More rollouts on the way
FanDuel’s online sportsbooks in Illinois and Indiana are now using Scientific Games technology after previously having employed products from IGT. The launches, announced on Thursday, complement the recent rollout of Scientific Games’ OpenSports technology for FanDuel’s sportsbooks in West Virginia and Colorado.
Flutter committed in August 2020 to migrate all of its sportsbooks over to the OpenSports platform.
The OpenSports technology will also become part of six more FanDuel sportsbooks in the coming months. FanDuel’s parent company, Flutter Entertainment, has a 20-year partnership agreement with Scientific Games. As part of this agreement, this sportsbook technology is also in place across other major Flutter brands, such as Paddy Power, Sportsbet, Sky Bet, and Betfair. Flutter committed in August 2020 to migrate all of its sportsbooks over to the OpenSports platform.
Scientific Games Group CEO, Digital Jordan Levin outlined what the OpenSports technology can bring to the FanDuel sportsbooks, saying: “Providing them with renowned platform stability and scalability gives them a rock-solid foundation to maximise player engagement and market share.”
Popular technology
These newly relaunched FanDuel sportsbooks with Scientific Games’ tech replace the operator’s former platforms in the two states. FanDuel’s Indiana sportsbook has been accepting bets since October 2019, while its Illinois offering has been up since last August. The operator has seen decent success in the Indiana market to date, reporting a total online handle of $91.26m in March. Only DraftKings had a larger handle for the month.
Scientific Games does not exclusively work with FanDuel. It has numerous other partners in the US market that it supplies with both sports betting and online casino technology. Some of these partners include Hard Rock International, Golden Nugget Online Gaming, BetMGM, Betsson US, and WynnBET.
Issues facing FanDuel
FanDuel is looking to cement as much market share in the US as possible. To do so, it is spending big on marketing, entering partnerships with sports organizations, and looking to optimize its technology as much as possible.
One issue that the operator is facing is potential heat from Fox Corporation. The media giant has filed legal action against FanDuel’s parent company over its option to purchase a stake in the sports betting operator. Fox has the option to buy 18.6% of FanDuel in July, but the dispute centers around the price that it has to pay.
Fox believes that it should pay a price for the 18.6% stake that is based on the same value at which Flutter bought a 37.2% stake from FastBall in December for $4.18bn. Flutter is adamant, though, that the stake should be priced at FanDuel’s current fair market value in July 2021. Fox is reportedly threatening to withdraw all mention of FanDuel from Fox Sports broadcasts if this disagreement continues. The loss of advertising could be a blow to FanDuel. Flutter currently owns 95% of FanDuel.