After a busy summer of international sports, normality resumed for many over the weekend with the return of the Premier League season. 

And with that, the Fantasy Football season also got underway after a month of everyone switching and changing their teams ahead of kick-off of game week one last weekend. 

On the latest episode of iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, James Ross was joined by the Editor of Insider Sport, Ted Orme-Claye, and CasinoBeats’ Senior Journalist, Danny Lee, to discuss how operators are targeting fantasy football in the UK. 

Unlike the US, there is still somewhat of a disconnect between fantasy sports and gambling and James hypothesised that this difference in gambling cultures is likely because the UK has had an established betting market for a much longer period than the US. Therefore, Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) helped fill a gap when sports betting wasn’t an option in the US.

FanDuel and DraftKings are market leaders in many US states having both built up their customer base through DFS before the start of regulated US sports betting in 2018

Looking at the US example, Ted described fantasy sports as a potential “fan engagement tool” for UK operators.

He said: “It’s the fan engagement tool side of it that is the big benefit, just keeping people constantly engaged with your brand and what you’re offering. 

“If you look at the sheer amount of people who play Fantasy Premier League (FPL), that’s an incredible amount of data that people can harness and use to learn more about their customers and what their preferences are.”

One brand trying to bridge the gap between the two sectors in the UK is Fanteam, which allows players to draft a team and then pay an entry fee to enter weekly or season-long competitions that offer real-money prizes.

Currently, there are over 26,000 players entered into the brand’s season-long fantasy Premier League competition, with the top prize currently standing at £45,000.

On the product, Danny said: “I think it’s trying to tap into a lot of what we’ve seen with FanDuel and DraftKings in that you can engage with the sport through fantasy football and back yourself with wagers and stakes.

“I think a lot of it shows that there’s quite a lot of crossover in these audiences and there’s a pool of players there to appeal with if you’ve got many strings to your bow like DraftKings does. 

“It wouldn’t surprise me if we’re seeing more people who engage with these games and also do a bet on the side and start to merge those with these offerings that we’re seeing.”

Ted agreed with this sentiment, however, he noted the cultural challenge that operators have in the UK as customers are conditioned to view the two verticals as separate entities, which means that players currently look to use separate apps and websites for fantasy sports and betting.

He also suggested that to be successful, operators should look at taking inspiration from the gamification aspect of fantasy sports offerings when trying to merge the two, rather than aiming to create their own fantasy platform.