Fantasy Sports
Web3 Fantasy Sports Platform Gambit’s Private Alpha Launch Sees 23,000 Registered Players in First Two Weeks Following US$1.5M Pre-Seed Funding Round
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Pioneering a more accessible fan-centric gaming environment for the web3 fantasy sports ecosystem
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NBA Finals excitement brings in players from across the world, with especially high engagement in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and India
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Powered by crypto venture studio SuperLayer, backed by innovators across web3, sports, and technology such as Joe Montana and Marc Andreessen
Gambit, a tokenized fantasy sports platform that allows players to build, trade, play, and earn through their favorite sports, has enjoyed a successful Private Alpha Launch throughout the NBA Playoffs and is capitalizing on the excitement of the NBA Finals this week as the Warriors and Celtics tie going into Game 3.
Gambit has seen significant and sustained user growth over the course of the NBA Playoffs with over 26,000 registered players invited to test the Alpha product from a waitlist of over 130,000. Engagement has been highest in Southeast Asia and India, accounting for over 60% of players.
Communities are at the cornerstone of web3 ecosystems and Gambit has already seen mass appeal on a global level, with players across Asia accounting for the majority of its current users. This is in line with the growing internationalization effort driven by the NBA, which has seen significant popularity in markets across Southeast Asia such as the Philippines and Indonesia. Compounded with strong adoption of play-and-earn and free-to-play (FTP) gaming across the region, Gambit has experienced impressive global engagement figures through the NBA Finals, with a more winnable and fan-friendly product.
Once the NBA season comes to a close in mid-June, Gambit will be gearing up for its next milestone — a public allowlist Beta launch — focusing on bringing a new sport and over 100,000 users onto its platform. Soccer will be making its debut on the platform this year, starting with the “Big Five” European leagues. While the Beta waitlist for the soccer season will begin with current players, new members will be given many opportunities to experience the Beta product for themselves. Gambit will also be working to release its platform to a wider audience during its full public launch later this year.
Commenting on the growth seen to date, Riaz Lalani, Founder of Gambit, said: “Today’s fantasy sports ecosystem has largely forgotten about the fans — games are more about crunching numbers than the fun and enjoyment that comes with being a sports fan. At Gambit, we want to put the power back in fans’ hands, enabling them to own the fantasy sports journey from start to finish. We’re taking the play-and-earn dynamic one step further, empowering our users to play-to-own. We’re excited to offer an ecosystem that every sports enthusiast deserves and has a collective stake in.”
Rather than simply address the shortcomings of existing fantasy platforms, Gambit is forging a new path by prioritizing accessibility, ownership, and fun over the transactional nature of traditional web2 fantasy sports. The community ethos of web3 ensures greater persistence and retention among users through the $GMBT token, which encourages alignment across customers, builders, and stakeholders. However, Gambit does tackle the critical pain point of equal odds and equal outcomes in today’s fantasy sports market. With existing platforms heavily skewed towards experts, Gambit ensures that casual fans have the opportunity to win alongside hardcore players, making the gameplay equally enjoyable and accessible for everyone involved.
To support Gambit in its next phase of growth as it transitions out of its Alpha Launch, the project has received US$1.5 million in pre-seed funding from SuperLayer, a venture studio born out of and made exclusively for web3. Incubated through SuperLayer, Gambit also benefits from unparalleled access to the resources and expertise of the $RLY Network, which supports multiple layer-one protocols including Ethereum and Solana, providing liquidity across tokens.
Mahesh Vellanki, Managing Partner of SuperLayer, said: “Over the past year, NFTs have radically transformed the world of sports — from the gamification of the digital sports collectible market to the rising popularity of NFTs across basketball to Formula 1, it’s clear that franchises, teams, leagues, and fans alike have all come to recognize the value that crypto brings. Gambit is taking this one step further by leveraging fungible athlete tokens in a way that provides a next-gen product experience for players, while simultaneously solving tangible problems faced by traditional fantasy sports operators. We’re thrilled to be supporting Gambit as they demonstrate the true utility that crypto can bring to traditional consumer applications.
Led by a team with a proven track record across the worlds of crypto and venture capital, projects within the SuperLayer ecosystem benefit from access to a best-in-class network of founders and a multi-disciplinary bench of successful backers. These include Andreessen Horowitz managing partner Marc Andreessen, Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu, former NFL quarterback Joe Montana, Japanese professional football player Keisuke Honda, early-stage blockchain investor Jehan Chu, and many more. SuperLayer is also a partner of the RLY network, an open, decentralized network, that supports an ecosystem of consumer crypto applications with the goal of bringing the next 100 million users into crypto.
FanDuel, North America’s premier online gaming company, is introducing FanDuel Picks, a new peer-to-peer fantasy sports product. FanDuel Picks offers fans a simplified way to engage with their favorite athletes and a chance to win up to 1000x their entry fee by building lineups and selecting whether the athletes will beat their projected stats during games. Customers new to FanDuel Picks who play $5 will get $60 in bonus funds.
With FanDuel Picks, customers can pick three to six players, select “more” or “less” on the players’ projected stat lines and set their contest entry amount. Customers earn points for every correct selection, and customers with the highest score win a share of the prize pool.
“Just in time for NFL season, we are excited to bring fans a social way to engage with the sports and athletes they love with the launch of FanDuel Picks. The ‘more’ or ‘less’ selection model offers a streamlined fantasy sports experience, and we look forward to offering our customers another way to interact with games this season,” said Rob Cullen, FanDuel Picks General Manager.
