Co-founder and CEO of @playsentient. Co-founder of @betdexlabs and @fanduel.
New York, NY
Joined October 2007
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I've got a lot of new followers over the last few weeks so I thought I'd introduce myself.
I've been building consumer web/mobile products for around 24 years. I joined a startup in London in 2000 called Flutter.com. The idea was to build the eBay of sports betting were users could trade individual bets with each other. Well, that idea didn't work but at the same time a competitor launched called Betfair which was a betting exchange. I helped relaunch Flutter as a betting exchange and 12 months later the two companies merged to become what is known as Flutter Entertainment (a $35B company listed on the NYSE).
(As an aside over the years I've seen dozens of entrepreneurs try to make the original P2P Flutter concept work without success. It is kind of a recurring bad idea in the gambling space)
In 2009 I co-founded @fanduel. When we started, FanDuel was a fantasy game where you built a roster of players went head to head with another player (thus the name Fan-Duel). We soon added tables and tournaments. The company grew about 3-5x every year from 2009 to 2015 when the entire industry when into a legal and regulatory buzzsaw. We got sued in 11 states and had investigations from the DOJ, FBI, state AGs etc.
Over the next 2 years we lobbied across the country and passed laws in 22 states. Lawmakers understood that fantasy was popular and we worked with them to protect it. In New York alone thousands of our users contacted their representatives which pushed our bill over the line. (Lesson for the crypto industry here).
In 2018 PASPA was repealed and FanDuel merged with Flutter's US arm. Today FanDuel is the leader in the US online betting market and did ~$5B in revenue last year.
I left FanDuel to go back to early stage startups and in 2019 I started a sports card trading marketplace called StarStock. We rode the boom of 2020 and then the bust of 2021/22 and sold it late last year.
Sports trading cards got me into NFTs in 2020 initially on NBA Topshot and Nifty Gateway (still holding a lot of those early grails!) In early 2021 I went all in on crypto. To me crypto combines a culture that I love (risk taking, pro-tech, small government, libertarian and doesn't take itself too seriously). That year I co-founded @vaultmusichq, a new digital music format, and @BetDEXLabs, a decentralized betting exchange, both built on Solana.
Right now I'm working on a couple of new things. One is a new crypto casino and sportsbook called @Bet_Hog (you will here a lot more about that soon!) and another top secret project which involves designing the perfect meme coin (we are close on that one, very close).
Great to see prediction markets keeping their 100% accuracy track record when the favorite wins
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Big tip for first time founders: Never leave filling in compliance forms to 3pm on a Friday afternoon.
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About once a year I listen to a podcast and I just have to go back and listen again. This year it is @jgreze with @TownAI podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… (note, I have just downloaded it so no idea how good it is but I love his thinking)
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Had the guilty pleasure of visiting Deutsche Eck and Kyffhäuser in Germany. Both are spectacular and photos don’t do them justice.
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Funnily enough they did the same to @fanduel in 2016
JPMorgan Chase ended its banking relationship with Polymarket as questions about prediction markets and debanking swirl. on.wsj.com/4zynZLQ
This will be a fun one!
Bankroll Launchpad is live!
A $15,000, winner-take-all hackathon, judged by industry leaders:
@nigeleccles: CEO, Sentient Studios and co-founder, FanDuel
Jakob Longer: Partner, @Griffin_GP
@gsdean: CEO, Bankroll
Come build a real-money app on Bankroll. We handle age verification, geo and payments. You build the fun part.
Submit by Sep 4. Winners announced Sep 9 (before NFL kickoff
joinbankroll.com/launchpad
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New Yorkers beating the rest of the country so badly that the government is stepping in
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour: "Well you're going to have a lot of pissed off New Yorkers if we got shut down in New York."
New Yorkers have made $200 million trading on Kalshi. That's impossible on a sportsbook, where the house always wins, and they ban the winners.
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Question for prediction market bulls: So sports contracts are headed to the supreme court who will rule whether or not the CFTC has a magic wand to decide what is or isn't a swap. If they rule that CFTC does have that magic wand, then when a Democrat gets into the White House, then they get to un-wave it, right?
For 8 years now, I’ve been fighting on behalf of the founders and 100+ former @fanduel who were unfairly deprived of their ownership in the company they built.
Quick recap: In 2018, FanDuel merged with Flutter’s US business. FanDuel shareholders received 40% of the newly merged business, FanDuel Group Inc.
The FanDuel board then fraudulently used an artificially low valuation of just $559M (the exact number of the preference stack) to wipe out the common shareholders, so that they alone got all of the upside.
Then two years later, the same investors sold that 40% stake for $4.2B, pocketing it all for themselves.
Since before the merger closed in 2018 we have been in litigation with the company and its former board, including KKR and Shamrock, over their breach of fiduciary duty.
In 2024, we filed an expanded complaint which included details of defendants’ various breaches including fraud, conspiracy and bribery.
The defendants tried to have the case dismissed. However last week the New York Supreme court largely denied their motion. All claims relating to breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, conspiracy and bribery remain.
This is an interim but important step as we move towards being able to present all of the evidence in court.
Link to the court’s ruling below.
Massive honor to accept this award. I first attended the FSTA in 2010 and made lifelong friends there.
Congratulations to @nigeleccles, co-founder and CEO of @PlaySentient – and co-founder and former CEO of @FanDuel – on being named the 27th inductee into the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame!
A pioneer of Daily Fantasy Sports, Nigel helped redefine the way fans engage with sports, transforming the industry and creating a lasting legacy of innovation.
The induction ceremony will take place July 9 at the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association's Summer Conference in Philadelphia.
Read the full announcement: members.thefsga.org/news/Det…
#FantasySports #SportsGaming #FSGA #FantasySportsHallOfFame
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