DraftKings Purchases Golden Nugget & One NFL Fan Buys Up All Tom Brady NFT’s
DraftKings has been in the news this week for a couple of big reasons. We’ll start off with their latest acquisition as they’ve shelled out well over a billion to bring another company into the fold.
DraftKings Makes Huge Move With Golden Nugget Purchase
Sports betting giant DraftKings has just expanded portfolio with the purchase of Golden Nugget. Variety has reported that DraftKings was able to buy Golden Nugget Online Gaming for a whopping $1.56 billion. It is going to be an all-stock type of agreement and should give DraftKings a major boost in players – especially on the casino side of things. Golden Nugget usually maintains around five million players, which will all be making the switch to DraftKings now.
The deal has already been approved by the board of directors and should be finalized in the first quarter of the 2022 year. Golden Nugget was only worth around $745 million back in June of 2020, yet they were able to flip the script and sell it for double 14 months down the line as online business grew throughout the pandemic.
The Golden Nugget has been one of the most consistent platforms in New Jersey, consistently ending months with just over a third of the total market share. This company also recently launched over in Michigan, a state that created a new online gambling market not too long ago.
DraftKings NFT Marketplace Allowed One User To Grab Every Tom Brady Autograph Issue Available
Sticking with DraftKings, another area where they have been expanding is non-fungible tokens in the cryptocurrency space. Their inclusion into the NFT world didn’t really go as they had hoped as one buyer was able to scoop everything up. Up for auction were a number of different types of sports memorabilia, including some Tom Brady-signed items. One user was somehow able to obtain all five Tom Brady autographed NFTs that were available. They were numbered 100 (twice), 50, 25 and 12.
There was over 20,000 people sitting and waiting for nearly a half an hour before the autograph could become live. Unfortunately, one person got access and bought them all, which has people wondering if there was a glitch in play.
The user, named SweetBabyNicco, turned around and flipped all of the NFT’s but one of them. In total, he earned $75,500 profits after his sales compared to the $3,250 that he spent to obtain all of them. He still holds one of the NFT’s, which is up for sale.
Upcoming New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Has Great Ties Within Gaming Industry
This past week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has agreed to step down. Leaving the politics aside for now, a number of people in the gambling sector have wondered where the state is heading with Kathy Hochul set to take over. New York could now be headed in a completely different direction in the next couple of months – especially with sports betting.
Hochul will not only be the first female governor of the state, she could also bring new light to the gambling industry up there. Her husband, William Hochul, has a terrific job at Delaware North, one of the biggest gaming firms in the country. That’s led the early speculation to suggest that she’ll be far more friendly to gaming.
Hochul now has an opportunity to oversee the New York State Gaming Commission, which is already reviewing applications from a few gaming companies who want sports betting licenses. Many entities have been trying to bring online sports betting to the state but things have mostly stalled. We’ll see if something changes now that she’s in charge.