The House Edge, Now Monthly: DraftKings’ New Subscription-Based Bet

The image that came to mind when I saw that DraftKings Sportsbook is offering a $20-a-month subscription service that boosts parlay odds was …

… that of a man wearing a fedora and a trench coat on a desolate New York City corner. The era is the 1940s. It’s dusk. It’s misting.

And this fella, he watches you walk by. A quick glance is exchanged and he makes a move to open up his trench coat. Your eyes lock. He lifts his chin and he says, with all the moxie he can manage … 

“Pssssssst! Yeah. You. C’mere. You wanna buy a boost?”

He opens his trench coat, and there they are, those shiny boosts, dangling from the inside of his jacket. Against your better judgment, you take a step closer. You inspect the boosts. They look real. You know this is a bad idea but you take out your wallet and hand over $20 and …

… and now you’ve got yourself a 10% boost on a two-leg parlay, as long as the odds of either leg aren’t -500 or more and you’re not trying to get down more than $25.

Aghast, bewildered

What can I say? I have an active imagination.

And so, apparently, does the team at DraftKings, as they launched this product (sans the trench coat) this week in New York, according to a Sportico article.

The subscription service, called DraftKings Sportsbook+, costs the aforementioned $20 a month and gives users the unlimited ability to boost their parlays (including same game parlays). Two legs gives a 10% boost, and onward and upward it goes, capping at 100% for 11 legs. And yes, the betting limit is $25 per boosted bet, and the odds have to be no shorter than -500 for each leg.

Somewhat predictably, Gambling Twitter vacillated between bewildered and aghast.

And yeah, on the surface, this seems … not all that great a deal.

Parlays are where DraftKings prints its money— this is not a state secret, and they say as much on their quarterly earnings calls — and this service allows users to pay more money to bet on parlays (albeit with the added boost).

Obviously, this is a test for the company, as DK is only rolling it out in New York, but here in New Jersey, where I live, I decided to put it to the test. Let’s build a few parlays and see how the numbers shake out.

I picked two against-the-spread favorites that I actually like tonight in the NBA: the Magic giving 1.5 points to the Raptors, and the Thunder giving 4.5 points to the Knicks. At DraftKings, the parlay came back to me at +258. Add a 10% boost, and I’m at +283. 

Now, off to line shop. BRB.

Welp, that didn’t take long.

Same parlay, same spreads — Sporttrade, the betting exchange available across the Hudson, beat it at +288. As far as “traditional” sportsbooks go, Caesars came close, at +273.

Here’s a three-leg player-prop parlay, with Ja’Marr Chase, Derrick Henry, and Jahmyr Gibbs each scoring a touchdown and … not bad, DraftKings. They priced it at +218, Hard Rock beat them at +221, but with the boost — I’m guessing it’s at least 15% for a three-legger — DK comes out on top.

Obviously that’s just two attempts, and who knows what happens with other parlays, but it’s probably safe to say that with the boosts, and if you’re not using an exchange, DraftKings will — more often than not, I don’t know, how much can I hedge here? — offer better odds.

Yes. Better odds. For bad bets. At $20 a month.

Needed to create a tweet just for the “Larry David deciding” gif.

Prepare to duck

You know what? The more I type, the more I think, the more I roll this around my head, I don’t hate what DraftKings is doing here. 

At the very least, it’s an attempt to do something different in this space. 

Trying to find anyone in agreement on X wasn’t easy, but Underdog’s vice president of the VIP program, Dillon Borgida, came closest.

And lookie there, who agrees with him in the replies? Alex Kane, the founder and CEO of Sporttrade, where you can get +288 on the Raptors and Thunder.

“I do too, I think directionally it’s brilliant,” Kane posted in response. “The threat of non-regulated forms of sports betting are at an all-time high, will continue to go up, and regulators must let those who are following the rules try and compete.”

Maybe, in the end, DraftKings isn’t the grifter on the street corner. Maybe it’s just a regular store selling watches. Expensive watches you don’t need, watches that will eventually grind you down, but still: just a regular ol’ store selling regular ol’ watches to regular ol’ people.

I don’t know. Maybe the metaphor got stretched to the breaking point there.

But you know what? If you’re a recreational gambler who routinely bets parlays in New York, I think — that the more I think about it — this subscription is a pretty good investment (ducks).