ATLANTIC CITY, NJ (AP) – In the category ‘gamblers will bet on absolutely anything’, here’s a new one: a major sports book is taking bets on air-drunk racing.
DraftKings said Friday it is taking the bets for this weekend’s drone racing league championship, in which pilots fly airplanes in races.
Matches on the league’s drone racing are legal in Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Tennessee, and West Virginia, with regulatory approvals pending in additional states.
“The air is now the limit for DRL fans to get skin in the game, and we are delighted to partner with DraftKings to turn our high-speed racing competition into the ultimate sport to bet on,” said Dr. . “The opportunity for us to increase our involvement through all forms of gambling and gambling will only increase as mobile betting in the country becomes more accepted.”
The sports book and the league are hosting a “pre-flight show” on Twitter on Friday night for the live event, in which expert sports bookmakers and top-drone pilots will teach fans to take part.
Championship events begin Saturday.
Jacobson said his races this year are all virtual, and it takes place in a simulation that incorporates real drone physics. But also offers live drone racing in venues that include Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida; Alexandra Palace in London, and an automobile museum in Munich.
DraftKings says there is a market for this. It offered free-to-play games on drone racing last year to spark interest in the activity, and the response was 30% higher than usual for a new sport introduced to the betting platform. There have been over 150,000 entries for these free contests so far.
As is the case with major sports, including soccer, baseball and basketball, gamblers can make bets before the races as well as during the betting.
According to DraftKings, consumer research has shown that fans of drone racing will place three times as much bet as fans of major sports leagues, and that they are more than 90% more interested in sports betting than the average sports fan.
The drone league is a private company in New York that was founded in 2015. It has held events in six countries.
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Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC.