Fantasy sports lures millions wanting chance to win big

Global Business

Fantasy sports websites, like Fan Duel and Draft Kings, now offer big payouts to winners for just one day of play.

Choose a tournament with entry fees ranging from pennies to thousands of dollars, pick a lineup of real players from sports, then follow the action as those athletes earn points depending on their performances in real games, that is how it works.

But growth of interest in sports is anything but a sure thing. The sites are currently legal and largely unregulated in the United States, as CCTV America’s Jim Spellman reports from Washington.

Fantasy sports lures millions wanting chance to win big

Fantasy sports websites, like Fan Duel and Draft Kings, now offer big payouts to winners for just one day of play. Choose a tournament with entry fees ranging from pennies to thousands of dollars, pick a lineup of real players from sports, then follow the action as those athletes earn points depending on their performances in real games, that is how it works. But growth of interest in sports is anything but a sure thing. The sites are currently legal and largely unregulated in the United States, as CCTV America's Jim Spellman reports from Washington.

More details:

  • Last year, one and a half million Americans paid more than a billion dollars in tournament entry fees. By the end of 2015, industry analysts expect that to grow to nearly four million participants in North America alone. In the first half of the 2015 baseball season, more than 90% of the profits went to about one percent of those who played.
  • Neither Draft Kings nor Fan Duel have turned a profit so far, as they pour money into advertising, but investors like Google Capital and ESPN have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the sites, betting they will become profitable and boost interest in sports in general.


Adam Krejcik on US sports investment

CCTV America is joined by Adam Krejcik, Managing Director and Partner at Eilers Research, LLC.

Adam Krejcik on US sports investment

For more on this topic, CCTV America is joined by Adam Krejcik, Managing Director and Partner at Eilers Research, LLC.