Daily fantasy sports sites saw reduced participation in their marquee NFL contests this weekend, suggesting the relentless march of negative publicity is beginning to take its toll.
According to UK-based analysts SuperLobby, entry fees for the NFL Week 5 guaranteed prize pools (GPP) on DraftKings came to $22.9m, down 12% from Week 4. FanDuel’s NFL GPP fees were down just over 3% to $19.9m.
The declines mark the first week-to-week decrease for both sites so far this NFL season. Total NFL GPP entries across all DFS operators were 7.3m, down over 6% from Week 4.
DraftKings’ total number of paid GPP entries fell 9% to 3.76m while FanDuel suffered a 3% dip to 3.27m. DraftKings’ $7m Millionaire Maker tournament suffered a 10% drop in entries to 353k while FanDuel’s NFL Sunday Million was basically flat at 229k.