


PointsBet has finally come to an agreement to sell its US betting business, the company announced on Tuesday.
After a lengthy negotiation, Fanatics won the sports betting bidding war for the company, valued at $225 million.
The sale comes after Fanatics initially reached an agreement with PointsBet at around $150 million on May 16, just to be outbid at the 11th hour by DraftKings a month later.
DraftKings had agreed to pay $195 million for the sportsbook on that date, but the actual cost is much higher when adding in the massive price of PointsBet’s four-year $250 million advertising deal with NBC.
The total cost of PointsBet will end up just $25 million south of The Post’s projected price point of $500 million expected for PointsBet in April, three weeks before Fanatics’ initial agreement.
The deal helps solidify Fanatics as a mainstay in the sports betting market, having gathered massive assets in the app’s user experience and user interface departments while acquiring expert traders to help manage its risk in the new market.
“Fanatics is probably breathing a small sigh of relief,” one industry executive with knowledge of the situation told The Post.
“While the company would have been fine without the acquisition, moving faster in the current environment is likely better, and the PointsBet deal allows Fanatics to move at maximum speed.”
The deal also gets Fanatics access to multiple keystone states for its app.
These would include New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Virginia and West Virginia.
The apparel-turned-sports-betting company is already licensed and in beta testing in Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio and Tennessee.
This sale comes four days after The Post exclusively reported that DraftKings and Fanatics secretly held merger talks worth upwards of $48 billion several years ago.
Billionaire business magnate and Fanatics founder Michael Rubin and DraftKings CEO Jason Robbins went from near teammates to enemies in a matter of a few years, with Rubin coming up victorious this time.