FanDuel is offering thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin to users competing in its upcoming NFL fantasy sports playoffs, in what the company says will be the first fantasy football contest to award Bitcoin to winners and the first sports tech company to award cryptocurrency in a consumer promotion.
During Week 2 of the NFL Playoffs, FanDuel will host a free, single-entry contest called The Bitcoin Bowl Free Play that will offer one user the chance to win one Bitcoin. It will also offer a multi-entry $3 tournament called the Bitcoin Bowl Tournament with a tiered payout structure of two Bitcoins for first place, a half Bitcoin for second place and a quarter Bitcoin for third and fourth place.
“FanDuel has always sought to deliver the most unique and rewarding experiences or prizes to our users,” FanDuel CFO Andy Giancamilli said in a statement. “In awarding Bitcoin, we’re recognizing that most of our users are early adopters of technology and have a significant interest in cryptocurrency.”
New and current FanDuel users will need to enter and pick their lineup by the start of the first NFL playoff game on Jan. 6.
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Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was also recently a part of a new sponsorship deal with Denmark hockey club team Rungsted Seier Capital (DK). In that deal, Bitcoin Suisse, a Swiss cryptocurrency broker, overtook the Danish traditional bank Saxo Privatbank as the main sponsor of the hockey team and changed the name of the team’s home arena to Bitcoin Arena from Rungsted Arena.
Rungsted Seier star athlete Nikolaj Rosenthal, the son of one of the team’s owners, agreed to switch from the traditional salary payments in Danish Kroner to being paid exclusively in Bitcoin.