PrizePicks
PrizePicks is a Daily Fantasy application based in the United States where users can place bets on strictly player propositions. Similar to other sports betting applications, the company allows consumers to enter daily challenges and win money on individual players performances across the major sports such as the NFL (most popular sport on PrizePicks), MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA and other various sports.[1] Despite this similarity, PrizePicks exclusively focuses on the performance of individuals on professional sports teams rather than offering bets on the teams in general. This mobile application allows users to place player parlay bets from their phone rather than meeting with a broker. Different from other applications, PrizePicks allows users to be only 18 years old compared with the normal age of 21 to sports bet. Therefore, many wonder if this lower age requirement is morally right.
Contents
History
PrizePicks was founded in 2015 by now CEO, Adam Wexler. Wexler was a graduate from the University of Georgia after he received his BBA degree in real estate. He imagined that he would be a successful commercial real estate broker until he was inspired by Mark Zuckerberg after Facebooks' rise to fame. [2] The idea of PrizePicks was born out of Wexler's own interest in Fantasy Sports and how he wished there was a software that made sports bettors lives easier. Originally, Wexler created a fantasy sports application by the name of SidePrize in 2014 that had the functions of fantasy football with extra games and opportunities as the season of the National Football League (NFL) was ongoing where it was eventually honored by The Fantasy Sports Trade Association. Wexler's company quickly failed in 2016 when SidePrize was challenged in court for being an illegal form of gambling. [3] After a year, Wexler decided to give the industry another shot where he launched PrizePicks and the company has growth since.
Background of Sports Betting
Sports betting is a common way for sports fanatics to be even more involved in the game they love. Bettors can place bets on the sports they love at a sports book casino or even an online sports book. There are many different options when placing a bet on a sports book. The most common form of sports betting is when the user chooses to pick a 'money line' for a specific team [4] This is the most basic form of sports betting as it means that the consumer merely makes a decision on who will win a certain sports game. Another option of sports betting could be picking a spread of a sports game. An instance of this would be when a team is more favored to win against another team and are favored by 7 points. An option to bet this would be if a user believes the favored team would win by more or less points that the points that they were favored by. Another common way for customers to place bets on sports books is with parlays [5]. A parlay is a type of bet where the bettor bets on multiple leans all winning in their favor. An example of this would be if a bettor bet on the Los Angeles Dodgers, Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs all winning their game on certain day. If one or more of these teams lose their game, the bettor loses all of their money placed on that parlay. In regards to PrizePicks, parlays are the only betting option that a bettor can place bets on the only difference is that they are wagering their money on the player's performances rather than the teams in general.
How PrizePicks Works
Wagering Process Users are able to connect their bank to their own PrizePicks account where they can deposit or withdraw as little as ten dollars. PrizePicks allows you to place up to six player propositions per parlay for a chance to win up to thirty times the money you wager; the more players you include in your wager, the more money you can potentially win if managed to guess correctly. [6] Obviously, the odds of correctly predicting six player propositions is extremely low, however a user can chose as low as two player proposition with less return. If a user correctly predicts a parlay, PrizePicks will reward them based on the amount of players in the parlay they created. They will instantly put the money they earned from that parlay into their own personal PrizePicks account where the user can either continue making bets or withdraw their earnings.
Betting Options
In a typical sportsbook, a user can either bet on certain teams or players where if they were to make a parlay they would have to get every player or team in the parlay correct. An aspect that is different from other major sports betting websites is that PrizePicks offers an option for users to select whether they want to 'flex' their parlays meaning that they can still win money if they get one of the player props wrong. [7] In PrizePicks, you can only make parlays meaning that you can only bet on multiple player propositions being over or under the line given by PrizePicks.
Interface of Application
Creating an Account In order to operate PrizePicks, users are first prompted to make their own account using an email and password. Considering that PrizePicks deals with wiring money in and out of the application, there are a lot of aspects that the user has to be eligible for. To start, the user has to be from a state in the United States where PrizePicks is allowed in. These states include Arkansas, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming [8]. PrizePicks will first ask the user for their location in order to determine if they live in one of these eligible states and continue. Next PrizePicks will ask for some form of identification whether that be a drivers license or passport. If the user is within the 18 year old requirement to use the application, PrizePicks will have it verified which will authenticate the user's identity. If these requirements are not met, the user will be unable to create a PrizePicks account.
