FanDuel co-founder’s decentralised betting exchange officially launches
BetDEX goes live in Ireland with promise of 3% fee and no limits following founding back in 2021
BetDEX, the decentralised betting exchange from FanDuel co-founder Nigel Eccles, has officially launched in Ireland after 12 months of beta testing.
Founded by Eccles and fellow FanDuel alumni Stuart Tonner and Varun Sudhakar, who serves as CEO, the brand has gone live after securing its Irish licence in July 2023.
The business secured $21m in a seed round led by crypto investment firm Paradigm in November 2021 while it was awarded an Isle of Man licence in November 2022.
Emerging out of beta, BetDEX claims to now be offering more than 20 times as many markets year over year, including football, tennis, American sports, MMA and esports.
The operator is also offering just a 3% fee on net winnings with the firm adding that customers will not face “discriminatory account restrictions for being a winning bettor”.
Players can use both cryptocurrencies and fiat payments, with all trades occurring on the blockchain.
Sudhakar said: “The core of the BetDEX team were early developers and employees at FanDuel, Betfair, BetDAQ and BoyleSports, motivated to democratise access to sports betting.
“While sports betting is a massive industry with over $2trn dollars traded every year, hidden fees and arbitrary limits on winners have created an extremely poor player experience.
“We founded BetDEX on the belief that players should not be penalised for their success, and we are proud to launch a sports betting exchange that is built for the bettor.”
In 2022, Sudhakar spoke to EGR as part of a deep dive into the most eye-catching industry startups at the time.
Elsewhere, Eccles received a legal boost in the US after the State of New York Court of Appeals ruled that a lawsuit over the sale of FanDuel should proceed under Scottish law, over a lack of earnings following Flutter’s acquisition of the brand.