Albert Chen on “Billion Dollar Fantasy”

October 1, 2019
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Today, I’m talking with Albert Chen, a staff writer at Sports Illustrated and the author of Billion Dollar Fantasy: The high-stakes game between FanDuel and DraftKings that upended sports in America.

Albert isn’t a founder and frankly, the story of two companies that raised a combined $1.1 billion dollars probably isn’t that applicable to your business, at least not directly.

That being said, it’s an incredible story and as a former professional poker player who now operates a SaaS company in the daily fantasy sports space, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share a bit more of that world with you. 

In our chat, we walk through the major events leading up to an advertising war where both companies spent a combined $750 million dollars in a single year, dig into the cautionary tale of FanDuel’s acquisition where the founders got nothing, and talk about what’s to come as the US opens the way for legal sports betting.

Whether you have an ounce of interest in sports or not, you’re going to enjoy this conversation.

So without further adieu, here’s Albert Chen, the author of Billion Dollar Fantasy!

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Topics covered:

  1. Billion Dollar Fantasy
    1. How did this book come about?
    2. Walk us through a timeline of the major events in the story
  2. The Prisoner’s Dilemma
    1. What started the advertising war?
    2. How did they manage to keep it going?
    3. What is the Prisoner’s Dilemma?
    4. Did FanDuel have any other options?
  3. The FanDuel Acquisition
    1. How did the founders get such a bad deal?
    2. What could they have done differently?
    3. What is the basis for their lawsuit?
  4. The Sports Betting War
    1. How do you see this war playing out over sports betting?
  5. “Rapid Fire” questions
  6. Where can listeners go to learn more?

Resources mentioned:

Where to learn more:

To hear more from Albert, you can follow him on Twitter or check out his personal website, AlbertChenWrites.com. To read the full story, pickup a copy of Billion Dollar Fantasy.