SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Manuel Concepción is the CEO at Bantasy, a DFS provider based in Miami, Florida. Bantasy caters to both Android and iOS users and is available on the Google App Store and the Apple Store.
We caught up with Manuel to talk all things DFS, the great skill vs luck debate and the current state of play in the USA.
SBC: Hi Manuel, can you tell us about the origins of Bantasy and its dual-currency feature?
Manuel: From a young age, I’d always been fascinated with fantasy sports and had spent many a late night playing with friends on Yahoo’s platform. When it came time to choose a career, there was no question that I’d become a software developer. For more than ten years now, my team and I have been operating Centroapuesta.com, a very popular sports betting information website for the Spanish and Latin American markets. It was a combination of these passions that motivated me to pursue a new business venture.
The core idea of Bantasy was to create a dynamic and exciting fantasy sports platform that also simulated the thrill of risk associated with gambling. In this way, players would experience all the same excitement of competition and betting with the exception of winning actual money, the odds of which are strongly out of their favor anyway. One could lose a game, but not the farm even if one bet and lost again and again. This is the essence and beauty of the dual-currency model.
SBC: You opted to avoid the real money games option. Was this due to the legal turmoil currently in the States and are there plans to move into this once the dust has settled and it’s more clear where you can and can’t operate legally?
Manuel: Most importantly, we wanted to create what we believed was a better, more comprehensive gaming experience. The issue of legality was secondary, but it did have its influence.
Indeed, we are planning to create a brand separate from Bantasy that will involve real money betting, but that is something we won’t pursue in earnest until the dust has settled.
SBC: How important is the vibrancy of the US market to the state of DFS internationally?
Manuel: Europe, most notably the UK, is no stranger to fantasy sports. Even though last year there were more than twice as many people playing fantasy sports in the US versus the UK alone, the US numbers represent multiple sports as opposed to purely football. Moreover, this doesn’t account for the difference in population numbers across all of Europe and the fact that there are inestimably more football fans in the world than for any other sport. Except for spearheading the concept and popularizing it, I believe the US market is irrelevant.
If European fans transition as readily to the DFS betting model as the US has, there is little in the way to curb its exponential growth.
SBC: Which sports dominate DFS in the states and how important are ‘the others’?
Manuel: Though football continues to attract more and more U.S. fans, it still hasn’t achieved the prominence that it has in the rest of the world. The most popular DFS is not surprisingly American football, and baseball is a close second.
Together, they account for 60% of the market, which suggests that “the others” are very important, too.
SBC: What’s your position on the game of skill vs game of chance debate?
Manuel: It’s a complex debate, but in my opinion, it has both components. Skill is accounted for by the players with more knowledge or at least a superior system of statistical analysis. This dramatically heightens the probability of winning and explains why very few people actually win public contests. However, probability is chance, and there’s also money at stake.
I’m not opposed to betting, but regulation is a necessary measure to educate and protect consumers. They have every right to know before entering a public contest that winning money at fantasy sports is statistically highly unlikely just as it is in a casino. Fortunately, Bantasy’s dual-currency model is free from legal scrutiny and financial risk.
The question of how DFS operators can work with bookmakers will be debated
at the upcoming Betting on Sports Conference (#BIGnBOS) at London’s Grange Tower Bridge on September 15th to 16th. Tickets are available now.
