Underdog Launches 'Pick'em Champions' in Florida

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Underdog has rekindled one of its daily fantasy products in Florida, officially launching Pick’em Champions in the Sunshine State.

The game, which is peer-to-peer instead of against the house, allows users to build squads of athletes and predict how they will perform against predetermined statistical benchmarks. Users will then have their teams entered into tournaments where there will be shared prizes for the victors.

Last autumn, Florida regulators sent cease and desist letters to Underdog, PrizePicks, and Betr, demanding that the companies stop offering single player fantasy contests in the state. They all complied, but Underdog continued offering their non-single player fantasy best ball contests in the state, which fell within the confines of the Florida Gaming Control Commission’s rules.

Now, Underdog is offering their Champions product, which also appears to fall under the umbrella of safety per the regulators.

“Florida’s gaming structure and compact are completely unique, though the state has made it clear peer-to-peer fantasy sports are permissible by expressly allowing FanDuel, DraftKings, Yahoo and others to offer their fantasy games,” read a statement from Underdog. “So in addition to our draft contests, we are now also offering our strictly peer-to-peer fantasy contest, Champions, to the millions of fans in the state. We’ve worked with Florida regulators and when they previously asked us to stop offering a product, we did, and we are now following the new blueprint state officials have established.”

The game is officially live in Florida.

Image Credit: Getty Images

About the Author

jedelstein
Jeff Edelstein (jedelstein)

Jeff is a veteran journalist, now working with SportsHandle.com, USBets.com, and RotoGrinders.com as a senior analyst. He’s also an avid sports bettor and DFS player, and cannot, for the life of him, get off the chalk. He can be reached at jedelstein@bettercollective.com.