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The popularity of fantasy sports, specifically daily fantasy sports (DFS) games, has dramatically increased as sports betting has been legalized in more states. While DFS is not subject to the same regulations as sports betting and does not have the same gameplay, it provides users with an alternative option that often times requires no financial stake.
DraftKings offers users free-to-play pools in which they can compete against other players on the platform and, potentially, win prizes.
Beyond just that, DFS has changed the way fantasy is played in the United States. Originally, fantasy sports was a season-long commitment that required consistent attention to detail but now users can tinker with their lineups for a day, a week or even a month and then forget about it and come back to the platform when they want, with not financial loss.
We’ll outline how DraftKings got started, its success in Illinois and the best promotions for new and existing users in the paragraphs below.
DraftKings is not a traditional sportsbook, because it is not a sportsbook at all. Technically the daily fantasy sports contest and sports betting company, which was founded in 2012 by three former Vistaprint employees, is regulated by different rules than sportsbooks.
Under U.S. regulations, DraftKings is considered a game of skill rather than a gambling platform, and is regulated by state-based lottery laws rather than traditional gambling rules.
The structure of DraftKings will likely be familiar to readers, but for those that don’t know. A daily fantasy sports contest, like DraftKings, gives users daily and weekly fantasy sports contests in which they can win money.
After its founding in 2012 by Jason Robins, Matthew Kalish, and Paul Liberman, DraftKings drew initial attention from some of the biggest professional sports leagues, including the MLB. Major League Baseball reportedly purchased a financial stake in the DFS company.
That same Washington Post article reported that DraftKings itself had raised nearly $75 million in venture capital funds throughout its history at that point. The article was published in 2015 which would have been four years of existence for DraftKings.
Within two years, DraftKings was making huge waves in the DFS space, with massive acquisitions and investments during 2014.
By early 2014, DFS was a huge hit with DraftKings and FanDuel leading the way. The former reported roughly 50,000 daily active users and nearly a million registered players, though neither figure was independently verified.
In the summer of 2014, DraftKings acquired rival DraftStreet and allegedly increased its user base by 50 percent. Just a month or so after that acquisition, DraftKings made $41 million in funding from a variety of different venture capital firms public. One such firm was The Raine Group which focuses on IPO structures, intellectual property protections and mergers.
By November, 2014, DraftKings penned a deal to become the official daily fantasy sports service of the NHL. That served as a groundbreaking moment for DFS and sports betting as a whole. This was one of the first public partnerships between a major professional sports league and a DFS company or sports betting company.
The following year saw another wave of deals with the biggest sports leagues and media companies. DraftKings signed a deal with the MLB in April, 2015. Then, in July 2015, came a three year advertising deal with ESPN worth worth $250 million.
That was another breakthrough moment for DFS. Prior to that moment the financial rewards from fantasy or even gambling were not as openly embraced by sports media platforms.
From there, investment ballooned with a $300 million funding round also in July 2015 that included The Kraft Group and Fox Sports. Notably, because of the acquisition of Fox by Disney, the Walt Disney Group now controls Fox Sports’ stake.
In late 2015, the New York Times reported that a DraftKings employee appeared to use privileged information to win roughly $350,000 on rival site FanDuel, though an internal review reported that the information was not consequential to said employee’s winnings.
Despite this, ESPN subsequently backed out of the advertising deal which precipitated a wave of less friendly regulatory stances and public comments. In May, 2016 both DraftKings and FanDuel were banned in Idaho as the attorney general there classified them as illegal gambling.
Then came the potential merger. DraftKings and FanDuel were slated to merge in late 2016. However, the FTC formerly barred such a merger the following summer, noting that such a deal would give the company a monopoly on the DFS market.
In September of 2017, FanDuel and DraftKings were each ordered to pay roughly $1.3 million for unfair and deceptive practices in Massachusetts prior to 2016.
The foray into sports betting came a bit later, with a reverse merger in 2020 that made DraftKings a publicly traded company. That year, NBA legend Michael Jordan became a board investor and investor in DraftKings.
