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“It was the craziest thing,” 24-year-old Brooklynite Mark Guindi tells the New York Post. “I wake up one day, put up a $25 entry fee, and I make 12,000 bucks.”
Guindi is describing the experience he has had on the daily fantasy sports site FanDuel.com. Unlike season long commitment sites, daily fantasy encompasses a simple one-day or one-week concept with immediate payouts. No more waiting an entire season for results.
He’ll soon be parting for Vegas where he will take on other fantasy enthusiasts at Fantasy Football Championship sponsored by the behemoth fantasy site. One hundred individuals will be competing for the top prize, a cool $2 million. And, unlike say a World Series of Poker tournament, Guindi doesn’t pay an entry fee to participate. Instead, FanDuel.com pays him, to the tune of $15000.
“$15,000 is nice,” says Guindi, the oldest of five boys from a Syrian Orthodox family. But “$2 million is nicer.”
So far he has banked $50,000 this year alone.
And FanDuel.com isn’t doing so bad itself.
That company, according to the Post, expects to pay out more than $500 million in prizes this year and more than $1 billion in 2015. Its active users have more than quadrupled from last year to 1 million by year’s end.
“Money drives daily fantasy play,” says Paul Charchian, president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. “People want to win money — but they can also play for fun.”
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
