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Daily Fantasy Sports building a new world of
betting |
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Its been a year of turmoil in
the world of Fantasy Sports. From their rapid growth of the last five years
that gave them a 57 million player customer base in North America alone to the
prospect of being outlawed across the states and even the rest of the world
within a few short months. Now however things are settling down and proper
frameworks of licensing and legality are taking shape in Europe and the North
American continent.
What DFS has tapped into is a different body of
players from the traditional gambling marketplace like
888 Casino. They are
younger, better educated with higher household incomes and are more likely to
have full-time employment. It has also managed to tap the existing pool of
Fantasy Sport players and balloon that from what had become a static number of
players to a huge level of popular participation. |
|
Year |
Estimated Players |
1988 |
500,000 |
1991-94 |
2 million |
2003 |
15.2 million |
2004 |
13.5 million |
2005 |
12.6 million |
2006 |
18 million |
2007 |
19.4 million |
2008 |
29.9 million |
2009 |
28.4 million |
2010 |
32 million |
2011 |
35.9 million |
2014 |
41.5 million |
2015 |
56.8 million |
2016 |
57.4 million |
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The challenge facing DFS
players is different from the offerings of traditional all encompassing
casino and bookmaker sites because there is an
unlimited amount of involvement and potential enjoyment that can be had. Which
ever sport you choose to participate in and presumably already know a lot about
there is an extra dimension of understanding the scoring system and then
applying analysis to your team picks to hopefully maximize your team's scoring
ability. Adding to this is the daily nature of the competitions you enter, a
major step up of involvement from season long competitions that you had to
constantly adjust week-by-week.
What Just
Happened? The world of DFS took a massive hit back in the autumn of
2015 when New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, declared that DFS
companies were carrying out illegal gambling operations and, after much
intervention of the courts, were
shut down in March 2016. Shortly after the Att. Gen. Made his
declaration a number of other states followed suit and players around the
country stopped being able to play legally.
As FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles
said Last fall, amidst national controversy, some pundits put fantasy
sports on death watch, but when the calendar turned to 2016 and fantasy sports
fans had the opportunity to be heard and legislators had the opportunity to
act, the dynamic quickly shifted, and one by one states began to recognize this
is a game loved by millions millions who should be able to play and
deserve the basic protections afforded to consumers in all major
industries.
What Eccles was referring to is the gradual
legalisation and clarification that has occurred across many US states which by
time of writing has extended to Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi,
Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia and now finally New York State where New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the legalisation into law in August 2016. This one
state represents 10% of DraftKings revenue according to CEO Jason Robins and
this is likely to be mirrored by the other DFS operators.
So the
future DFS is more rosy especially now that all the major Daily Fantasy Sports
operators have gained UK gambling licenses where they are targeting the world's
biggest sport, the English Premier League.
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