Nigel Eccles, the founder of FanDuel and the sports betting operator BetDEX has announced his new venture, the blockchain-based BetDEX sports betting exchange. This comes four years after he left FanDuel.
BetDEX, a cryptocurrency-based sports betting platform that claims to be the first sports betting exchange in the world, aims at marrying sports and cryptocurrency.
Its goal is to deliver a “global sports betting protocol” that allows users to place bets quickly and at minimal cost, with no counterparty risk.
Eccles stated: “Starting your own company allows you to choose who to spend the next five to ten years with.” Due to this, I am really happy today to announce that I will be founding BetDEX Labs Inc. with my two favorite former FanDuel co-workers, Varun Sudhakar, and Stuart Tonner.
We are also excited that Andy Murray, Pawel Wietek, Drew Alexander Baird Spencer, and Ewan Meldrum will be joining us. This is going to make for an incredible trip.
Matt King replaced Eccles as FanDuel’s CEO in 2017. After Paddy Power Betfair acquired the company in a deal which created Flutter, he took legal action.
Eccles stated that FanDuel’s $465m valuation (PS367m/EUR411m), in connection with the acquisition, did not include the impact legalized sports betting could have on the business. Flutter’s December 2020 acquisition of an additional 37.2% stake suggested that FanDuel had a value greater than $11 billion at the time.
