and FanDuel abandon fantasy sports merger

13 July 2017
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Fantasy sports websites DraftKings and FanDuel have abandoned a strategy to merge, less than a month after US competition regulators sought to block the deal.
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The deal would have developed a business with control over 90% of the market for paid, everyday dream sports contests, government authorities said.
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The firms said the deal would cause greater financial investment, providing benefits for consumers.

They stated they would now want to grow independently.

FanDuel began in Scotland in 2009 and is now based in New york city. It is number 2 in the US for paid daily dream sports contests behind DraftKings, which began in Boston in 2012.
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Fantasy sport firm FanDuel warns of risk from US guidelines
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The 2 firms specialise in a subset of dream sports, in which fans select gamers to develop groups for single games, instead of the season, with the possible to win money rewards based upon the result.
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In November, they said they had agreed to merge. Terms were not disclosed.

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

Nigel Eccles, head of FanDuel, said it made good sense to move forward separately.
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"There is still massive, untapped market chance for FanDuel, and we will continue to perform our strategy to grow our organization and additional expand the fantasy sports market," he stated in a statement.

Draft Kings president Jason Robbins likewise stated ending the merger would allow the company to "singularly focus" on growth, including internationally.

In 2015 there were an approximated 57 million fantasy sports players in the yohaig code US alone.