DraftKings Opens Las Vegas Office, Still Not Booking Bets in Nevada

DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG) opened its Las Vegas office on Wednesday. It’s the sportsbook operator’s second-largest domestic outpost after its Boston headquarters.

The 90,000-square-foot space, located at Matter Real Estate Group’s mixed-use UnCommons, will eventually be home to as many as 1,000 employees of the gaming company. It’s expected that the operator will command nearly all of the space in an entire building there.

The Las Vegas office is comprised of more than 130 dedicated sports trading desks surrounded by full multimedia walls customized in a stadium seating arrangement, a 7,500-square-foot fully stocked cafeteria and event space, a custom casino training pit, a 500-square-foot interactive putt-view putting green, private and public outdoor spaces, and mothers’ rooms,” according to a statement.

DraftKings announced plans for the office in the southwest area of Las Vegas in October 2021.

DraftKings Still Not Taking Bets in Nevada

The statement doesn’t detail exactly what roles will be filled at the Sin City office, nor how long it will take to ramp up to 1,000 employees at the location, just 15 minutes from the Strip.

DraftKings “established a multi-year agreement as the primary sponsor of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Innovation and opened the new DraftKings Gaming Innovation Studio at UNLV, giving DraftKings access to local talent and technology,” as noted in the statement.

The gaming company’s acquisition of Golden Nugget Online Gaming (NASDAQ: GNOG) could help the operator get into the US gaming mecca by applying the company’s brand name to Golden Nugget retail sportsbooks in downtown Las Vegas and Laughlin.

DraftKings Opens After Layoff Announcement

The DraftKings Las Vegas office opened about seven weeks after the company announced it is laying off 140 employees, or about 3.5% of its workforce, to reduce costs. The company didn’t mention in the aforementioned press release whether or not some of those roles could be replaced in Las Vegas, or if affected employees will be offered a chance to move to Nevada for new jobs. However, the statement included other interesting details.

DraftKings’ Las Vegas office will also provide amenity spaces for employees, including an on-site barber shop and salon, and a manicure/pedicure lounge,” as noted in the press release.

Those are the types of amenities some technology companies — recently aggressive cutters of staff — are eliminating to brace for rough economic times. In January, Google parent Alphabet announced 31 massage therapists will be sent packing as part of a broader set of staff reductions. Since taking over Twitter, Elon Musk eliminated perks such as free lunches and commuter benefits in a bid to turn the social media firm profitable.