FanDuel unveiled its prediction market platform, FanDuel Predicts, just before Christmas, following the launches of similar prediction products from some of its biggest sports betting and fantasy sports competitors.
This week, FanDuel Predicts became available in all 50 states, making FanDuel the first sports gaming operator to have a prediction market presence nationwide. The event contract trading platforms from Fanatics and DraftKings, as well as ones from DFS heavyweights PrizePicks and Underdog, still limit access to certain states.
Launched on Dec. 22, access to the FanDuel Predicts app was available in just five states initially, with the company saying at the time that it intended to offer event contracts in all states. The timeline accelerated this week, with gaming industry reporter Dustin Gouker noting on Jan. 14 that product availability had expanded to 18 states, including California, Texas, and Florida, and that it was “coming soon nationwide.”
“Soon” turned out to be the very next day. On Thursday, FanDuel Predicts was accessible in every state, but with limited market selection in the additional jurisdictions. Specifically, the platform’s sports event contracts are not available to traders in the 32 newly added FanDuel Predicts states. Users in those states only have access to the platform’s finance, economic and commodities markets.
FanDuel strategically limiting sports event contract access
FanDuel is generally avoiding offering sports prediction markets in states that have legalized sports betting. But some of the states in which FanDuel Predicts offers sports event contract trading do allow limited sports betting activity. States like New Mexico, Nebraska and North Dakota only permit in-person sports betting at retail sportsbooks, while others, like Florida and Delaware, only allow a single licensed online sportsbook to offer sports wagering statewide.
FanDuel is limiting its sports prediction markets to states without broad, regulated online sports wagering in part to avoid running afoul of state gaming authorities, which have increasingly signaled they consider sports event contracts to be unlicensed sports betting. Some regulators have explicitly warned that offering event contracts could jeopardize existing licenses in their state. In Arizona, gaming regulators moved to revoke Underdog’s DFS license because of its prediction‑market partnership with Crypto.com. FanDuel Predicts is not available in any state currently embroiled in legal battles with prediction platforms over their right to offer sports markets.
FanDuel Sportsbook does not operate in any of the 18 states FanDuel Predicts is offering sports event contract trading. FanDuel could restrict access to sports markets in one or more of those states in the future. When the product launched, FanDuel stated in a news release that “as new states legalize online sports betting, FanDuel Predicts will cease offering sports event contracts in those states.”
Here are the 18 states in which users can trade on sports outcomes via FanDuel Predicts:
- Alabama
- Alaska
- California
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Minnesota
- Nebraska
- New Mexico
- North Dakota
- Oklahoma
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Texas
- Utah
Types of prediction markets available at FanDuel Predicts
FanDuel Predicts markets are facilitated by the CME Group, a full-service CFTC-approved prediction exchange. CME, a well-established and respected derivatives marketplace, also currently powers the event contracts at DraftKings Predictions.
FanDuel Predicts offers sports event markets for game winners, point totals and point spreads across several major U.S. sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA and NHL, as well as NCAA football and basketball.
Users in states without sports access can trade on the platform’s financial markets, including contracts on stocks, crypto, indices and economic indicators, as well as oil, gold and agricultural commodities.
FanDuel Predicts user experience
The FanDuel Predicts app is fast loading and easy to navigate, making browsing and trading easy and friction-free. The layout is fairly bare-bones, stylistically matching the look of FanDuel Sportsbook. It’s a little less visually inviting than Kalshi’s interface, more closely resembling how markets are shown at Crypto.com and most other prediction platforms, with minimal aesthetic bells and whistles.
The layout has the three main sections — Commodities, Financials and (where available) Sports — across the top of the app, with a toolbar across the bottom providing quick access to your orders, a solid search feature, a “Learn” section that offers several basic FAQs, and the homepage.
The homepage shows a few popular markets; there and in the individual market sections you can choose how the market odds are shown. You can view the prices as a percentage (the common odds method used on most prediction platforms), as cents-per-contract, as +/- odds (which most U.S. sportsbooks use), or as multipliers, showing the potential return ratio (like “1.66x”). Kalshi has a similar feature that can be adjusted in the settings, but FanDuel Predicts provides access to it directly on the section pages.
Contract pricing, determined by trading activity and not set by the platform itself, is the same as what you’ll find at DraftKings Predictions, as they currently share the same market provider, CME Group. FanDuel Predicts’ pricing is also very close to Kalshi’s.
Though there are likely some exceptions, when comparing a few economic markets on both Kalshi and FanDuel Predicts, we found the odds to be mostly identical. For example, in markets for what the U.S. unemployment rate will be in January, both had “Yes” contracts for the rate to be above 4.6% at $0.22 a piece. Even for contracts that are closer to 50/50, the pricing is very similar. A successful $100 trade on the 4.6% unemployment rate contract would net a payout of $451 on Kalshi and $454 on FanDuel Predicts.
FanDuel Predicts charges a 2% “transaction fee” on all trades, based on the maximum potential payout of your order. If you sell your position prior to the market settling, the same 2% fee is applied to the original potential payout amount. The fee structure is a little more transparent and easy to understand than the trading fees at Kalshi, where taker fees are determined by a formula that takes into account trade size and a variable fee rate, typically coming out to around 1-2%. Using the $100 unemployment market trade example above, Kalshi’s fees were $5.24, while the transaction fee at FanDuel Predicts was $9.08.
FanDuel Predicts goes nationwide ahead of top competitors
By going nationwide with its prediction markets, FanDuel is aiming to capture market share ahead of its sports gaming competitors.
DraftKings Predictions launched in 38 states, with sports contracts limited to 17 states. Delaware is the only state in which FanDuel Predicts offers sports markets but DraftKings Predictions does not. Like FanDuel Predicts, DraftKings Predictions only features CME Group markets for sports and finance/economics. The company has said it also intends for its Predictions product to be available nationwide.
Access to Fanatics Markets, the first predictions product from a traditional online sports betting company, is currently limited to 24 states. Fanatics Markets, which features event contracts from partner Crypto.com, does not split the types of markets available in different states. So users in each of the states in which Fanatics Markets launched can trade on prediction markets related to sports, finance, politics and culture/entertainment.
Which company known for its traditional sports betting products will join FanDuel, Fanatics and DraftKings and enter the prediction market fray next remains unclear, as most have taken a “wait and see” approach publicly. But it’s likely that another sports wagering operator will test the prediction market waters soon, as the performance and regulatory challenges faced by DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics become more evident.
