iGB Intelligence reports Social Gaming report | Page 24

PART 3 - DAILY FANTASY SPORTS

sportsbooks arrived to cash in on Euro 2016), not to
mention casino, poker, bingo and other games all
jostling for wallet share. It is therefore no surprise that
DraftKings and FanDuel were reportedly mulling over
joining forces.
“There is so much competition for the gambling
pound in the UK and so many choices and competitive
offers, so it’s really hard to compete with that, although
I do think DFS is a fantastic product,” says McDonnell.
He adds: “People have been brought up with it
culturally ingrained that if you want to spend money
backing your opinion on sport you have a bet.” Yet
fantasy sports aren’t an alien concept – far from it.
It’s estimated that somewhere between six and eight
million people play F2P season-long fantasy football in
the UK. Of these, more than 3.5 million partake in the
official F2P fantasy football product organised by the
Premier League. And this is despite the game dishing
out no prizes. The main draw for users is battling
against friends in mini-leagues to demonstrate the
extent of their football knowledge and managerial
nous.
For DFS operators, managing to convert even a
small fraction of these players to paid-for DFS games,
and retaining them, would provide more than a tidy
income. Like online poker, liquidity is paramount and
DraftKings has the upper hand here. Nonetheless,
there will have to be substantial budgets thrown at
marketing, acquisition and education of players who
are already heavily catered to by bookmakers.

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One key selling point when attracting new DFS
players is the guaranteed prize pools (GPPs) in
which players pit their line-ups against hundreds or
thousands of opponents (usually the top 20-30% are
awarded cash prizes on a sliding scale). In the US, first
prize for the biggest GPPs run into seven figures. It’s
the chance to win a life-changing sum for a modest
outlay, which is a head-turning proposition.
“There should be a 10-20% adoption rate [in the
UK] from the millions of people who play season-long
fantasy football because it is low stakes with returns
that could be in the thousands,” says Shergul Arshad,
CEO and founder of leading daily fantasy football (DFF)
site Mondogoal. “The UK is a piece of the puzzle but
there is a whole world out there – in Italy they are even
bigger fans of football.”
Meanwhile, Valery Bollier, CEO of B2B and DFS
platform Oulala Games, which claims it is unique in
using 70 in-game statistics for its comprehensive
scoring system in order to bring skill to the fore, says:
“We will have to evangelise people and this is going to
take a lot of time and money. So you will need time and
money to experiment. However, the European market
is not an easy market to understand. Americans usually
make a big strategic mistake when they see Europe
as one single market. It’s not the case and anyone
working in the igaming space knows you can’t compare
an English, German and Italian customer; they all play
differently.” Also, there isn’t just one football league
to base a DFS product around in Europe, while there

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