1 Sports Betting Giant DraftKings Planing Merger, to go Public

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BOSTON (AP) - Sports wagering huge DraftKings prepares to merge with 2 other firms and go public, the Boston-based company announced Monday.

DraftKings stated it will finish its merger with betting tech company SBTech and acquisition company Diamond Eagle Acquisition sometime in the very first half of 2020.

DraftKings said the combined business will be valued at $3.3 billion, and it will have $500 million on hand once the offer is complete.

The new company will retain the DraftKings name and company co-founder and CEO Jason Robins will continue to lead it, in addition to a management group that includes co-founders Paul Liberman and Matt Kalish.

DraftKings stated it will likewise reincorporate in Nevada but remain physically headquartered in Boston, where it's one of the city's largest tech business, with roughly 600 employees in its just recently opened headquarters in the Back Bay neighborhood.

The 3 business are combining through a special function acquisition, a method of taking a company public that differs from the more familiar initial public offering, or IPO, process, DraftKings stated.

The new business will successfully assume Diamond Eagle's publicly-traded status, though under a new stock ticker sign.

It will likewise receive a $400 million infusion from the Los Angeles-based company, which was founded earlier this year by Jeff Sagansky, a previous president of CBS Entertainment, and Harry Sloan, a previous chairman and CEO of MGM, in order to buy media and digital home entertainment ventures.

SBTech's management group, on the other hand, will be incorporated into the new business, but the details of that will not be made public till next year, according to DraftKings.

The business has workplaces on the Isle of Man, in London and in other places in Europe, and wagering software and programs to betting operations worldwide. It was founded in 2007.

DraftKings was founded in Boston in 2012 as a purveyor of everyday dream sports contests, which are are online video games that challenge players to develop rosters of real athletes in order to contend for cash and other rewards based on how those athletes perform in video games.

The company has actually given that expanded into online and retail sports books operations in the handful of states that have legalized sports betting, consisting of Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Iowa, Mississippi, New Jersey and New York City.

DraftKings had actually formerly attempted to combine with its chief competitor, FanDuel.

But the 2 companies ditched the strategies in 2017 after the Federal Trade Commission and the chief law officers of California and the District of Columbia took legal action against to obstruct it over antitrust concerns.

New York-based FanDuel completed a merger with Dublin-based gaming giant Paddy Power Betfair in 2015 instead.

This story has actually been updated to remedy that the companies are preparing a special function acquisition, not a going public.