Nigel Eccles: Betting on Crypto with BetHog
Nigel Eccles has witnessed and contributed to some of the gaming industry’s most transformative phases. Renowned for co-founding FanDuel, Nigel has embarked on a new venture in the crypto gaming industry with crypto outfit BetHog. In a candid discussion, Nigel reflects on past ventures, legal battles, and the future of the market, offering insights into why some ideas have failed while others thrive.
Peer-to-Peer Betting
We begin our interview on the pitfalls of peer-to-peer betting. In the early 2000s, Nigel helped relaunch Flutter as a betting exchange – a concept that has never really worked since and one he recently described on X as a ‘recurring bad idea in the gambling space.’
“One product that is definitely a bad idea is facilitating person-to-person betting between friends. Why do you need it? If I want to have a bet with a friend, I just have a bet with the friend. If they don’t pay me, then they’re not really a friend!”
While betting with strangers may work better, Eccles expressed scepticism about its widespread utility:
“Most people who want to have a bet do so on a big market like who’s going to win this game… very few want to bet on something that’s not covered by the books. The person-to-person aspect, with the difficulties in getting the right bet size, simply doesn’t offer enough value.”
This distinction, Nigel surmises, underlines the industry’s shift toward more scalable, organised betting systems.
Daily Fantasy Sports
Reflecting on the trajectory of daily fantasy sports, Eccles believes there are comparisons with what DFS went through in its early stages and what sweepstakes is now. He noted that the early years of DFS, starting from 2009, were marked by rapid growth despite regulatory hurdles:
“If we look at DFS from when we launched in 2009 to 2016, this is a category that’s grown very quickly, it doesn’t really have any regulation, and you’ve got lots of established operators who are all saying this is illegal. That part of the story is the same. The question is where does it go here? Do they become more accepted?”
Eccles highlighted how successful lobbying efforts were pivotal in legitimising DFS – efforts that enabled laws to be passed in 22 states within three years, ultimately paving the way for nationwide legal sports betting. However, he questions whether the sweepstakes model could replicate that success:
“The real similarity between sweepstakes and DFS was that the law wasn’t totally clear as to what was permitted and what wasn’t. For DFS games of skill were permitted but games of chance were not. One key distinction however is when we were challenged by State Attorney General’s about the legality of DFS we were prepared to fight it in court. In fact, we took a case all the way to the New York court of appeals and won.
“Will they go down the same path as DFS? I don’t know. A lot will be down to the operators. We invested tens of millions of dollars to get this to happen and a lot of our time to pass it. Are sweepstakes going to do that? I’m not close enough to it to say.”
Discussing the pressures and uncertainties in the high-stakes world of getting DFS legalised across the US, Eccles offered a rare glimpse into the personal challenges faced by industry leaders:
“I don’t think anyone who builds a multi-billion-dollar company will tell you it was fun. There were good moments and, in its way, rewarding but fun would not be on my list. It’s hard. What if the California Attorney General comes out and says that this is illegal? You’re always living under like the fear of another hammer dropping.”
Eccles attributes much of his continued success to a hands-on, agile startup mentality. He contrasts his experiences at FanDuel with his current venture, BetHog, emphasising the advantages of working with a dedicated team and a flexible approach:
“At FanDuel it would often be the case where you’d be looking at a feature and asking: can we do this by next football season? Compare this to BetHog where we came up with an idea two weeks ago and launched it today.”
Nigel is no longer operating in the DFS market with BetHog but he still tracks the DFS market closely.
“DFS as FanDuel and DraftKings have imagined it seems to have somewhat stagnated. It’s certainly not had the massive growth that we had. Innovation has moved on to new operators like PrizePicks and Underdog. They’ve been very successful and they’re both good products largely through innovation.”
US Duopoly
Having played a significant role in paving the way for sports betting to be legalised nationally, G3 asks Nigel whether the FanDuel – DraftKings monopoly (53 per cent, 31 per cent) has taken the sheen off a vibrant market.
“I’m unsurprised. From very early on I said this is going to be a duopoly or at most three major winners… FanDuel and DraftKings just executed the best. I think it’s very good for them and very bad for anyone else in the market.”
Nigel warned emerging operators about the difficulties of competing in a market where scale, capital, and quality are crucial.