FanDuel Picks is now available in 17 states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.
Betsperts Media & Technology Group, a leading innovator in sports betting and fantasy sports content, announced the acquisition of Fantasy National Golf Club from SportsHub Games Network. This move significantly enhances Betsperts’ successful Betsperts Golf platform, solidifying its position as a premier destination for golf enthusiasts and bettors.
Fantasy National Golf Club has long been recognized as a cornerstone for golf analytics and data, providing tools and insights to a dedicated community of fantasy golf players and golf bettors. Integrating Fantasy Nationa’s robust data capabilities and loyal user base into Betsperts Golf will create an unparalleled resource for golf content, data, and strategic tools.
“This acquisition marks a pivotal moment for Betsperts Media & Technology Group and our commitment to delivering best-in-class golf content. Fantasy National Golf Club brings an incredible depth of data and a highly engaged community that perfectly complements our vision for our golf strategy. We are excited to integrate their powerful tools and welcome their users, creating an even more comprehensive and indispensable platform for golf fans,” said Reid Rooney, CEO of Betsperts Media & Technology Group.
Renowned media personality Pat Mayo (one of the co-founders of Fantasy National Golf Club) will be joining Betsperts Media & Technology Group. Mayo will play a crucial role in promoting the newly expanded product offering and contributing to the future development of Betsperts’ golf product strategy. His extensive knowledge and influential voice in the golf and fantasy sports communities will be instrumental in driving engagement and innovation.
“I’ve always been passionate about providing the best possible resources for golf fans, and joining Betsperts at this exciting time is a natural fit. The combination of Betsperts Golf and Fantasy National Golf Club creates a powerhouse of information and tools. I’m thrilled to help shape the future of this product and deliver even more value to the golf community,” said Pat Mayo.
The acquisition underscores Betsperts Media & Technology Group’s aggressive growth strategy across key sports verticals. This deal marks the 5th completed acquisition for Betsperts Group.
“We will continue to look to growth through an aggressive acquisition and roll up strategy,” Rooney said.
Users of both Betsperts Golf and Fantasy National Golf Club can look forward to enhanced features, deeper analytics, and an even more seamless experience.
Wire Industries Inc, an award-winning technology and media company that owns and operates the revolutionary sports betting marketplace WagerWire, announced the groundbreaking expansion of its FantasyWire subdivision.
FantasyWire recently garnered recognition by winning awards from the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association (FSGA) for “Best Product Experience” and “Best Innovation”. The award for Product Experience was attributed to the FantasyWire Pickem trading marketplace which launched in partnership with RealTime Fantasy Sports in 2024 and broke new ground as the first-ever secondary marketplace for users to buy and sell DFS (daily fantasy sports) Pickem entries. Their Best Innovation win acknowledged FantasyWire’s robust pricing engine which powers the dynamic marketplace by allowing players to evaluate a live suggested sales price and deal score on any lineup they wish to sell or buy.
The overwhelming success of the Pickem entries marketplace laid the foundation to expand the offering to an even wider fantasy sports audience. And now, this latest release introduces DFS Pools to the secondary marketplace for the first time ever, further solidifying WagerWire’s position as a leader in the daily fantasy and sports betting industries. The DFS Pool marketplace will operate similarly to the Pickem marketplace. After a player builds a lineup and joins a particular pool, they will be able to sell a portion, or the entirety of the entry within the marketplace directly embedded into the RealTime Sports platform.
“Our users fell in love with the Pickem marketplace and took to it right away. The results were astounding, so creating a new user experience to increase the action and engagement for our users was a no-brainer. There is no other fantasy platform on the planet that allows you to turn your unique entries, both Pickem and pool based, into an asset by leveraging the real time value of that entry. RealTime Sports has been leading the way in terms of fantasy sports innovation since 1995, and our ultra-successful partnership with WagerWire solidifies that we’re still the market leader in game-play, winnings, and innovation,” said Tim Jensen, COO of RT Sports.
The FantasyWire experience is powered by the same award-winning pricing engine from Pickem, but now enhanced to accommodate the complexities of a DFS Pool. The platform’s dynamic suggested pricing and deal scores empower users with unparalleled insights, ensuring players can maximize returns on their assets. The models are built on thousands of real-time simulations – which are constantly run both before the games and during the games as scores are changing – to calculate where entries will finish against their competitors within a specific pool. Based on these simulations, WagerWire’s data science team models the calculated probability, as well as a live and real-time dollar value for an entry, to help buyers and sellers’ price and set the market accordingly.
Wire Media serves as the growth engine behind FantasyWire’s expanding product suite by inverting the traditional media model. Instead of relying on paid ads or celebrity endorsements, Wire Media tells the story of the fantasy entries and the people playing them, elevating users into influencers to organically drive engagement.
The expansion of the partnership and product has begun to make noise in the fantasy sports and gaming industry. With the news of this latest launch in partnership with RealTime Sports as well as the two 2025 FSGA awards, the industry acknowledged Wire Industries even further by electing cofounder and CEO Zach Doctor to the FSGA Board of Directors.
“One of the main missions behind the creation and founding of WagerWire is to provide liquidity and value to every form of gaming asset, from betting tickets, to Pickems, to contests. And DFS pools were the next asset class to be utilized. Our industry recognition is proof that our products and offerings are truly cutting edge, reshaping the fantasy user experience and changing the expectations around the fantasy market forever,” said Zach Doctor, CEO of WagerWire.
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