Many expressed their frustration, given that the outage took place during a major event on the US sporting calendar; basketball tournament March Madness.

We’ve heard a competitor might be having tech issues today…

1) Reply to this tweet with a screenshot of a down app

2) DM us your PointsBet username and include the word 'Issues' in the message

GET A $10 FREE BET 🤑

— PointsBet Sportsbook (@PointsBetUSA) March 19, 2022

Several customers claimed to have lost money due to the outage as they were unable to access their accounts and cash out existing bets.

While PointsBet opted to tempt disappointed DraftKings customers to its own platform with a bonus, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy also attempted to convert customers to the Barstool Sportsbook, which is owned by Penn National Gaming. 

“We welcome all #DraftKings business,” he said in a tweet, though no special promotional offer was forthcoming.

I’m proud to report that once again at #BarstoolSportsbook it's a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. We welcome all #DraftKings business https://t.co/zpkdfqqM37

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) March 19, 2022

DraftKings’ customer support page acknowledged that customers had been having trouble logging in on Saturday, before following up that the issue had been resolved around an hour later.

Realize these are tough situations, especially during the tournament. Customers should be able to log in again now and we appreciate everyone hanging on! https://t.co/SsiiAciTrp

— DraftKings CX Team (@DK_Assist) March 19, 2022

The operator, which runs its sportsbook on the SBTech technology it acquired in 2020, has experienced several outages since migrating onto the platform which have caught the attention of customers and competitors.

DraftKings was one of several US brands to have outages reported in the run-up to 2021’s Super Bowl, although at that time the sportsbook was still powered by Kambi.

The massive increase in betting traffic to Kambi in the run-up to the game saw several of its operator clients’ brands go down, as this was likely one of the highest levels of online betting volume seen in the regulated US market at the time.

Last month, DraftKings reported that it had increased its annual investment in product and technology by 50% in 2021 in order to better compete with rivals FanDuel and BetMGM.

During an investor call following the release of its Q4 and full-year 2021 financial results, CEO Jason Robins told analysts: “I think if you take a step back and look at the competitive picture, we’ve always said that we believe that product is where you win.

“Our strategy [in 2021] was to really pull forward a lot of the product and technology hiring that we needed to do. As we go forward, I think you should expect to see a meaningful slowdown in fixed costs, because for us, it was about trying to pull forward and achieve a higher level of scale, maybe a little ahead of where the revenue is.”

Investment into technology and product in 2021 saw the firm launch several new features on its sportsbook, including a new in-play offering and front-end user interface for its Flash Bet product, as well as parlay and same-game parlay insurance capabilities.

The operator’s share price rebounded somewhat last week, from as low as $15.20 on 14 March to $19.62 at the time of writing.

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