New York
FanDuel has constructed a giant and rising business with its sports betting app, turning into the largest on-line sportsbook in the United States. But on-line sports playing stays unlawful in many states, which is why it’s moving into the booming — and controversial — prediction market business.
Billions of {dollars} are exchanged weekly on prediction market platforms corresponding to Kalshi and Polymarket. Bets vary from which group will win the World Cup and which candidate will probably be the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee to the temperature in New York tomorrow or what number of occasions Elon Musk will publish on X this month. Huge quantities of cash being wagered on these websites threatened to take business from on-line sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings.
Prediction markets are additionally extra broadly accessible than on-line betting apps, as a result of they’re regulated otherwise. Prediction markets — the place the odds are set not by a firm however rely upon how many individuals guess on every final result — are legally thought-about buying and selling merchandise, not playing, and are overseen federally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Meanwhile, sports betting apps are regulated on the state degree.
Last January, Kalshi made a splashy announcement that it might allow buying and selling on sports in all 50 US states — even those who outlaw conventional sportsbooks.
Now, the sports betting corporations are leaping into the prediction house, permitting a “reasonable facsimile” of a extra standard sportsbook, FanDuel President Christian Genetski instructed NCS’s “Terms of Service” podcast.
FanDuel launched its prediction market app, FanDuel Predicts, final 12 months with derivatives market CME Group. It’s now accessible in 16 states. (FanDuel competitor DraftKings additionally introduced its personal prediction market final 12 months.)
“It’s not the full panoply of everything you can do on the FanDuel sportsbook,” Genetski mentioned. “But it provides you a way to experience a FanDuel-type sports experience.”
FanDuel says it received’t enable FanDuel Predicts customers to guess on sports in states the place its core sportsbook app, which Genetski known as the firm’s “most important business,” is accessible.
FanDuel Predicts “enables us to harness a significant and incremental expansion of the US addressable market ahead of further state regulation — a space where our scale and experience give us a natural advantage,” Peter Jackson, CEO of FanDuel guardian firm Flutter, mentioned in the firm’s year-end financial report for 2025. FanDuel’s core sportsbook app averages 4 million month-to-month customers throughout 25 states the place sports betting has been legalized, in accordance to Genetski.
FanDuel is getting into the house in a second when prediction markets face intense scrutiny over the threat of insider buying and selling, together with bigger moral questions on the societal affect of letting individuals guess on elections or geopolitical conflicts. The White House final week warned staff not to have interaction in insider buying and selling on prediction markets platforms following controversial trades associated to the Iran war.
And FanDuel and DraftKings have already drawn issues over gambling addiction and sports rigging scandals associated to their core sports betting companies, though the corporations say they’ve measures in place to deal with these points.
FanDuel Predicts customers can guess on real-world outcomes in monetary markets — for instance, how a lot GDP will develop in a given quarter, or what the unemployment charge will probably be in a given month. But the firm has no plans to enable edgier bets on the prediction app, Genetski mentioned. (DraftKings Predictions permits betting on elections however nonetheless gives a extra restricted choice than bigger prediction markets.)
“We would never offer anything to do with death, regime change, war,” Genetski mentioned. “That’s not a FanDuel business that we would ever engage in.”
He mentioned the firm’s main purpose stays serving sports followers.
“We are definitely sports-focused at FanDuel,” Genetski mentioned. “We are a sports brand and a sports company.”