Scottish Daily Fantasy Sports operator Premier Punt has rolled out the first phase of a new product that brings together fantasy sports and traditional sports betting to create a new type of gambling experience.
The company has explained that its new product provides players with the chance to assemble their fantasy teams and are then offered sports bets based on their choice of fantasy team members. Thus, if one’s team is predominantly comprised of Chelsea players, than they will be provided with betting odds on that particular football team to win.
Under UK gambling regulation, a DFS operator must have a pool betting license from the UK Gambling Commission so as to be allowed to operate legally in the country’s market. However, in order to be able to introduce its new product, Premier Punt needed a sportsbook license by the regulatory body, which it has received recently.
Commenting on the announcement, Premier Punt CEO John Gordon said that their single-wallet Daily Fantasy Sportsbook App would improve player value significantly, while providing players with a convenient opportunity to play fantasy sports and place traditional sports bets at the same time.
Premier Punt believes that its product has the power to change the face of both fantasy sports and sports betting. However, the Scottish operator does not expect larger DFS operators to follow suit and combine the two types of offering into a single product.
Both DraftKings and FanDuel, the two major DFS industry players, were granted pool betting licenses last year, but they have both not applied for sports betting ones, a clear indication that they are not interested in any association with the betting industry or at least not for now.
The two above-mentioned companies are among those to lead the lobbying effort for the legalization of daily fantasy sports in the US as a product that requires skill and does not depend on pure luck. The reason for them to push in that direction is because many US states are disposed quite unfavorably towards any type of gambling expansion within their borders.
In the UK, as already mentioned above, the provision of DFS services is monitored and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission.
Malta can be seen as Europe’s innovator in the context of DFS regulation. The Malta Gaming Authority introduced last year a Skill Games regulatory framework to license daily fantasy sports operators as ones that provide skill-based offering and not luck-based gambling options. However, the regulatory body pointed out that although fantasy contests are treated in a different manner, they still pose addiction risk to customers, which means that they need and they will be strictly regulated.
DraftKings was among the first operators to opt for a Malta Skill Games license. It received such a license early in 2017 and made it known that it would first use it to enter the German market.
