Fanatics Sportsbook is the clearest test case in U.S. gambling of whether an existing customer base beats a betting-specific brand. Operated by Fanatics Betting & Gaming under Michael Rubin's broader Fanatics platform, it doesn't win new sportsbook customers the way FanDuel or DraftKings do — it converts people who already buy jerseys and trading cards from Fanatics, at a fraction of the acquisition cost a standalone sportsbook pays.
Buying a license instead of building one
Fanatics Sportsbook entered the market in 2023 by acquiring PointsBet's U.S. business for roughly $150 million — buying the operating licenses, the technology stack, and the state-by-state regulatory infrastructure instead of spending years assembling it. That shortcut is the whole strategy in miniature: Fanatics doesn't out-build the duopoly's sportsbook product, it skips the years that FanDuel and DraftKings spent earning distribution and licenses.
The actual advantage: who the customer already is
Fanatics Commerce and Fanatics Collectibles have first-party identity, payment, and engagement data on more than 100 million sports fans — people who've already bought a jersey, a trading card, or a ticket through the platform. Converting one of those into a sportsbook account costs a fraction of what any external acquisition channel charges, because there's no cold-start: Fanatics already knows who they are and how they pay.
Matt King, who previously ran FanDuel through its rise to U.S. market leadership, now runs Fanatics Betting & Gaming — bringing the operating playbook from one side of the duopoly to build the challenger on the other.
The product is actually three products
Fanatics Sportsbook operates in 22+ states. Fanatics Casino runs in legal iGaming states including Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. And in 2025 the platform added Fanatics Markets, a federally regulated prediction-market product that sidesteps state-by-state gambling licensing entirely — the same CFTC lane Polymarket and Kalshi occupy. Running a state-licensed sportsbook, a state-licensed casino, and a federally regulated prediction market under one platform is a compliance load no other operator in this category carries.
Where it's actually headed
Fanatics Betting & Gaming generated roughly $2 billion in 2025 revenue across the combined sportsbook, casino, and prediction-market lines. Michael Rubin has publicly projected sports betting reaching 40% of Fanatics' profits within five years — a bet that the cross-sell economics keep compounding faster than the duopoly's accumulated brand lead can block them. Like every operator in this category, the unit is still working through the customer-acquisition losses that come before profitability; the question is whether Fanatics gets there faster because its first customer-acquisition dollar was already spent on a jersey.
A U.S. sportsbook operated by Fanatics Betting & Gaming, launched in 2023 via the ~$150 million acquisition of PointsBet's U.S. business.
Who owns Fanatics Sportsbook?
Fanatics Betting & Gaming, a division of the privately held Fanatics platform. Michael Rubin is the largest individual shareholder; institutional investors include SoftBank, Silver Lake, Fidelity, and Thrive Capital.
What's Fanatics Sportsbook's actual edge over FanDuel or DraftKings?
Customer-acquisition cost. Fanatics already holds first-party identity and payment data on 100M+ sports fans through its commerce and collectibles business, making conversion to a betting account far cheaper than acquiring a customer cold.
What is Fanatics Markets?
A federally regulated prediction-market product launched in 2025, operating under CFTC event-contracts oversight rather than state gambling licensing. Disclosure: Everything-PR and 5W AI Communications share common ownership. Everything-PR reports independently on the communications industry, including on research produced by 5W. Editorial decisions are made by Everything-PR's editorial team.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team is the staff byline for news, analysis and features on communications, reputation, AI visibility and digital discovery. Everything-PR has published since 2009. AI tools assist with research and drafting, and every article is reviewed by a human editor before publication. Coverage follows the Editorial Policy, and substantive corrections are noted on the article under the Corrections Policy.
