Online sports betting operator DraftKings is the latest authorized betting partner of the National Basketball Association.
On Monday, the NBA formally announced that it had signed a “multiyear” partnership with DraftKings that will allow the daily fantasy sports turned sports betting operator to use official league data for wagering purposes, as well as league trademarks across its US mobile betting platform.
The data will further boost DraftKings’ NBA in-play betting markets, which already account for 45% of the company’s NBA betting handle. Over 70% of DraftKings’ NBA bettors have reportedly placed a live wager.
DraftKings joins the NBA’s rapidly expanding list of authorized betting partners, which also includes William Hill, Flutter Entertainment’s FanDuel Group, The Stars Group, MGM Resorts, Spanish operator Codere, French betting operator Française des Jeux and Uruguay’s Supermatch betting monopoly.
Like all of the above, DraftKings has vowed to work with the NBA on “best-in-class practices to protect the integrity of NBA games,” although that doesn’t necessarily mean the league will start calling traveling more often.
We’ll just pretend that you’re all familiar with the by-rote mutual backscratching that accompanies these types of announcements, so suffice it to say that Scott Kaufman-Ross, the NBA’s senior VP of fantasy & gaming, said it looked like DraftKings had lost weight while DraftKings chief business officer Ezra Kucharz said the NBA had the biggest ball(s) of any sport.
DraftKings, which soft-launched its mobile betting app in Pennsylvania on Monday, has proven keen on making nice with the major North American sports leagues, recently becoming an authorized gaming operator of Major League Baseball and the first ‘official daily fantasy game’ of the PGA Tour.
In September, DraftKings inked the National Football League’s first DFS partnership. The NFL has yet to sign a full sports betting pact with a domestic operator, although it has shown less qualms about striking such deals with international betting operators.
