Online gambling is now fully baked into the American economy, from sports betting to prediction markets to, arguably, zero-dollar trades on brokerage platforms. But it wasn’t too long ago that you would have to travel to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to lose money on questionable wagers. So what changed?
A good argument could be made that daily fantasy sports paved the way for online gambling to go mainstream (and legal), with the twin rise of FanDuel and DraftKings in the early 2010s creating the explosive market. But while today their success may seem predestined, FanDuel cofounder Nigel Eccles told me that it was a battle to get a foothold—and to convince the often skittish venture capital sector to get on board.
