FanDuel eyes UK market
News on 7 Nov 2015
News on 7 Nov 2015
In an interview with Bloomberg business news this week, Nigel Eccles -the CEO of US daily fantasy sport market leader FanDuel – revealed that he plans a sortie into the British market next year.
However, some elements of the expansion will be an experiment, Eccles said, explaining that there was a need to prove that a market actually exists in the UK.
“I think it’s an interesting proposition,” Eccles said. “Candidly, we’re going to test the waters, but it’s an unknown. Everyone needs to prove that there is a market outside the U.S.”
Fanduel has applied for and currently awaits a licence from the UK Gambling Commission, Eccles revealed, adding that fantasy sports does not appear to have the same appeal in Europe as it does in the United States.
He speculated that this may be because the most popular sport in much of the world – soccer – often ends in a goaless draw, which would necessitate a different structure to that which has proved to be so popular in the USA.
“It may not even be a daily fantasy product. I told the guys, come to me with a skill-based product in the U.K. that you think will work,” said Eccles. “We think that sports is universal, but the way people engage with sports is different, and the right game for them might be different in every country.”
Bloomberg reports that regulation cuts into company profits, quoting the experience of Mondogoal, which says it pays 15 percent of its gross revenue in the U.K. in taxes and that about 20 percent of its costs go to regulatory expenses.
