Published on: October 2, 2025, 12:57h.
Updated on: October 2, 2025, 12:57h.
- Cathie Wood’s firm has a long-standing investment in DraftKings
- She acquired over 500,000 shares of the sports betting company through three separate ETFs
- The stock is currently in the midst of an eight-day downturn
DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG) is currently experiencing a significant decline. Should it finish lower today, this would mark its eighth consecutive day of losses, resulting in a nearly 19% drop over the past week and a staggering 27% decrease over the last month. However, this downturn hasn’t deterred a well-known investor from capitalizing on the dip.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management, a longstanding shareholder in DraftKings, secured 511,049 shares of the stock on Wednesday, distributing this acquisition across three of its actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
With the recent addition of 350,315 DraftKings shares to the ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEARCA:ARKK)—the flagship ETF of the firm—the stock now ranks as the 37th largest holding in the $7.17 billion ETF. Notably, ARKK, which is the largest ETF by assets under management for ARK Invest, has risen by 55.84% year-to-date.
As it stands, DraftKings is the sole gaming entity within the ARKK portfolio; however, the ETF also includes Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) among its top ten holdings. With its rapid expansion in prediction markets, Robinhood poses a growing challenge to DraftKings and other sports wagering stocks.
DraftKings and the Impact of Prediction Markets
Recent struggles in sports betting stocks, including DraftKings, have been primarily attributed to surging activity in prediction markets, with Kalshi emerging as a key player offering football parlays. As a partner of Kalshi, Robinhood is significantly influencing this trend, declaring earlier this week that it has processed over four billion event contracts, with more than half of that volume occurring in the recently concluded third quarter.
Nevertheless, some analysts caution that the narrative surrounding prediction market volumes may be exaggerated, suggesting that transaction turnovers on these platforms could be double-counted, inflating figures equivalent to sports betting handles.
Additionally, industry analysts argue that the recent decline in sports betting stocks in late September is not predominantly linked to prediction markets. Instead, they point to favorable outcomes for customers on NFL games as the real causative factor.
This trend was particularly notable in September, typically a month that contributes significantly to operators’ Q3 handle—so much so that some analysts revised down EBITDA forecasts for 2025 and 2026 for both DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment (NYSE: FLUT), its parent company owning FanDuel.
Other ARK ETFs Acquiring DraftKings Shares
Returning to ARK Invest, the firm also added 103,872 shares of DraftKings to the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSEARCA: ARKW), making it the 31st largest holding in that fund.
Furthermore, ARK added 56,862 shares to the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (NYSE: ARKF), positioning DraftKings as the 20th largest holding within that portfolio.
As of the end of the second quarter, Vanguard and BlackRock remain the largest institutional owners of DraftKings, collectively holding 14.06% of the stock.