- CEO of Fanatics, Michael Rubin, said that the sportsbook is launching a prediction market with Crypto.com for all states
- Maryland is one of the many states to warn operators that prediction markets are not licensed by gaming commissions
NEW YORK CITY – Fanatics Sportsbook is joining the wave of prediction markets and is expected to launch in a few weeks. Michael Rubin, CEO of Fanatics, broke the news in an interview with CNBC and also announced that this will be through a partnership with Crypto.com.
DraftKings and FanDuel are also in the process of launching prediction markets, as they abandoned their trade memberships with the American Gaming Association earlier this week.
In the interview with CNBC, Rubin made it clear that the intention was to accept players from all states and not just the states with they are currently licensed for legal sports betting.
“We’re only in 23 states, so there’s 27 states that we’re going to launch in that we think, you know, customers want this product and we want to give it to the customers.”
Even though Fanatics intends to offer prediction markets for sports in all 50 states, this may not be a reality. There has already been opposition from states without a regulated sports betting market.
Most recently, Maryland sent out an official warning to licensed operators that any prediction markets run in the state would not be licensed and therefore fall under the “illegal gambling” umbrella.
Including Maryland, nine states with legal sports betting and counting have issued warnings to sportsbooks that launching prediction markets could jeopardize the status of their betting license.
Rubin did not sound too concerned about the pushback from prediction markets by saying the following to CNBC:
“I can’t tell you what the regulatory environment is going to be. What I can tell you is if the regulatory environment says that we can do this, we’re going to do it, and if it changes, then we’ll change with it.”
