FanDuel Prediction Market App Goes National, Sports Available in California
Less than a month after initially launching its prediction markets product to a few states, FanDuel went nationwide with it this week. That includes states like California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas, where users there will be able to use FanDuel Predicts for trading on sports.
And the leader of California’s tribal gaming industry accused the Flutter Entertainment flagship brand of imposing “unlawful gaming” where it’s not allowed.
It’s the latest step in an ongoing dispute that will likely result in a U.S. Supreme Court decision or congressional action.
“Prediction markets tied to sports betting are illegal, unregulated gambling and are already the subject of multiple court challenges nationwide,” said James Siva, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, in a statement to Gambling Insider. “These platforms seek to bypass California law and impose unlawful gaming on tribal lands without consent, undermining tribal sovereignty.”
Sliding Into PMs
FanDuel, along with fellow online sports betting operators DraftKings and Fanatics, has split from others in the gaming industry to branch into prediction markets, a sector that has seen tremendous growth in the past year as the Trump Administration has given federally regulated operators like Kalshi and Polymarket the green light to offer contracts on sporting events.
The sports betting operators left the American Gaming Association in November, just a couple of weeks before they began their own prediction market platforms. However, unlike other prediction market operators, the three sportsbooks do not offer contracts on sporting events in states where they offer sports betting.
Launching sports prediction markets in California, Georgia and Texas gives FanDuel the ability to offer a sports wagering product to residents in the three most populous states that have yet to legalize sportsbooks. Florida, the third largest state by population behind California and Texas, has legal sports betting, but state law allows the Seminole Nation to control that through a 30-year gaming copact.
Of the other three, Georgia is the only state likely to consider legalizing sports betting this year. Texas lawmakers meet in odd-numbered years, and gaming industry officials in California will likely not raise the issue through a referendum this year after voters in the state soundly rejected conflicting tribal- and commercial-led initiatives back in 2022.
Going Back To Cali?
California tribes worked hard to defeat the commercial attempt, at the expense of their own retail initiative. Since then, tribal gaming leaders have reiterated for any sports betting measure to success, it must go through them.
If a question does not appear on the 2026 ballot in California, which seems like a certainty at this point, then the earliest voters there would get to decide whether to legalize sports betting is 2028. If voters approved that measure, it would open the door to sportsbooks likely some time in 2029, more than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court opened sports betting to all 50 states.
The sportsbooks and the California tribes were making amends and working toward a possible partnership when prediction markets became popular, thanks to Kalshi’s successful court challenge allowing it to offer markets on the 2024 presidential election. After President Trump took office a year ago, the CFTC did not intervene when Kalshi, which lists Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, began offering sports contracts.
Several lawsuits have been filed to block Kalshi and others from offering sports markets. That includes one by a group of California tribal nations. They cite federal law gives them the right to decide the types of gaming allowed on their lands. However, a federal judge in November declined to issue an injunction. That case, though, still remains open.
FanDuel has hired several influential tribal gaming leaders since the 2022 vote, but its expansion of its prediction market program in California will likely make it harder for them to partner with most of the state’s tribal gaming nations on a sports betting referendum down the road.
About FanDuel Predicts
Now available in all 50 states, FanDuel Predicts has limited its sports markets to 16 states: Alaska, Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah.
Prediction markets handle sports differently than sportsbooks. While the latter, allows bettors to wager directly with the operator, the exchange requires two individuals to take both sides of a prediction. For example, if a trader wanted to purchase contracts for the Buffalo Bills to cover the point spread of +1.5 in their playoff game against the Denver Broncos on Sunday, then another trader would need to purchase a corresponding number of contracts on the Broncos. The winning side would get the payout, which equals $1 per contract.
Users in the remaining states can still make predictions on financial, economic and commodities markets, such as the price of natural gas or crude oil.
Prediction markets are also available to traders as young as 18 years of age. While some states allow 18-year-olds to place bets, most of the 39 states where sports betting is legal require bettors to be 21.
While FanDuel customers use their existing login information to access the prediction market platform, its wallet remains separate from the one used for FanDuel’s other products, including its online sports betting, racing, skill games and daily fantasy apps.
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