FanDuel Founder Nigel Eccles Reveals BetDEX, a Decentralized Exchange

FanDuel former CEO and co-founder Nigel Eccles revealed his latest project, a decentralized sports betting exchange by the fitting name of BetDEX Labs Inc. DEX is short for “decentralized exchange” in blockchain talk and it’s where Eccles’ next venture is heading.

He is not alone and is joined by what he describes as two of his favorite former FanDuel colleagues, to name Varun Sudhakar listed as CEO and co-founder of BetDEX, and Stuart Torner who will be the chief technology officer.

Turner led FanDuel as head of engineering in Glasgow between 2010 and 2018 and has been an instrumental part in its modern-day technological success, and he is also listed as a co-founder. The LinkedIn post outlines more employees joining the company who have also held various stints and jobs at FanDuel.

They include Pawel Witek, Ewan Meldrum, Andy Murray, and Drew Alexander Baird Spencer. The collection of talent is not a chance event, as Eccles explained in his publication:

“Starting a company means getting to pick who you get to hang out with for next 5-10 years.”

FanDuel former CEO and co-founder Nigel Eccles

BetDEX has a simple mission according to the executive who wants to see crypto intertwined with sports betting to revolutionize the industry for consumers. In a way, BetDEX, Eccles, and his team are stealing a march on FanDuel at a time when DraftKings is pushing more aggressively into the blockchain space.

FanDuel’s main fantasy and tech rival launched its own NFT Marketplace in August and DraftKings has just teamed up with Polygon to increase the scaling capabilities of its marketplace.

A Read into BetDEX and What It Offers

BetDEX is keen on boosting the sports betting experience by allowing consumers to trade bets at high speeds and at minimal cost and zero counterparty risk.

The platform is built on the Solana blockchain, a solution that was built to rival Ethereum and can interact with smart contracts while creating an infrastructure for various projects. BetDEX is a permissionless protocol allowing anyone to continue building applications on top.

The company currently cites Solana’s strengths as $0.00025 for the average cost per transaction with a capability of 50,000 transactions per second and 400 millesecond block times.

The BetDEX exchange should be arriving early in 2022 as a beta and scale its offer from there on in. Eccles’ tenure with FanDuel ended in 2017 when he left the company and co-founded Flick built to connect influencers with fans.

His departure followed a blocked consolidation move by FanDuel and DraftKings to merge. The years after PASPA’s repeal have been very promising for the sports betting industry in the United States and BetDEX is set to add an innovative experience to the sector.