Cathie Wood Buys Battered DraftKings Stock Across Three ARK ETFs

• Wood’s firm is a longtime DraftKings investor
• She bought over 500K shares of the sports betting stock across three of her ETFs
• Stock is on an eight-day losing streak

DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG) is on a now well-documented slide. If it settles lower today, its losing streak will reach eight days. The stock is off almost 19% over the past week and nearly 27% over the past month, but that’s not stopping a familiar name from buying the dip.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management, a longtime DraftKings shareholder, bought 511,049 shares of the gaming stock on Wednesday, sprinkling that purchase across three of its actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

DraftKings is the only gaming-related name in the ARKK portfolio, but the ETF counts Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) among its top 10 holdings. By way of its burgeoning prediction markets exposure, Robinhood is becoming a thorn in the side of DraftKings and other sports betting stocks.

Speaking of DraftKings and Prediction Markets…

Much of the recent weakness in sports betting stocks, including DraftKings, has been attributed to exploding volume on predictions and Kalshi – one of the leaders in that arena – offering football parlays. Robinhood, a Kalshi partner, is a major player in that arena as the company said earlier this week it has handled more than four billion event contracts, with more than half of that total processed in the just concluded third quarter.

Likewise, some sell-side analysts say the real culprit behind the late September slide in sports betting stocks had nothing to do with prediction markets. Rather, the real problem is customer-friendly outcomes on NFL games.

That scenario was so palpable in September – a month that usually accounts for half of operators’ third-quarter handle – that some analysts lowered 2025 and 2026 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) estimates on DraftKings and FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment (NYSE: FLUT).

Other ARK ETFs Adding DraftKings Stock

Getting back to ARK Invest, it added 103,872 shares of DraftKings to the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSEARCA: ARKW), making the stock that ETF’s 31^st-largest holding.

The asset manager also added 56,862 shares of the gaming stock to the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (NYSE: ARKF), making DraftKings the number 20 holding in that fund.

Vanguard and BlackRock are the largest fund owners of DraftKings, with that duo combining to own 14.06% of the betting stock as of the end of the second quarter.