ESPN’s $2 billion deal with PENN Entertainment to create ESPN Bet represents a massive bet on its ability to break what has quickly become a U.S. sports betting duopoly between FanDuel and DraftKings.
In the five years since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed individual states to set their own sports betting rules, FanDuel and DraftKings have used large marketing spends and their existing presence in fantasy sports to collectively control more than 70% of the domestic sports wagering market. Including Caesars and BetMGM, the combined market share reaches about 90%, leaving any other operator competing for scraps.
Even as key new states such as New York have entered the market over the past two years, FanDuel and DraftKings quickly established the same level of market dominance.
