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Nigel Eccles – Co-founder and former CEO of FanDuel, announced Monday he will be shutting down his latest venture into the online gambling realm, BetHog.
The company notified customers today that BetHog will cease operations on July 30, after which users will no longer be able to place bets or play casino games. Customers will have until Aug. 31 to withdraw their funds. After that date, they must contact customer support directly.
Eccles cited a shift to focusing more on its AI dealer business, Sentient Studios.
BetHog positioned itself as a modern crypto-native casino and sportsbook with proprietary games and a strong streaming/community focus.
Eccles told Gambling Insider via email that a growing commercial interest in its AI dealer technology, rather than weak casino performance, was the reason for the decision.
"The biggest change [since the Q&A] was the huge pick up in interest in our AI dealer games,” Eccles said. “We now have a solid pipeline of operators who want to deploy it, and we felt that to really deliver on that opportunity, we needed to focus our resources."
Eccles is hardly down on the future of crypto casinos, however.
"We definitely think crypto casinos are a good business, and BetHog could be very successful, but we believe our expertise lies more in creating games.
"I think the biggest factor was the response of operators. They really want this option where they can quickly spin up branded live dealer games with no up-front costs or monthly minimums.”
Eccles confirmed he did not have any deals with operators currently in place.
The move comes as many online sportsbooks have reported record business from this year's FIFA World Cup.
The website launched just two years ago.
The operator focused heavily on the Latin American, Asia and Crypto-friendly international markets while restricting those in the U.S. and United Kingdom as well as France, Netherlands and Australia.
The number of affected customers is not immediately known.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
