Fanatics Points To Impact Of ‘Fair Play’ Policy In Customer Acquisition

Though it didn’t enter the sports betting market until 2023, Fanatics Sportsbook has continued its efforts to carve a niche in the heavily competitive field. One new feature, Fair Play, debuted before the most recent football season, and the book says it has added to its growth.

According to data from Fanatics, its marketing campaigns to increase Fair Play awareness reached nearly 12 million prospective customers and was the reason for 7% of recent new users signing up at Fanatics.

The feature, now a house policy for player prop bets across all professional sports, will void wagers if a player gets injured early in the game and does not return. It means that bettors would not lose a prop bet due to, for example, the subject of the prop going down with a first-quarter injury and not returning for the rest of the competition.

Fair Play accounts for 7% of new user growth

Fair Play was one of several Fanatics Sportsbook upgrades announced last August before football season. Fanatics reported the following figures related to the rollout:

  • Over 11.9 million earned reach across all marketing channels
  • Over 1.5 million social impressions and 4.7K mentions

In addition to the Fair Play feature coming into play for the latest football and basketball seasons, Fanatics also announced the following upgrades:

  • A revamped FanCash rewards program, which users can redeem for apparel, bonus bets and more.
  • Improved live betting and streaming, including Lightning Bets.
  • An expanded list of parlay offerings.

How Fanatics Fair Play works

The ultimate goal behind Fair Play is to allow Fanatics bettors to avoid the unfortunate circumstance where they bet the over on a player prop and an early injury knocks the player out of the game with no chance to contest. 

In that case, Fair Play voids the bet and returns the bettor’s money rather than allowing the wager to run its course as a sure loss. Qualifying scenarios always go in the bettor’s favor, too, as betting the under in this scenario would still result in a win.

Fanatics states that Fair Play is a “discretionary house rule policy” that applies to props across all professional sports, including baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey and tennis. It will void bets if an injury occurs within an allotted time, such as the first quarter of a football game.

When an injury happens, a dedicated team at Fanatics will monitor the player’s status and communicate all updates within the Fanatics Sportsbook app. If the player was injured early enough in the game and is subsequently ruled out, Fanatics will void the wager within 30 minutes of the ruling.

Fair Play applies to single bets and individual legs of a parlay. If an injured player is the subject of one bet of a four-leg parlay, Fanatics will void that leg and render the wager a three-leg parlay.

Fanatics climbs the ranks among US sportsbooks

Fanatics was a late arrival to the US sports betting market, launching its first retail sportsbook in Maryland in January 2023 and its first online sportsbooks in Tennessee and Ohio four months later. In August 2023, Fanatics acquired PointsBet Sportsbook and gained market access to 22 states

Still, Fanatics came into a landscape dominated by FanDuel and DraftKings and had to compete for the rest with other established books like BetMGM and Caesars.

Additional competition has surfaced from bet365 in 11 markets and from ESPN Bet, which experienced a surge in popularity after rebranding from Barstool Sportsbook in October 2023. 

Through it all, Fanatics pulled ahead of every operator except for FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM, solidifying it as the No. 4 US sportsbook at the end of 2024. Additionally, Eric Ramsey, the data and policy analyst at LegalSportsReport.com, said that Fanatics might be “the most likely disruptor” among those battling for third place.

According to Ramsey, FanDuel and DraftKings each had a 34% of sports betting handle nationwide among states with shared reporting in 2024. Here were the next four sportsbooks by handle:

  • BetMGM: 9.6%
  • Fanatics: 6.1%
  • Caesars: 5.8%
  • ESPN Bet: 3.5%

All other sportsbooks accounted for the remaining 7% in 2024. 

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Hill Kerby has been involved in the gaming industry for more than 5 years. That started with one of his intense passions: poker (and online poker). However, since then, he has also developed a love for all verticals within online gaming, and he now writes about sports betting, icasinos, social casinos, horse betting, and ilottery in addition to his poker coverage. Hill has a background in psychology, which gives him an ability to offer rare insights and analysis in his writing. Hill is a proponent of safe, legal betting and is grateful to be able to contribute to growing the industry.

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