It took FanDuel less than four weeks to move from debuting a prediction markets product in the U.S. to having it live and operational in all 50 states.
An information page for FanDuel Predicts shows that the product, a joint venture between FanDuel owner Flutter and leading exchange marketplace CME Group, now stretches across the country, making it the first online gaming operator to offer prediction markets in every state.
It offers sports contracts in 18 of those, including major non-sports-betting states and some jurisdictions that do offer a limited version of online sports wagering. In the other 32 states, 23 of which license FanDuel Sportsbook for sports betting, FanDuel Predicts only allows trading on finance, economic and commodities contracts.
FanDuel now offers sports in non-sports-betting states
FanDuel initially launched its prediction markets platform on Dec. 22 in five states: Alabama, Alaska, North Dakota, South Carolina and South Dakota. The company said it planned to eventually expand to all 50. It didn’t take long.
FanDuel Predicts’ sports footprint now includes several populous states where a sports betting license was not available to FanDuel Sportsbook, including the largest markets where sports wagering is illegal: California, Texas and Georgia. FanDuel also offers sports contracts in Florida, where the Seminole Tribe-owned Hard Rock Bet is the only legal state-regulated sportsbook.
FanDuel said when it announced the initial limited five-state rollout that while it planned to offer sports-related event contracts in states where sports betting is not yet legal, those markets would not be available on tribal lands. That is expected to remain the case in all of FanDuel Predicts’ sports contract states.
Other new sports states for the FanDuel Predicts platform include the small-population states of Rhode Island and Delaware, both of which authorize sports betting but with only one operator as the monopolist. In Rhode Island, IGT runs the only licensed online sportsbook, while BetRivers holds that status in Delaware.
FanDuel said in the past that it would shut down prediction markets in any state which legalizes sports betting in the future.
TAM means something different now
It means that FanDuel has now realized what was surely an incentive for partnering with CME Group in the first place: It can offer a de facto equivalent of sports betting to people aged 18 and older in numerous markets where it could not before. There are now only nine U.S. states in which FanDuel does not offer any form of sports betting or trading.
While FanDuel is still not in the position of offering sports in all 50 states, as the likes of Kalshi does, it is the first state-regulated gaming operator to expand a prediction markets product to that scale. FanDuel Predicts’ expansion is also the latest example of how several online sportsbooks have greatly expanded their target addressable market for sports in the U.S.
Like FanDuel, DraftKings offers sports on its DraftKings Predictions platform in all major states without legal sports betting. In total, DraftKings offers predictions in 38 states and sports event contracts in 17 states, which is one fewer than FanDuel; the difference is Delaware.
Meanwhiole, Fanatics Markets, a collaboration with Crypto.com, offers a range of prediction markets in 24 states as of the time of writing. Underdog, which shut down its small state-regulated sports betting footprint in favor of sports contracts, has operated predictions via a deal with Crypto.com since September and currently offers them in 29 states.
PrizePicks is also live with event contracts through a collaboration with Kalshi. Its sports event contract Team Picks product initially launched in 15 states but has since doubled to 30.
