DraftKings and FanDuel desert dream sports merger

13 July 2017

Fantasy sports sites DraftKings and FanDuel have actually deserted a plan to merge, less than a month after US competitors regulators looked for to obstruct the deal.

The deal would have created a company with control over 90% of the market for paid, daily dream sports contests, federal government authorities said.

The firms stated the bet9ja's welcome offer would lead to higher financial investment, offering benefits for customers.

They said they would now seek to grow separately.

FanDuel started in Scotland in 2009 and is now based in New York. It is number 2 in the US for paid daily dream sports contests behind DraftKings, which started in Boston in 2012.

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The 2 companies specialise in a subset of fantasy sports, in which fans choose gamers to develop groups for single games, rather of the season, with the prospective to win cash rewards based on the outcome.

In November, they stated they had consented to merge. Terms were not revealed.

At the time, they stated the bet9ja's welcome offer would allow them to integrate forces on regulative concerns raised by US regulators, who had compared the industry to unlawful gaming and banned the websites in some states.

Nigel Eccles, head of FanDuel, stated it made good sense to move on separately.

"There is still huge, untapped market opportunity for FanDuel, and we will continue to execute our technique to grow our organization and additional expand the fantasy sports industry," he stated in a statement.

Draft Kings chief executive Jason Robbins also stated ending the merger would permit the firm to "singularly focus" on development, consisting of internationally.

In 2015 there were an estimated 57 million fantasy sports players in the US alone.