DraftKings and FanDuel, two of the largest players in the fantasy sports world, once had an estimated 90% of the market. After the Supreme Court case invalidating PASPA, which kept sports betting illegal, these two companies with large customer bases of millions of users have been positioning themselves to move over into this new territory. DraftKings, the bigger of the two companies, had started working on a mobile app for sports betting in New Jersey even before the Supreme Court case, and was able to make it to the market first in August 2018. FanDuel followed a month later in September, although lacking some of the features included in DraftKings' offering, such as "pitch-by-pitch baseball betting" or the ability to cash out on bets whose outcome is not yet decided. FanDuel's ability to stay competitive will depend on how much their deal with Paddy Power Betfair pays off. Just one week after PASPA was invalidated, Paddy Power Betfair began the process of acquiring FanDuel, the two companies merging their assets in the U.S. in order to take over the sports betting market. Paddy Power Betfair is a large and established player in the European market, and if FanDuel can leverage this expertise, they might be able to pull ahead of their competition.
