Celtics tickets, and. Yeah, that's like, the one thing I'll never sell, probably. And everything else, though, I was kind of.
- [30:04]
B
But that probably leads to opportunities, too. The people you meet and, you know, it's a family experience, so.
- [30:09]
A
Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that. It's a lot more like you see the same people 10, 20 times, the relationships start getting really good. I mean, and I've met a lot of people. Like, I don't think I would ever, you know, really be talking to otherwise through. Through the Celtics, traveling for games, all that stuff. Like, spend a lot of time with their owners, spend a lot of time with just different, you know, the restaurant tours, the people that are influential around Boston. I feel like I just know this city way better.
- [30:37]
B
Yeah.
- [30:38]
A
Plus, it feels good when the team's doing well, you know, Gives you something to root for.
- [30:41]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Matt, it's been fun, man. Where can people find you and get started with DraftKings?
- [30:46]
A
Yeah, I usually use sort of on Instagram, Matt Kalish or on X Matt Kalish as well, and then DraftKings. You know, we're in the App Store. It's really easy to. To get. You know, you go to DraftKings in the app Store, download the sportsbook. We give free bets, like, just to start your account. You know, you get free credits just to try it, see if it's for you. So definitely easy to pick up and suggest. Everybody at least does that, you know, get a feel for the platform and think, even if right now is not the best time, with football coming around the corner, that's really, like, the main peak, you know, September, when football launches, that's, like, far and away the biggest season for us.
- [31:30]
B
Yeah. We'll link your stuff below. Thanks for coming on, man. That was fun.
- [31:32]
A
Yeah. Great meeting you.
- [31:33]
B
Absolutely. Thanks for watching, guys, as always. Check out DraftKings below. And Matt, stuff. See you next.