Sports betting and igaming provider FansUnite Entertainment has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the businesses and brands of American Affiliate, a business established by industry entrepreneur Chris Grove.
FansUnite will pay $58.2m to acquire the business, which it said would help strengthen its position in the US online betting market and serve as the cornerstone of a wider US affiliate strategy.
American Affiliate is a collection of assets focused on generating new depositing customers for legal sportsbooks, online casinos, online poker site, and adjacent products in the US.
To date, American Affiliate has generated more than 150,000 new depositing customers for major US brands such as DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM PointsBet, Underdog Fantasy and WynnBet.
American Affiliate counts Betting Hero, Props.com, BetPrep and Wagers.com among its network of affiliate brands.
FansUnite chief executive Scott Burton said the acquisition of American Affiliate represents the most significant milestone for FansUnite to date.
“This transformative transaction will provide us further access to the lucrative US regulated sports betting and online gambling market while generating accretive, high-margin revenue, expanding our leadership team, and accelerating the growth of our company’s footprint in the global gambling market,” Burton said.
He explained that it made “clear strategic sense” to enter the affiliate market to establish links with some of the betting sector’s largest brands as the US expands.
“We will now own and operate an unparalleled customer acquisition portfolio, allowing us to leverage our technology, brands, and talent to immediately capture share in the US sports betting and online gambling market,” he added.
American Affiliate chief executive Chris Grove said sportsbooks were spending billions to acquire and retain customers, and his business’ teams and technology could facilitate that while “producing some of the highest margins in the US online betting ecosystem”.
“But that success is only a starting point, we anticipate unprecedented near-term growth as legal online betting continues to expand into new states and new products,” Grove continued. “Joining with FansUnite was key to our strategy of aggressively scaling our business to meet that opportunity head-on.”