As is the case with most sports betting companies operating in Illinois, DraftKings partnered with a retail location for entry into the market. In this instance, DraftKings partnered with the Casino Queen, a riverboat casino in East St. Louis, Illinois.
The two companies reached a deal in 2020 to rebrand the property as DraftKings at Casino Queen. A portion of the deal included a $10 million renovation to include a sportsbook, updated restaurant and food court.
Sports betting in Illinois can largely be broken down into two distinct timelines. Prior to the in-person registration law and after the in-person registration law. For those that do not know, when Illinois initially approved sports betting, state officials required new users to go to a retail location to register their account, regardless of how they intended to bet. While this regulation was put on hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, it did not officially expire until March 2022.
As such, there was a dramatic increase in both the bets and the handle for online wagers after that registration law expired.
From January 2022, to March 2022, the Casino Queen saw just under 18 million online wagers on professional sports, to coincide with more than $550 million in total handle for online professional sports wagers, according to reports from the Illinois Gaming Board.
Those figures dramatically increased in the three months following the expiration of the in-person registration law. From March 2022 to June 2022, the Casino Queen took in 22.5 million professional sports bets online with a total handle of roughly $760 million, which is 28 percent of the total professional sports online wager handle.
DraftKings Illinois offers new users in the Land Lincoln generous promotions for wagering on all kinds of sports on their platform. Currently, new users can get either $200 instantly in bonus cash when they place a wager of just $5 or get a 20 percent deposit match, again with a qualifying wager of just $5.
Review the best promotions for new DraftKings’ users in the paragraphs below.
This offer, which is limited to new customers, instantly gives users bonus cash when they place a small qualifying wager. New users can get $200 instantly when they place at least $5 on any sportsbook market. So whether you prefer EuroLeague basketball or Spring Training baseball, DraftKings has you covered.
To claim this offer, new users need to place a wager of at least $5 on any sportsbook market and you will automatically get $200 in bonus cash.
In this instance, new users will get eight bonus bets equal to $25 a piece that are valid for seven days after distribution.
Notably, bonus bets cannot be cashed out or withdrawn for cash. This promotion excludes any odds boosts, profit boosts, voided bets, cashed out bets or other kind of credits.
Also, customers who have previously claimed pre-launch offers in either Ohio or Massachusetts are ineligible for this promotion.
For additional information about this offer, click here.
This promotion, that is exclusive to new customers, gives users a chance to increase their stakes with a deposit bonus up to $1,000.
Any new user who deposits at least $5 will qualify for up to $1,000 in bonus funds, with the bonus fund amount equal to 20 percent of the bettors’ stake. Thus, the new user must deposit a total of $5,000 to receive the maximum deposit bonus of $1,000.
New players will get $1 in bonus cash for every $25 wagered on DraftKings, whether it’s the sportsbook, the casino or DFS. Notably, this requirement must be met within 90 days of the first deposit to get the maximum bonus, and after that period the promotion will expire.
As noted above, this promotion is restricted to new customers only, so anyone who has ever made a deposit with DratKings is ineligible.
For additional information about this promotion, click here.
DraftKings Illinois has a variety of promotions for existing users as well as new users. DK Illinois gives existing users a chance to pad their bankroll with boosted odds, no worry Same Game Parlays and bonuses for referring friends.
Take a look at the best promotions for existing users in the paragraphs below.
With the NFL season dormant and the MLB just starting, basketball is in the thick of its lengthy season. As such, DraftKings has an excellent promotional opportunity for NBA bettors in the form of the No Sweat SGP.
They call it no sweat for a reason, because users can get their stake back if their first qualifying wager doesn’t hit.
Most bettors will be familiar with a Same Game Parlay (SGP) but for those who are not, an SGP is structured like a traditional parlay but instead of betting on multiple games or multiple events from different games, bettors are wagering on one game.
The No Sweat SGP requires users to opt-in and place any three plus leg parlay. If the first wager doesn’t win, users will get their stake back as a bonus bet of up to $10.
