Full-scale international online sports platform and highly praised consumer brand Fanatics is currently catering to the needs of over 81 million global fans and 900+ top-tier sports properties. The company that started out as a basic e-commerce deal two decades ago is now getting ready to finally enter the iGaming and sports betting world. Fanatics’ fresh Betting and Gaming division will have Jigish Mehta as director of engineering.
Mehta, Thrilled to Join the BetFanatics Family
Speaking about the new change in his career, Mehta expressed his thrills at the thought of joining the “Fanatics family” in its new chapter. He added that he was looking forward to partnering with some of the greatest minds in the technology field as a result of his new position. Using his social media, Mehta officially announced he would step in as director of engineering for the Betting and Gaming division. There, he will be responsible for managing the team that will develop frameworks and tools.
Mehta also spoke about the last two years that he spent working as a senior engineering manager for Wish, describing them as “incredible”. There, he was responsible for leading the quality engineering organization of more than 45 engineers to spread both offshore and onshore while creating new frameworks, tools, and dashboards for boosted productivity.
Prior to his job at Wish, Mehta spent more than four years at Rakuten Rewards in the San Francisco Bay Area as director of engineering, senior engineering manager of quality, and engineering manager for quality. Other notable jobs part of his resume include positions as software quality engineering lead, innovation & new ventures, and developer programmer at e-Bay, senior Android automation engineer for OpenTable, and software engineer, quality – web & mobile for PayPal.
Fanatics, Ready to Jumpstart Its Betting and Gaming Division
Fanatics Betting and Gaming’s director of quality engineering Darrin Prutsman expressed the company’s excitement to have Mehta onboard, while “looking forward to all the great things will be building for our teams and customers”. The company has been working hard at the launch of the new verticals, especially in the context of the slowly growing US market for sports betting and iGaming. In June, Fanatics was showing signs of an early jumpstart of its online gambling plans through the acquisition of top-tier sportsbook Tipico located in Germany. During the same month, executive chairman Michael Rubin decided to sell his 10% stake in Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment as a result of a conflict of interests regarding the launch of the new division. In April, Fanatics locked a massive investment of $1.58 billion beefing its valuation at $27 billion.