US sports betting giant DraftKings has moved its offices to a new building in the southwest Las Vegas Valley, a mixed-use complex called UnCommons being built along Durango Drive just south of the 215 Beltway, across the street from Station Casinos’ under-construction Durango resort. The new headquarters occupies a four-story building and boasts 90,000 square feet of space.
The office features more than 130 sports “trading” desks for oddsmakers and a 7,500-square-foot cafeteria and event space, as reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It also boasts a casino training pit, putting green area, mothers’ rooms, and barber shop and salon, all within a commercial-and-residential campus that’s poised to offer numerous food and beverage spots.
DraftKings Chief People’s Officer Graham Walters said they had been working on this for a while and have always had their eyes set on Las Vegas. “I feel like it’s been a long time coming,” Walters said. “We’ve been planning this for years at this point. We’ve known that we’ve had such committed employees here. We’ve been looking for opportunities to continue to invest.”
DraftKings, which announced plans for the new office in fall 2021, expects 700 to 1,000 employees there, including customer service, compliance, recruiting, and gaming teams.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman was at the ribbon cutting as part of the celebration and said that having a company like DraftKings come to town is a huge deal for the city. “DraftKings means something to everybody,” Goodman said, as reported by KTNV Las Vegas. “It’s sports betting, It’s fantasy betting, It’s everything exciting, and it’s what the heartbeat of Las Vegas has always been about.”
Furthermore, Walters said that this opening came at almost a perfect time, especially when March Madness, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, is happening this week. “Our employees have been really looking forward to the opportunity again to come in, and when we have kind of these tent-pole moments like March Madness, it’s really a great opportunity to get people together to celebrate,” he commented.
According to Mack Freedman, Senior Director of Global Real Estate, the Las Vegas office is the company’s second-largest in the U.S., behind its corporate headquarters in Boston, and marks the “culmination” of its growth in Southern Nevada.
Freedman said the company signed its first lease in Las Vegas in 2018, taking three desks in a Regus office-sharing location. The office later moved to UnCommons from WeWork’s coworking location in Town Square Las Vegas, just south of the Strip, where it grew to have hundreds of desks.
Matter Real Estate Group Partner Jim Stuart, whose firm is developing UnCommons, said DraftKings is the largest office tenant in the complex as measured by both square footage and headcount.
UnCommons, which broke ground in the summer of 2020, is expected to include more than 500,000 square feet of office space and 800-plus apartments, as well as eateries, fitness studios, and a conference center.
Original article: https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2023/03/24/66589-draftkings-opens-stateoftheart-offices-in-southwest-las-vegas-valley
