Fantasy Gambling

[bjorks]

CTG'ers

I'm in the final stages of a 3 year project/business plan and would like your input. I'll try to keep this is simple as possible to explain, but feel free to ask questions and give input. I'm hoping to get a lot of good ideas from all you here.

Premise
-Gambling and Fantasy sports genre

Concept
-Playing a pick'em type fantasy sports game centered initially around NFL and College football. For those in the CTG yahoo vs. the spread contest, essentially the same with a few tweaks.
-Capture <.25% market share of Fantasy sports industry and gambling (legal/illegal) market

General Target Market
1. Fantasy sports players (males age 18 - 52)
2. Free contest pick'em players
3. Hobby gamblers
4. Degenerate gamblers
5. Non gamblers (people who say "I've always wanted to try because I'm good at my office pool, but the wife would kill me if I lost $500 on Saturday")

Basic Rules
1. Free players will receive a fantasy bank roll and will be required to pick "X" amount of games each week against the spread and assign any dollar amount they chose.

2. There will be weekly, monthly, and a yearly prize for the person with the largest bank roll at the end of the year.

3. Each week players will receive a "free" $100 3-team parlay from the house to play.

4. Players will be able to pay a small fee for "Insiders" content (think $4.99/month) and be placed into to a same and separate contest for a prize, which doubles the free contest. The $4.99 is for content and not to play.

Part of this contest will be players can purchase unlimited amounts of $100 3-team parlays each week. Example...

1 3-teamer - $1.00
3 3-teamer's - $2.00
5 3-teamer's - $4.50
etc.

Prizes
Free Contest - $15,000
Pay Contest - $50,000
Other - TV's, trips to Vegas, smaller cash amounts, etc.

Revenue
Ad sponsorship by up and coming companies. Example...

Sure we'd like the Sony's of the world, but we want to focus on companies who are targeting our demographic AND are up and comers themselves. Instead of Sony, a company like LG.

A second source of revenue is from players who essentially "Pay to Play". The Insider's content at $5/month and also for those who will pay for extra weekly parlay's.

Expansion
1. A separate contest for March Madness and/or all the Bowl Games
2. Eventually a contest for NBA/NCAA, NHL, MLB, Soccer
3. Host site for fantasy sport leagues

Hurdles Remaining
I've got a lot of scenarios about some of these things, but want some new, fresh ideas.

1. In the free contest, someone's "roll" goes to zero. Is there a free reload where everyone gets reloaded? Have to remember from a legal standpoint, the contest has to be free and the odds to win have to be the same for everyone.

2. How to get OK from Attorney General.

3. Ad revenue

4. Generating startup money without losing controlling interest from my managing group.

5. Web development

Again, any questions or comments I'd love to hear it. Realistically I'm looking for potential investors too, but am more concerned about getting a new perspective on something I've worked on for the past 3 years. I feel the time is critical to get this rolling as the biggies like Yahoo and ESPN are moving towards pick'em type games against the spread.

Everyone I've talked to who gambles or plays fantasy sports loves the idea. Just need new eyes on the project.

Thanks in advance.
:cheers:

 

[bjorks]

I forgot to mention this...

1) Would you personally play something like this
2) Thoughts you can add

 

[hoopsstar22]

Seems a little like wagerline?

Looks like an interesting concept, but what are you looking at in terms of a startup cost, especially from the software development standpoint?

 

[bjorks]

Similar in a few ways to wagerline. We looked at their model closely, but feel we have quite a few differences. We want to promote it more as a fantasy sports site than gambling site.

The startup is costly. I've got the XML forms needed to keep lines updated, but the software to just have a functional, good looking site, with basics of what I need is around $35K. Overall I'm trying to raise about $100K to get moving with it. We're trading a lot of ownership stock out in exchange for free labor.

 

[Tide High]

maybe find a couple partners that are software engineers? trim down the 35k a ton.