“You need massive scale to win in this market with a tier one product. A lot of operators came in and had the budget, but they didn’t have a tier one product. You needed a combination of strong band, a tier one product, deep, deep, pockets and a willingness to spend it. As early as 2020, any operator that asked me I told to just get out of sports betting or at the least dial it back. You’re not going to win in this market, focus on other markets.
“That’s what I did. When I left FanDuel, I didn’t think there was an opportunity to start up a new competitor, it was too late. I think there’s a tendency for a lot of people to only do something when it’s established that it’s going to be a big market. Why did ESPN wait until November 2023? It’s insane. I think a lot of it was just arrogance that we’re ESPN but that doesn’t carry the way you think it does.”
Prior to our interview, Flutter stated in an earnings release that the size of the US sports and online casino market will reach $63bn by 2030. Reflecting on the early estimates of the US sports betting market, Eccles remarked that the growth trajectory has largely aligned with his expectations. The industry, he noted, has evolved based on early estimates drawn from international markets, with the US market projected to expand dramatically over the coming years.
“We did an estimate very early on of at least $20bn. All we did was look at betting prevalence in other countries such as the UK and Australia and applied that to the US population. I also up weighted the US because it’s got a higher GDP per capita, it’s got a higher penetration of sports, and it’s got more sports. So, no, it doesn’t surprise me at all. We had very high estimates then and it’s just continued. The figures you’ve stated are in line with what I thought it would hit by 2030.”
BetHog & Crypto’s Emergence
Launched in November 2024 alongside co-founder Rob Jones, BetHog is a crypto-exclusive sportsbook and casino platform that seeks to revolutionise the iGaming experience by integrating cryptocurrency and innovative game formats. Under Eccles’s leadership, BetHog has secured $6m in funding, led by Web3 venture capital firm 6th Man Ventures, with participation from industry figures like Chris Grove of Eilers & Krejcik and Josh Hannah, founder of the Flutter.com betting exchange.
“With BetHog, we’re investing a lot in the product experience. We got good coverage for our launch, which surprised me because there’s 500 crypto casinos out there, why are we different? One of the things that we are doing to differentiate is really investing in that product experience. We want to have unique titles that you can’t play anywhere else and that’s rare because most crypto casinos have the same titles as everyone else.”
This is exemplified by two recent releases, Jump! And Hogger. Jump! is a squirrel themed stepping stone game where up to 30 players scramble up a tree riddled with hidden traps. Each round you pick seven jumps to try to make it to the top of the tree beating your rivals and potentially winning the jackpot. Hogger is a road crossing game where players try to help a hog navigate crossing a busy highway. The further you travel the higher the potential payout but one step too far and hog gets squashed.
Unusually both games allow for synchronous play so streamers can play along with their fans.
“We’re investing a lot in the product experience too. For instance, we recently launched a weekly lottery which means that every time you bet with us, you get an entry ticket into the weekly lottery. So, if I’m a player that loves Sugar Rush, why would I play Sugar Rush with BetHog? Because there’s all these other things – multiplayer experiences, engage in games alongside friends, challenge each other, share in the excitement of wins and losses – that you’re going to get if you play with us.”
On crypto’s disruptive role in the gambling industry, Eccles paints a picture of a rapidly evolving landscape. With crypto’s vast liquidity and young, risk-seeking user base, he sees it as a natural fit for iGaming:
“Crypto is a three and a half trillion-dollar asset and is causing massive pain problems for operators. DraftKings spent about $500m on payments last year and FanDuel reported 12.5 per cent of Q1 revenues went on payments. BetHog takes crypto and it’s almost instant, almost zero cost, and no fraud.
However, he notes a clear divide between offshore and onshore markets, driven largely by regulatory stances:
“We’re already seeing the crypto casino industry growing very rapidly but we’re not seeing any onshore like in the US or the UK because the regulators don’t allow operators to take it. I think offshore we’re going to continue to see very fast growth. Onshore, it’s really going be done to the regulators and the operators lobbying them to say it’s crazy that we can’t take this. Personally, I think it is crazy that they can’t take crypto. You can still do exactly the same KYC, AML, etc. that you can do with a debit card.”
