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PrizePicks co-founder Adam Wexler on Monday came out swinging, accusing both DraftKings and FanDuel of doing everything possible to undermine his company's business. And state regulators are taking note.
In recent weeks, PrizePicks has been warned by regulators in Florida and Massachusetts to cease offering its popular picks product that closely resembles player prop and parlay betting options offered by traditional sportsbooks.
Wexler spoke about this effort via his LinkedIn page.
"When I got into the fantasy sports industry a decade back while separately consulting for the Atlanta Hawks, I would often think about the discrepancy between the growth of the NBA, but the lack of growth with fantasy basketball. Even as DraftKings & FanDuel popularized Daily Fantasy Sports in the middle of last decade, fantasy basketball adoption continued to lag behind.
"As an entrepreneur, it has been a strength of mine to evaluate offline consumer behaviors and consider what the digital translation could look like. With fantasy basketball, that topic boiled down to a common refrain: Is [Lebron] gonna drop 25 points tonight? In order to meet fantasy legal requirements, consumers would need to build a 'fantasy lineup' consisting of multiple players from multiple teams.
"Jay Deuskar and I took those facts and turned them into an easy to play real-money game at PrizePicks, which has become the most widely adopted form of fantasy basketball across North America. It's pretty evident why DraftKings & FanDuel are doing everything they can to stifle our growth. Instead of competing on the sports fan experience, they have instead resorted to employing underhanded, backroom lobbying tactics to take away the games basketball fans clearly love to play.
"Thanks to Front Office Sports for shining a spotlight on how fantasy basketball has finally been solved (WNBA too!), and we take great pride in being a huge reason why."
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