Board
The board section of the PrizePicks app gives the user the many options of who they can place bets on. This is where users can pick and choose what players in what sport they can bet over or under on. Categories of what the user can bet on are listed on the top of the board where they can scroll to see what is available from the National Basketball Association (NBA) to Mix Martial Arts (MMA) [9]. Within each sport available to bet on for PrizePicks, each sport has specific categories that a user can bet on. For example, if a user wanted to create a parlay with a NHL player they have the option to bet on if a certain player will have more or less shots on goal, more or less points in a game, more or less goalie saves or more or less hits in the game for that day. For more popular betting sports such as the four major sports in the United States which are the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, PrizePicks will often give the user the option to see how well the specific player chosen performed up to the last five games. Although completely random, this allows the user to see how well the player there were planning to bet on has done in their most recent matchups. These features all help build a users parlay.
My Entries
This section is responsible for displaying the current or past parlays a user has made on their PrizePicks account. If a user wanted to see how their current parlay they created was doing, all they would have to do would open the 'My Entries' section and scroll to their parlay. It is also possible for the user to see if their flex or power play made any money. After every player in the parlay has completed playing in the game bet on, the user will be able to see if their parlay hit or missed in the past entries tab. Another feature in this section is the all time winnings display as well as the the current credit with the user's PrizePicks account. This will let the user know the total amount of money gained or lost from his bets.
Promo Code
PrizePicks gives each of their users a specific code representing each unique account. Promotion codes can allows customers to try out the product at a reduced rate where there is little to no risk involved. This risk free bet allows users to get a feel for what PrizePicks offers as well as lets the user use the product relatively stress-free. Users can share the code from PrizePicks with others to get a $25 bonus if a user creates a new account and deposits money with that code. PrizePicks benefits from this promotion because of how they gain more users and eventually more revenue.
Request Withdraw
When a user wins money from the application, it is common for them to request a withdraw to take out of their PrizePicks account. To do this, there are certain aspects that allows the user to request a withdraw. First, the minimum withdrawal amount is $10 so that PrizePicks doesn't get bombarded with low withdraw requests each day [10]. Another requirement for a user to request a withdraw is that a user must play through their first deposit meaning that they have to wager their entire first deposit before they can withdraw from their account. After a valid request has gone through the application, the support team reviews the request within 72 hours and contacts the user if it went through. After the withdraw request as been selected and completed, the funds should be wired into the users online bank account within 48 hours of the time of completion.
Help Center
The help center has many responsibilities that help the user understand the many aspects of PrizePicks. First, it gives the user a quick guide of how to play. They do this by telling the user to choose 2 or more players from any sport, pick more or less on their projected stat and then choose a flex or power play. The scoring chart for each sport offered is also available within the help center. This includes the single stat line scoring details about their projections as well as certain rules within that certain sport to help the user understand what they are putting their money on. Within the help center, they include a disclosure about the addiction of sports betting as well as it includes gambling addiction hotlines for the users to call if they feel the need to [11]. Even though navigating to this part of the help center is not the easiest, PrizePicks makes sure to acknowledge how addicting their product can be. Here you can only find even more information about depositing and withdrawing with online banking and what they do and do not accept credit card wise. It also includes an assistance hotline where users can directly message a PrizePicks employee for any questions they may have and PrizePicks will reply normally under 15 minutes. To wrap up everything in each of the other aspects in the interface, the help center then restates most of the information at the bottom of the help center.
Ethical Concerns
Addiction Different from other sports betting applications, PrizePicks allows users to be only 18 years old compared to the normal sports betting age of 21. From this, some question whether the loophole for younger sports bettors is morally ethical. Some argue that the age limit for PrizePicks is fine as is while others believe that it creates an unhealthy early addiction for users. Across the United States, there was a total of $13 billion wagered on sports with legal operators in 2019 alone. [12] Even though most adults who bet on sports do so in a manner without repercussions, about 1% struggle with addiction with applications like PrizePicks. Furthermore, many of those struggling with this addiction rarely seek out for help. In fact, about 6% of college students in the United States have a serious sports betting problem that can eventually lead to psychological difficulties and unmanageable debt. [13] In regard to the lower age requirement for PrizePicks, some argue that young adults are not responsible enough to wager their own money in a responsible way.
