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Yahoo is acquiring peer-to-peer sports betting app Wagr as it looks to capitalize on its enormous base of fantasy sports users.
“We’ve always been trying to figure out our way into the gaming space, and it just seems like a total logical extension of what people are already doing with Yahoo Sports, to add peer-to-peer betting,” Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone told Front Office Sports.
The acquisition will allow Yahoo, the second-largest fantasy sports platform after ESPN, to integrate wagers between friends and acquaintances into its offerings. Yahoo already offers real-money daily fantasy games on its platform and offers traditional sports betting in partnership with MGM.
Yahoo Sports senior VP Jon Shaw sees two major frontiers in gaming: in-game wagering — namely microbetting — and “a more casual, social, community-oriented format” for more general sports audiences.
“There’s so much potential for fans who might be more intimidated by betting or maybe more comfortable playing against or with their friends,” Shaw said.
With two decades of experience in fantasy sports, Yahoo has a wealth of data on individual users’ fantasy sports interests and who they’re playing with online.
Wagr, which had been operating in Tennessee, shut down its app in the fourth quarter of last year. The startup drew investments from New England Patriots and Revolution owner the Kraft Group, Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils owner Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture firm Seven Seven Six.
Yahoo is acquiring 100% of Wagr.