 

[hoopsstar22]

What type of exit strategy are you looking at here?

Get in, get it started, get out, and the first $1mill to come along can have it?

Or are you looking long term?

 

[bjorks]

Lean towards long term. My 401K so to speak.

Actually if it expanded to where you could get market share and be profitable as a fantasy site and compete against Yahoo, or CBS, or ESPN, I'd love to sell it. If it's to that point it means web advertising is through the roof and you're looking at a multi million dollar ibusiness.

I'd like to be the first fantasy game with a $1,000,000 prize for first place. The belief is if the prize is valuable enough and you have other chances to win prizes, people will play and stay interested.

 

[Gorgolon Lives]

As a current business student studying entrepreneurship, I don't think it will work. If I want to gamble, I'll gamble (whether legally or illegally). And if I want to play Fantasy sports, I'm going to jump in a league with my friends. It's more fun that way. The only reason the fantasy FB leagues work through here is they are ultra-competitive. And we really only attract the same group of members for that.

 

[Gorgolon Lives]

Also, the industry is just very sketchy. It's not worth investing money in to considering the potential ramifications.

 

[bjorks]

As a current business student studying entrepreneurship, I don't think it will work. If I want to gamble, I'll gamble (whether legally or illegally). And if I want to play Fantasy sports, I'm going to jump in a league with my friends. It's more fun that way. The only reason the fantasy FB leagues work through here is they are ultra-competitive. And we really only attract the same group of members for that.

I don't disagree with that fact.

However, we're you're assuming we're targeting gamblers to play. We are, but our number one target market is those who do not A) have the extra income to gamble, B) do not want to take part in online or Vegas style gambling. Our market is more conservative. You're in (and I am too to a degree) a market that we're not really trying to target. More if we get some, we get some. This market is the young male, with fewer responsibilities. Think college kid, without kids, a entry level job, etc. versus family man, some extra income, 3 kids, mortgage, etc. That's who we want. That's the majority of the fantasy sports market right there.

As an example, the Minneapolis Startribune held a pick'em type contest back in the day, which exceeded 100,000 players over the entire NFL season. ESPN's and yahoo pick'em contests are over 1 million players combined. Out of those two contests alone, over 72% of the players do not or have not ever set foot in a casino or gambled with real money.

The theory has already been proven: if the prize is deemed valuable or worthwhile, people will participate. Marketing is the obvious X factor that ESPN and Yahoo would have over a startup, but you're only asking for a small % of those players.

Maybe it starts off smaller than what I've envisioned, but ultimately we want to create a fantasy sports site to go along with our contest. I was shocked to find out the fantasy sports industry right now is between $18 - $23 billion dollars. Legal and illegal gambling estimates are between $80 and $300 billion. I'm asking for less than a quarter percent of that.

 

[brewer]

I agree with Believe. I want to do fantasy sports ill open up my cellphone or send out some emails to friends, family and coworkers.

Too sketchy for me in the end to play with some random knuckleheads.

I entered the CTG league here because i thought i get more of challenge and felt i could still win in end. I also know most in my CTG league here to a degree and felt comfortable fronting the $50 to B.A.R. Again that was key.

Good luck with this either way. :shake:

 

[bjorks]

I think you're confusing something with in the framework of the site.

Let's say you want to play fantasy football or baseball. You will have your own complete private league just like you would on another site on this site. You will be playing against your buddies in a league, but also potentially playing against a larger field.

Also, as for the fantasy gambling part of it. Everyone won't be just thrown into a massive contest. You can have private and public leagues, but there will be an overall winner as well as custom league winners.

It'll never be you versus 10,000 randoms in a league. For the overall title and big prize money, it will be you versus the world, but you'll still have the option to play fantasy against your friends. Essentially you'll be playing against your friends in custom leagues, but overall you'll be playing against everyone. You'd receive stat information for your own private league AND the entire league.

Does that clear it up?