FanDuel CEO to All Others "You're Going Down!"

FanDuel’s Amy Howe tells CNBC her company expects to defend and expand its market lead in U.S. online sports betting and warned any newcomers "good luck with sports betting − you’re going to need it".

That message might just apply to all of FanDuel's competitors as well, though she likely had one specific in mind.   That would be Fanatics.

CNBC's Contessa Brewer writes that Howe's remarks "go against expectations in the gaming industry that FanDuel will cede some of its dominance as new players work to grab a bigger share of the sports betting market."

Gaming industry analyst Joe Brennan Jr, who worked to have sports gambling legalized in the U.S. even before there ever was a FanDuel, warned upon reading Howe's remarks,  "the graveyards are filled with companies that built early leads they thought were unassailable".

The graveyards are filled with companies that built early leads they thought were unassailable https://t.co/65CPCtIdvN

— Joe Brennan Jr (@joebrennanjr) November 19, 2022

“It should be clear that new entrants that are entering now at this point may face a real challenge taking on scale players who have more than a four-year head start,” Howe said at the company’s Capital Markets Day on Wednesday.

She is probably right in her assessment. 

Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin plans to leave no stone unturned as they look to make a huge splash in the legal U.S. sports betting market.  He's basically late to the party.

“We’ll be in every major state other than New York, where you can’t make money,” Rubin said at a Sports Business Journal World Congress of Sports event in October.

“FanDuel is America’s number one sports book by a wide margin,” Howe proclaimed last Wednesday.  It's actually the only profitable of the sports betting companies regulated in the U.S.

To Throw more gasoline on the fire, Howe added "almost 90% of the operators have a sub-2% share of the market".

- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com