News: FanDuel Launches Fantasy Pick'em App In Five States
"FanDuel Picks" is the US sports betting leader's first foray into the fantasy parlay business dominated by PrizePicks and Underdog; joins DraftKings with a peer-to-peer version of fantasy pick'em.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
FanDuel is getting into the fantasy pick’em space for the first time, recently launching an app called FanDuel Picks.
The game is similar to other peer-to-peer fantasy parlay offerings available in the US, like DraftKings Pick 6, PrizePicks Arena and Underdog Champions. How it works, according to a landing page about the game from FanDuel:
FanDuel Picks lets you join the excitement of peer-to-peer fantasy sports by building lineups of your favorite athletes and predicting whether they'll beat their projected stats during real-world games.
MAKE YOUR PICKS
Pick 3-6 Players
Predict "more" or "less" on their projected stat lines
Set your contest entry amount
COMPETE TO WIN
Pick 3-6 Players
Earn points for every correct prediction
WIN BIG
Achieve the highest score to win a share of the prize pool
Get even bigger winnings with a perfect lineup
FanDuel has not officially announced the launch; The Closing Line understands it to be a limited release. A landing page about the app says it is live in five states: Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arkansas and Alabama. The app is available for download in the App Store.
I live in Oregon and was able to link my existing FanDuel account easily, and make picks involving player stats based on Wednesday’s NBA playoff games:
The messy history of fantasy parlays
The move for FanDuel is certainly interesting, given the history.
Not that long ago, FanDuel and DraftKings were vehemently opposed to the rise of the fantasy pick’em industry, which started largely as a game where users played against the house rather than against other users. (Despite the adoption of the P2P version, that’s still the dominant form of fantasy pick’em.) The two operators were at one point actively lobbying against fantasy pick’em apps in many states.
Fantasy pick’em industry leaders PrizePicks and Underdog had faced a good deal of pushback in recent years from state regulators, but that period of uncertainty seems to have calmed. Pivots to a peer-to-peer version of the game have assuaged concerns of legality in many states that took issue with the against-the-house model.
So why now for FanDuel?
That calming of the waters seems to have led FanDuel to enter the space. DraftKings has been doing it for about a year and a half, launching Pick 6 in December of 2023. There’s been little to no regulatory pushback on that product, to my knowledge, despite being live in 32 states.
Meanwhile, PrizePicks and Underdog have established themselves as powerhouses in the sports gaming space. Both are unicorns valued north of a billion dollars, almost solely on the backs of their fantasy pick’em products.
Notably, PrizePicks continues to become more and more mainstream, signing deals with two Major League Baseball teams in California in recent weeks. (Daily fantasy sports of any type has never been explicitly legal in California.) PrizePicks also has had deals with several other pro sports franchises.
Given all of that and the addressable market for fantasy pick’em/fantasy parlay apps, FanDuel was likely not content to cede the market to DraftKings, PrizePicks, Underdog and the rest. It’s still not clear whether FanDuel or DraftKings would ever do the full-blown version of fantasy pick’em against the house that is offered by dozens of fantasy operators in a large cohort of states.
FanDuel and other legal sports betting platforms also now face the prospect of Kalshi continuing to expand its sports betting offerings in all 50 states.
Meanwhile, the traditional version of daily fantasy sports pioneered by DraftKings and FanDuel still exists, but is no longer a massive product like it was prior to the rise of legal sports betting and fantasy pick’em. From contest-sizing and liquidity, FanDuel has clearly deprioritized its original DFS product.
FanDuel also offers FanDuel Faceoff — real money peer-to-peer games of skill — in upwards of 30 states.
Why these states for FanDuel?
The five states FanDuel started with seem to be some of the least risky for peer-to-peer fantasy sports, and they are all states where FanDuel does not offer online sports betting currently. In any event, it’s a good bet FanDuel feels very confident legally with its limited rollout via these states:
Alabama: Some fantasy sports pick’em operators had stopped the against-the-house model and moved to P2P after conversations with the attorney general. So for now, Alabama seems like a very safe state for pick’em as long as users are playing each other.
Arkansas: The state had issued cease-and-desist letters to PrizePicks and Underdog for the vs. the house product, but both of them — as well as DraftKings — appear to serve the state with the peer-to-peer product. (PrizePicks also lists Arkansas as a state where you can play the core pick’em product.)
Minnesota: All operators serve the state, and no known regulatory pushback.
Oregon: DraftKings has a sports betting monopoly in the state, but cannot offer any fantasy sports as part of its arrangement in the state. Meanwhile, nearly every fantasy pick’em app serves the state currently.
Wisconsin: All operators serve the state, and no known regulatory pushback.