According to Tom Griffiths, co-founder of FanDuel.com and Vice President of Product, and a survey by FSTA of 2000 fantasy players, the market of daily fantasy has grown 1500% between 2008 and 2012. By comparison the traditional fantasy market has grown a respectable 20% during that same period.
In an interview with Courtney Reagan of CNBC Business News, Griffiths also revealed that daily fantasy players consume 40% more data than when they started to play. Griffiths adds that because of the schedule and cadence of sports like baseball and basketball, daily fantasy can offer players the option to not having to play for the entire season. That has translated to first time players making up approximately half of the players in the NHL and NBA for daily fantasy. The players for those sports are also more likely to reactivate their accounts on FanDuel than for the NFL and MLB.
Sport
|
First Time
Players
|
Returning Players after 12 Months
|
NHL
|
52%
|
15%
|
NBA
|
45%
|
20%
|
MLB
|
27%
|
13%
|
NFL
|
8%
|
4%
|
Source: FanDuel
FtSb Says: The daily fantasy game is the classic disruptive technology that is challenging the more traditional market that is the season long league format. In addition, where daily fantasy is establishing itself is on the periphery of the cash cow market of fantasy football. It remains to be seen though will fantasy football players prefer the daily format or weekly format over the season long format that currently is the industry leader. There still remains the question though of legality of the daily game. Because of the time period of daily competition, the question of is daily fantasy a skill or a luck game is fundamental in answering the question if daily fantasy is gambling.
