Las Vegas Welcomes FanDuel By Year’s End

Although FanDuel’s name will be a driving force in Fremont’s redevelopment and rebranding, the operation will still be very much Boyd’s, with FanDuel providing the odds and its expertise. Whether this will also mark a re-entry point for FanDuel’s own operations into Nevada is still undetermined.

Rebranding Fremont’s Sportsbook

The Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC or Nevada GC) operating under the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB or Nevada GCB) had a very interesting point in its August 25 NGC Agenda: FanDuel’s entrance into Las Vegas. The Commission’s voting ended 5-0 in favor, thus the daily fantasy sports behemoth FanDuel will be operating in Nevada, but there are a few caveats.

To be fair, FanDuel will only be partnering with Boyd in the rebranding and possibly redeveloping of the Fremont Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, bringing the property’s sportsbook under FanDuel’s name. While Boyd will continue to be the operator of the sportsbook, FanDuel will be part of setting odds and risk management and will be providing further assistance in the form of information and advice as needed.

The CDC Gaming Reports has quoted FanDuel attorney Erica Okerberg saying that “There are no immediate plans for FanDuel to deploy any technology in Nevada,” indicating that FanDuel’s specs will simply be incorporated into Fremont’s existing IGT platform. Another important tidbit is that FanDuel will be operating under a more limited agreement with Boyd at this particular location since it still remains Boyd’s operation and FanDuel is just going to be the new sportsbook name that serves FanDuel-provided odds.

FanDuel Expansion Efforts

So, in effect, FanDuel won’t really be bringing its mobile sports betting technology into Nevada, but the name will be actively mentioned once more in the state. It was 2015 when Nevada regulators decided that FanDuel’s daily fantasy sports contests were a form of gambling and it couldn’t operate without a license, which FanDuel did not possess. This return of FanDuel to Nevada marks an opportunity for it to maybe change that in the near future.

FanDuel was facing a cease-and-desist but that doesn’t seem to have affected the Gaming Commission in its decision, possibly because FanDuel’s ownership has also changed. Being part of Flutter Entertainment, which itself is the product of a merger between Paddy Power and Betfair, seems to have been enough of a change of face for the GC.

While the sportsbook rebrand at Fremont is a “maybe” in FanDuel’s expansion plans, the company has been doing some definite steps to increase its brand’s reach outside the US as a whole. We saw a new point in NHL’s history in April this year, when FanDuel, alongside BetMGM, became the first NA sports betting partners of the National Hockey League. Just a few short months later, the partnership between FanDuel and the NHL was upgraded, with the pair announcing that FanDuel will be NHL’s official sportsbook partner in Canada.

Earlier in the year FanDuel also increased its global presence by creating 400 new jobs in the UK by partnering with xDesign and making a joint investment totaling £250,000 (almost US$ 290,000). A total of 250 FanDuel engineers are expected to be added to the joint operation by the end of the year, with xDesign looking at 150 new consultancy employees in total.