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It may be one of the worst kept secrets that online poker sites in recent months have been looking to expand their product base by offering daily fantasy sports contests.
Hence, it shouldn’t come as a shock that PokerStars, the world’s largest real money Web card room, has announced its plans to begin offering daily fantasy sports by the start of the 2015 NFL season.
“Daily fantasy sports software providers are among the most interested in exhibiting at this year’s Daily Fantasy Sports Expo and with good reason,” noted Marc Lesnick, the conference organizer. “In addition to attracting newcomers, they know that the real money is in established sites.”
A number of European online gambling operators have secured speaking engagements and visitor passes at the August 6-7 event in Miami Beach.
PokerStars could opt to purchase existing software, partner with a software company to offer a white label product or acquire an already existing daily fantasy sports website.
Stars would prove an immediate formidable competitor to the likes of industry behemoths DraftKings and FanDuel.
“We have also taken the strategic decision to enter the daily fantasy sports category and are pursuing parallel tracks of internal development and strategic acquisition,” commented Amaya CEO David Baazov. “We expect to provide more details on this strategy in the second half of 2015 but see a clear crossover from poker and daily fantasy sports.
“The goal is to be up before the NFL season starts,” said Baazov, appearing to refer to the 2015 NFL season.
“We clearly see a strong demand for it … a lot of the U.S. players that were formerly PokerStars players would like to see us launch fantasy sports,” Baazov added.
Current products on the market are either lacking or – in the case of Draftkings and FanDuel – overvalued.
“Nobody’s software that we’ve seen can currently support our volume that we would have if we launched fantasy sports,” Baazov stated.
Daily fantasy sports contests provide Stars with another attractive option that has little to do with revenue flow. The activity is welcome in most of the 50 US states with a few exceptions, thus providing PokerStars and its parent company Amaya instant access to the elusive U.S. market. While Stars has joined forces with casinos in California to offer real money Web poker, legislative obstacles still stand in the way of this happening any time soon.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