Advertising PrizePicks is eligible for users above 18 years old living in 31 of the 50 states. Given this, the company has made sure to advertise their application so many potential users can see. They do this in many ways but a majority of their advertising comes from pop-up adds as well as commercial advertisements. [14] Most of the people PrizePicks seems to target are within 18 - 24 years of age since that is the age of a majority of their users. A recent commercial advertisement has been displayed on many sports broadcasting networks as well as it has been shown on Youtube. Many of their advertisements offer promo codes where if a user signs up for PrizePicks and enters the given promo code, they will receive what is called a 100% match deposit where the user will receive double the amount of money deposited in their new PrizePicks account. [15] This persuades any advertisement viewer to choose their application over others because of how they off the user double their money. Considering that these advertisements are displayed on networks and sites where many young adults browse, many question whether or not these advertisements have had negative impacts.
Normalization of Gambling Along with many other sports betting websites, PrizePicks has become a normality among many young adults. Through advertising and exposure, sports betting companies have gained revenue of about 4.33 billion dollars in 2021 alone. [16] From PrizePicks and sports betting in general, many people have made livings. These sports betting influencers commonly make social media content where they provide viewers their best bets. In fact, many sports betting communities have formed from the creation of PrizePicks. One example of this is with the BookItSports community where influences live stream on Twitch bets where they have leans on. [17] This community broadcasts their live sports betting advice on a service called Twitch where anyone over the age of 13 can watch. In the stream, content creators offer promotion codes for viewers to use for PrizePicks despite not knowing if their users are old enough to sports bet. This raises the question as to what regulations are being made to restrict these young viewers for this age restricted content.
References
1. Coles, R., Robert ColesRobert's working to help fellow casual bettors find an edge and become more engaged with betting trends and picks. Whether it be NFL, Robert's working to help fellow casual bettors find an edge and become more engaged with betting trends and picks. Whether it be NFL, Mantini, J., & Caraviello, D. (2021, June 18). What is prizepicks? the new age of Daily Fantasy. USBettingReport.com. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://usbettingreport.com/sports-betting/what-is-prizepicks-the-new-age-of-daily-fantasy/
2. Sports gambling site posing as fantasy platform, suit says. Law360. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.law360.com/articles/1476308/sports-gambling-site-posing-as-fantasy-platform-suit-says
3. Prizepicks Review. BettingData. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://bettingdata.com/prizepicks-review
4. Network, I. N. (2022, August 16). Prizepicks named the fastest-growing sports company in America as part of the 2022 inc. 5000 list. INN. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://investingnews.com/prizepicks-named-the-fastest-growing-sports-company-in-america-as-part-of-the-2022-inc-5000-list/
5. What sports does PrizePicks offer? PrizePicks. (n.d.). Retrieved January 25, 2023, from https://prizepicks.com/resources/prizepicks-what-sports-does-prizepicks-have
6. Prizepicks.com Traffic Analytics & Market Share | similarweb. (n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2023, from https://www.similarweb.com/website/prizepicks.com/
7. Mercer, M. (2022, July 12). As sports betting grows, states tackle teenage problem gambling. The Pew Charitable Trusts. Retrieved January 26, 2023, from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/07/12/as-sports-betting-grows-states-tackle-teenage-problem-gambling
8. Guerrier, K. (2022, September 8). Is the normalization of sports gambling harmful? The Famuan. Retrieved January 26, 2023, from http://www.thefamuanonline.com/2022/09/08/is-the-normalization-of-sports-gambling-harmful/http://www.thefamuanonline.com/2022/_http://www.thefamuanonline.com/2022/09/08/is-the-normalization-of-sports-gambling-harmful//08/is-the-normalization-of-sports-gambling-harmful/
9. Wyld, D. (2021, December 27). The young demo of online sports betting. Medium. Retrieved January 26, 2023, from https://medium.com/modern-business/the-young-demo-of-online-sports-betting-c595f7dcefaa
10. Cole, D. (2021, October 13). Wexler makes fantasy sports real with Prizepicks. Atlanta Jewish Times. Retrieved January 27, 2023, from https://www.atlantajewishtimes.com/wexler-makes-fantasy-sports-real-with-prizepicks/
11. Fazio, M. (2021, April 1). It's easy (and legal) to bet on sports. do young adults know the risks? The New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/sports/sports-betting-addiction.html
12. “How to Play Prizepicks.” PrizePicks, https://www.prizepicks.com/resources/how-to-play-prizepicks.
13. “Types of Sports Bets - Analyzing the Different Sports Bet Types.” The Game Day, 7 Sept. 2022, https://thegameday.com/how-to-bet/bet-types/.
