This story is sponsored by BetfredTote owner Betfred has signed a deal with Irish-based provider ToteFootball to offer fantasy football pool betting.
The service to be soft launched at Totepool.com over the coming months will allow fantasy football managers around the planet to select teams and stake them for a weekend of fixtures. With real-life players scoring performance-based points, the top 10% of fantasy teams will share the prize pool.
Business development director for ToteFootball Keith McDonnell said the deal with “the longest established and most credible pools betting operator in the world” would help to deliver the liquidity required to transform a popular game into an attractive betting proposition.
Head of Totepool.com Eddie Bennett said the deal reflected their commitment to building a range of pool products beyond the Tote’s staple of horse racing into other sports. Bennett added: “[W]e recognise that our B2B network could deliver some headline grabbing payouts for fantasy football fans.
ToteFootball is not the first to develop a pools-based fantasy football product aimed at tapping into the 500,000 + fantasy leaguers in the UK who are also active sports punters.
The London Metro newspaper’s fantasy football supplier FSB Tech launched back in 2008 but switched to a fixed-odds model by August 2009 to overcome potential liquidity problems, albeit without the benefit of a deal with the Tote. FSB later began targeting media organisations after it found it hard to gain visibility and traction for its fixed odds-based products on sites such as Gala Coral, Skybet and 188Bet.
There are understood to be more than 1.5 million people in the UK who play fantasy for real money but are not active bettors. UK sportsbooks understandably see this demographic of mainly affluent males aged 18-49 as a potentially valuable untapped market.
The English Premier League’s official fantasy game claims to have more than 2.5 million players.
Article written by Stephen Carter
