Phil Ivey is, arguably, the best poker player in the world and now he’s getting ready to take on a new challenge, daily fantasy sports. The master card player is all set to launch his own daily fantasy sports site on the iTeam Network sometime next month.
Details about Ivey’s new venture are still pretty vague, but given its presence on iTeam, a few conclusions can be drawn.
For starters, iTeam is a Las Vegas-based daily fantasy sports platform that allows clients to create their own branded, DFS sites. (Think of it as the DFS equivalent of poker skins.)
Ivey’s new project is a pretty clear example of the growing overlap between poker and daily fantasy sports. Poker players of all stripes have found that the same analytical skills they use in the poker room are very useful in DFS.
That connection wasn’t lost on iTeam Network CEO Gabe Henderson who said in a press release:
There is a large crossover between poker players and DFS players. Adding the Phil Ivey brand will substantially increase network-wide player liquidity and prize pools. We have already started an aggressive marketing and execution plan in which PhilIveyDFS users will be able to compete immediately for more than $20,000 in weekly pro basketball contests and interact directly with Phil.
Ivey’s entry into the DFS world comes at a time when the US-facing industry is under siege from a blizzard of legal challenges and its market is shrinking on a daily basis. As of this writing, nearly one in four Americans live in a jurisdiction that’s banned daily fantasy sports.