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Fanatics is about to get a lot louder.
CEO Michael Rubin told Bloomberg the company could spend as much as $1 billion on betting and gaming marketing in 2027. This year’s number is $350 million, and the 2027 plan starts at $800 million.
DraftKings and FanDuel are the targets. Rubin said Fanatics is a distant third behind both.
But they aren’t the only names on his list. Rubin brought up two prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket, when he talked about what 2027 will look like:
“The betting and gaming business will be more complicated in 2027 because you not only have the addition of Kalshi and Polymarket, but now you have the addition of Fanatics spending at the same level as FanDuel and DraftKings.”
Why prediction markets changed Fanatics’ math
Fanatics runs its own prediction market now. Fanatics Markets launched in December 2025.
It reaches states the company couldn’t touch before, including California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Fanatics can’t run a sportsbook in any of them.
That’s because sports event contracts fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not state gaming regulators. No state licenses them. No state taxes them.
Of those four states, Rubin said:
“So obviously, that’s a great opportunity for us.”
The competition sees the same opening. Kalshi, Polymarket and Novig all stepped up their own marketing ahead of the NFL season, according to Legal Sports Report.
So Fanatics isn’t buying ads into a quiet room. It’s buying them into the loudest stretch of the year.
What it means for online casinos
The regulated map is small, and it’s slow.
Fanatics Casino operates in four states. Only seven states have legal online casinos, with Maine waiting to become the eighth. Rubin said revenue “has hit a wall” in established regulated states such as New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
Prediction markets aren’t waiting on lawmakers. Online casinos still are.
That’s the shift worth watching. The growth Rubin is describing comes from a federally regulated product, not from new state launches.
Where the money comes from
Fanatics expects $2 billion in free cash flow this year and has about $1 billion in net cash and no debt, according to Bloomberg.
The top end of the 2027 ad budget would roughly match all of that net cash.
Fanatics can do that because it’s private. DraftKings and FanDuel parent, Flutter are public companies with shareholders watching every dollar. Fanatics can move money from its other businesses into betting and gaming without that pressure.
Or anybody to talk it out of it.
Rubin’s own word for 2027 was complicated. Complicated for everybody else, mostly. Here’s how he sized up those four states:
“If we had sat here a year ago and said what’s the chance of sports betting in California, Texas, Florida and Georgia, you’d say no chance.”
Source: As reported by Legal Sports Report.