Notably, single bets, traditional parlays, SGPx, live bets, cash out bets voided bets, early wins, profit boosts and odds boosts are all excluded from this promotion.
The bonus bet will be issued after the qualifying wager is settled.
Since DraftKings is a DFS operator rather than a sportsbook, the promotions they offer are a bit different. Rather than promotions that stretch the length of a season, they’ll include promotions that change a bit everyday.
Additionally, as a DFS operator, they have free to play games that gives users a chance to compete against sports fans and work their way up the leaderboards, with the potential of winning cash or prizes, and sometimes both.
The Daily Pools are just that, a chance for users to compete against each other and win potential prizes.
Users can request and message one another as they would on any social media site but can also see each other’s progress and the type of bets they’re placing.
DraftKings will offer a variety of different contests for users to choose from with everything from professional football to DII basketball and everything in between. After a user chooses their contest, they’ll make their picks.
From there, they can watch the progress live on the DraftKings app.
For additional information about the Free to Play Daily Pools, click here.
Because DraftKings is a daily fantasy app rather than a sportsbook, the promotions they offer will often be on a daily timeframe. One such promotion that offers users a chance to win a little extra each day is the live boost that they offer.
These profit boosts function similarly to any profit boosts on a sportsbook platform. Users will get increased odds on a variety of wagers, denoted by an icon or a symbol on the bet itself.
This promotion does require users to opt-in each day, so if they choose a live boost game two days in a row, they’ll need to opt-in both times.
Additionally, any parlays, same game parlays, cashed out bets, voided bets or other profit boosts will not qualify for this promotion. As such, to wager on this promotion customers must use either their cash balance or DK Dollars.
These daily boosts are limited to selected matchups each day and do not extend to all games in a certain league or sport.
For more information about the live boosts, click here.
The Refer a Friend promotion gives existing DraftKings user a chance to bolster their earnings by referring up to five friends per referral period with the original friend getting up to $100 in bonus bets and both friends getting a variety of different prizes and bonuses.
Claiming this promotion is as simple as sending your friend an exclusive referral link.
Your friend will need to sign up for a DraftKings account using that exclusive link and make a deposit of at least $25 on DraftKings Sportsbook. The friend referring friend will get up to $100 in bonus bets. Said bonus bets will valid for seven days after distribution.
Notably, this offer is only valid for referred friends who do not have an existing DraftKings account.
In short, yes, users can win real money on DraftKings through a variety of different sports wagering or fantasy sports contests. DraftKings operates differently from other sportsbooks in that it isn’t technically a sportsbook but rather a Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) app.
That means the primary product they offer is not odds on the NBA, NFL or any other sport but lineups as a way of competing against other players for the best fantasy team. Instead of drawing out the prizes across a whole season, DraftKings offer players rewards — and sometimes cash prizes — each day.
DraftKings combines the social component of fantasy sports with the traditional excitement of sports wagering to create an exciting new blend of both.
DFS and traditional gambling have some similarities, specifically when looking at player props. But, they should not be lumped together as they require different monetary inputs and are regulated under different state laws.
While each state controls and sets the terms of gambling operators within their borders, DraftKings is subject to lottery laws rather than gambling laws because it is technically classified as a game of skill rather than a game of luck.
DFS and traditional gambling are quite different in form, however, as players tinker and set their lineups to win prizes or cash each day or each week, while with traditional gambling, players will place their wager and eagerly await the result and then be done. DFS is more of an ongoing engagement, giving players a chance to win something every day or every week.
Depositing with DraftKings is somewhat complex as there are different deposit methods accepted for DFS and the sportsbooks or casino. We’ll start by breaking down what deposit methods are accepted for DFS.
Players can use PayPal, pre-purchased debit or credit cards, Venmo, wire transfers or a DraftKings gift card to deposit on the DFS marketplace.
Players can use online banking, VIP Preferred which can be linked to any other retail casinos and cash at the cage to deposit for the sportsbook or casino. These methods are in addition to the methods listed above that are acceptable deposit methods for the DFS marketplace.
