TopBetta Signs Fantasy Betting Deal with Fairfax Media

Australian online race betting site, TopBetta, has signed an advertising agreement with Fairfax Media to promote its fantasy sports and racing tournaments. Under the agreement, Fairfax will promote TopBetta tournaments across their Australian Community Media Network of 140 website with its 3.4 million readers.

TopBetta aims to offer a unique option with weekly and daily fantasy sports, compared to the traditional season-long competitions such as the Herald Sun’s SuperCoach.

“There is no point in doing another SuperCoach,” stated Todd Buckingham, CEO of TopBetta. “This is a way of competing against that market. People haven’t got the time to do a competition for the whole season these days.”

The company plans to launch the Fairfax-TopBetta competition in March in time for the start of the NRL and AFL seasons. Fantasy players will be able to join real games and select an ultimate fantasy team in an attempt to collect a share of the $1 million prize pool available across selected tournaments.

The advertising deal is expected to boost its active users from 2,800 to 10,000. While readers of Fairfax’s rural and regional titles will be able to make use of some free fantasy dollars, TopBetta is expecting to attract users to sign up for $10 and the chance to win part of the $10,000 prize pool on each tournament.

TopBetta may be hoping that this deal will allow it to be as successful as fantasy sports betting has been in the US with companies like DraftKings and FanDuel.

Morgan Stanley has suggested there are as many as 46 million fantasy sports players across the US and that these players generated US$2.3 billion in annual turnover in 2015. In Australia, there are currently 1.4 million fantasy sports players, providing a significant potential for growth.