Fanatics Sportsbook is graduating from beta testing to full-bore bet-taking in four states.
The legal sports betting arm of merchandise giant Fanatics announced Wednesday that it is officially live with mobile wagering in Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Tennessee following a six-month trial run for a limited audience. The Fanatics app is now widely available for download in those four states.
“After 6 months of beta testing, we are excited to officially launch the Fanatics Sportsbook product to the public,” said Scot McClintic, chief product officer for Fanatics Betting and Gaming, in a press release. “The strategic patience to build a product for the long-term has given us an opportunity to redefine a customer’s expectation of what a sportsbook should be.”
Time to "cash" in?
What customers can expect from the mobile sports betting apps is an operation that can translate into swag and sports-related experiences for themselves and others. Users can earn Fanatics-branded reward points (“FanCash”) they can cash in elsewhere with the retailer, but they can earn even more by making riskier bets.
FanCash can be used to buy team merchandise or converted, “dollar-for-dollar,” into “Bonus Bets,” Fanatics says. While users can get 1% of their straight bets returned to them in FanCash — such as by wagering on moneylines, point spreads, and totals — they can get 3% for parlays and 5% for same-game parlays. The latter two forms of wagering are usually harder to win than a straight bet.
The link to the merchandise business is key to Fanatics’ strategy, as it can tap its huge customer database for potential betting clients. Given the company is a relatively late entry into the legal sports betting business, that kind of edge is crucial to carving out a decent-sized market share for itself.
“Fanatics Betting and Gaming is the first company to enter the sports betting market with the backing of a parent company that has been focused on the sports fan for years,” Wednesday’s release said. “Fanatics is building a one-of-a-kind sports ecosystem where sports fans can go to one location and buy team merchandise, find collectibles and place a wager on their favorite teams.”
Search and deploy
Fanatics is also touting a more personalized experience for bettors, offering a “Discover” page for customers that will have their favorite teams, sports, and wagering markets. Moreover, the company says its online sports betting will have an “industry-leading search functionality” to help users find what they want to wager on faster.
Lastly, Fanatics is integrating the workings of PointsBet following the former’s acquisition of the latter’s U.S.-based business. That includes harnessing the “quantitative driven trading models” of PointsBet’s Banach Technology.
“The Fanatics Sportsbook will offer legal sports betting markets on professional and college football, basketball, hockey and baseball, as well as golf, tennis, motorsports, boxing, MMA and much more,” the release added. “The development and trading of sports betting markets will be done in house at Fanatics Betting and Gaming.”
