FanDuel Group is a gambling company based in the United States offering sportsbooks, sports betting, internet casinos and online horse racing betting. Since its founding in 2009, the company has operated sportsbooks in multiple states such as Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and West Virginia; a horse racing betting website; as well as a fantasy sports website.
FanDuel Net Worth
Flutter Entertainment, an Irish gambling firm, has increased its stake in FanDuel, which is now worth approximately $11.22 billion (Last Updated 2022).
FanDuel overview
In its initial form, the company provided daily fantasy sports, mainly competing with DraftKings.
The FanDuel Group was created in May 2018 after sports betting became legal in the United States. The company merged into Paddy Power Betfair Inc. (now known as Flutter Entertainment). As a result of this acquisition, FanDuel became the main brand for Flutter’s U.S. operations.
Fanduel history
Lesley Eccles, Nigel Eccles, Rob Jones, Tom Griffiths, and Chris Stafford founded FanDuel on July 21, 2009. The company branched out from Hubdub, a news prediction platform, with a funding round of $1.2 million from Scottish Enterprise and Pentech Ventures.
In 2010, FanDuel hosted its first-ever “FanDuel Fantasy Football Championship (FFFC).” A total of ten participants were entered via their winnings in an NFL qualifying tournament. The first-place prize was $25,000, with a total prize fund of $40,000.
Flutter’s $4.2 billion purchase of FanDuel
Flutter Entertainment has agreed to expand its stake in FanDuel for $4.175 billion, according to FanDuel.
According to Paul Martino, Bullpen Capital’s founder and managing director, Flutter (formerly Paddy Power Betfair) bought FanDuel for around $559 million in 2018. Despite numerous restructurings, Flutter retained the right to repurchase the company’s remaining shares at any time.
Since FanDuel has had such a massive success in the last few years, it was uncertain how the company’s value would be calculated. Early entrants, like Martino’s company, faced a disaster scenario.
“The fact that they had to acquire at close to market value, I’m sure all of us early investors can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief as a result of that,” Martino said. “I think it’s probably a small discount … but $11.5 billion and $559 million is a pretty big difference.”
Flutter is a winner on all fronts, even if it has the potential to save more on the transaction. Previously, Flutter had committed to buying out Fastball’s share by 2023, which would cost it considerably more than FanDuel’s market value of over $11 billion at this point.
According to Martino, FanDuel is currently valued at $14 billion. In other words, the company increased its access to the rapidly expanding market for sports betting in the U.S. by spending a bit of extra money.