DraftKings, FanDuel reportedly talking merger

Though both are private companies and don’t publicly release financial information, FanDuel was the bigger of the two by the end of 2015, according to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming LLC.

“They offer identical products, nearly identical interfaces, and they face identical legal risk”, Wallach said. However, the stories said there was no guarantee a deal will be consummated.

The pressure to combine comes primarily from the investors behind DraftKings and FanDuel, who argue the two privately-held companies offer almost identical contests and face similar legal and regulatory challenges, Bloomberg and Reuters news services reported Monday, citing anonymous sources.

Fantasy sports started in 1980.

Daily fantasy sports experts suggest the time’s right for a deal to merge DraftKings and FanDuel as the rivals fight for survival amid greater regulatory scrutiny. Both have been embroiled in controversy as 10 states have blocked both from operating. The crux of Schneiderman’s case is his claim that they constitute unregulated games of chance under current state law.

“FanDuel and DraftKings have floated the idea of a merger in the past”. Schneiderman maintains that NY law bans taking bets as a business, with exceptions for horse racing, casinos, state lotteries and certain other settings, but not daily fantasy sports sites.

State Sen. John Bonacic, chairman of the Senate gambling committee, told the New York Times that they have an agreed-upon bill.

The sites operate in a similar manner to online fantasy league soccer sites in the United Kingdom, except they concentrate on popular American sports such as American football, basketball and ice hockey. The better a chosen athlete performs in real life, the better the player’s fantasy team does.

Daily fantasy sports, a turbocharged version of the season-long game, has boomed over the past decade.

Individuals pay a fee to participate in a league, which funds a pot of money used to pay out to the participants.

Although it was founded in Edinburgh by Mr and Mrs Eccles, FanDuel only operates in America and Canada.

In March, the two sites had agreed to stop taking online bets from the state of NY. Otherwise, the companies’ paid contests will remain closed to New Yorkers until an appeals hearing in September.