DraftKings eyes Germany launch following Malta licensure
Daily fantasy operator plans to use new Skill Games licence as springboard for further European expansion
DraftKings has revealed plans to launch its DFS product in Germany after gaining a Skill Games licence from the Malta Gaming Authority.
The firm is targeting a Q1 launch date, with the German product set to mimic the UK mode and share the same platform, format and liquidity pool as the US version.
Its Malta licence will also allow the operator to launch in other European markets in the coming months, in an effort to increase its “addressable audience by at least 100 million people”, DraftKings CIO Jeffrey Haas told Legal Sports Report.
Germany has a population of around 80 million.
“We are excited to embark on this important phase of our international expansion,” said DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, announcing the Malta licence this morning.
“We are pleased that Malta has recognised the need for special licensing of daily fantasy sports and other skill based games. The Malta Gaming Authority is an innovative organisation and it is clear that they have put a lot of thought and rigor into this process.”
The Malta Gaming Authority established the Skill Game licence in August last year as a way to regulate DFS operators without making them apply for a gambling licence, which would hurt their legal standing in the US.
DraftKings’ announcement comes nearly a year after it first launched outside the US, with Robins saying in December the UK experiment had encouraged further expansion.
Robins said at the time: “The UK [product] is already significantly ahead of where the US was in its first year. That’s in a country a fifth of the size of the US and that’s only gotten us even more bullish on expanding into the rest of the world.”
DraftKings is still awaiting approval from US competition authorities on its pending merger with FanDuel.