FanDuel and DraftKings will remain official NFL sportsbook partners for the 2026 season. Fanatics Sportsbook is joining them — and Caesars is no longer part of the league’s newly announced betting-partner group.
The NFL confirmed the new multi-year agreements on August 27, completing its first major reshuffle of sportsbook partners since the category was created in 2021.
This is more than a change of logos. The agreements give all three operators access to NFL branding, league media and major events, while official data supplied through Genius Sports will support live odds, player props and in-game betting products.
For New York bettors, the new lineup is especially relevant. FanDuel, DraftKings and Fanatics Sportsbook are all licensed in the state and will compete for the same football audience throughout the 2026 season.
| Sportsbook | 2026 NFL status | Previous relationship | Additional NFL role |
|---|---|---|---|
| FanDuel | Official Sports Betting Partner | Partner since 2021 | — |
| DraftKings | Official Sports Betting Partner | Partner since 2021 | Official Daily Fantasy Sports Partner |
| Fanatics Sportsbook | Official Sports Betting Partner | New to the sportsbook group | Official Online Casino Marketing Partner |
| Caesars Sportsbook | Not included in the new agreements | Partner from 2021 to March 2026 | — |
The NFL did not disclose the length or financial terms of the agreements beyond describing them as multi-year deals.
Official partner status allows FanDuel, DraftKings and Fanatics to use NFL marks within their sports betting businesses and promote online and retail wagering through their association with the league.
The partnerships also include:
exposure across NFL-owned media;
activations around the Super Bowl and NFL Draft;
hospitality and VIP experiences;
official play-by-play data and Next Gen Stats through Genius Sports;
access to BetVision, Genius Sports’ interactive live-betting broadcast product.
The branding rights will be the most visible part of the deals. The data rights may be the most valuable.
A sportsbook can publish a pregame point spread without an elaborate live-data system. Maintaining an in-game market is different. The operator must receive an event, recalculate the price and decide whether to reopen the market — often within seconds.
That speed matters when a drive changes direction, an injury affects a player prop or a game moves from an ordinary third down to a high-leverage red-zone play. It also matters for bettors using live betting markets instead of placing every wager before kickoff.
For FanDuel, the agreement represents continuity.
The company joined the NFL’s first group of official U.S. sportsbook partners in 2021 and has since become one of the two largest mobile operators in New York. Through July 2026, FanDuel led the state in both year-to-date handle and gross gaming revenue, according to NYSafeBets’ analysis of New York State Gaming Commission reports.
The competition remains close. DraftKings narrowly accepted more wagers than FanDuel during July, but FanDuel produced more revenue and retained its year-to-date lead. The complete figures are available in our 2026 New York sportsbook market-share analysis.
Its NFL renewal arrives at the most important point in the sportsbook calendar. Football is not a single championship event but a weekly sequence of Thursday, Sunday and Monday betting sessions, followed by the playoffs and Super Bowl.
FanDuel would remain a major football sportsbook without an official league designation. Renewing the partnership nevertheless protects a valuable marketing position precisely when operators are investing most aggressively in acquiring and retaining customers.
The timing also follows a strong summer for the operator. FanDuel’s July New York handle increased 36.6% year over year to $651.2 million, while gross gaming revenue reached $86.2 million. NYSafeBets examined those figures and Flutter’s increased football-season investment in a separate report on FanDuel’s New York growth before the NFL season.
DraftKings renewed its sportsbook partnership and will continue separately as the NFL’s Official Daily Fantasy Sports Partner, a relationship that began in 2019.
That second designation matters because DraftKings’ connection to football predates the rapid expansion of legal online sportsbooks. Daily fantasy helped establish the company as a national football brand before mobile betting was permitted across much of the country. DraftKings now retains official status on both sides of that history.
The sportsbook agreement gives DraftKings the same central NFL assets as FanDuel and Fanatics, including official data and BetVision access. DraftKings Chief Marketing Officer Stephanie Sherman highlighted live betting and the opportunity to engage fans from kickoff through the Super Bowl in the NFL’s announcement.
That focus reflects how the football product has changed. Pregame odds are now only one part of an NFL betting menu containing player props, alternate lines, parlay betting options and continuously repriced markets after kickoff.
FanDuel and DraftKings staying is significant. Fanatics joining is the real news.
Fanatics Sportsbook did not exist in its current form when the NFL announced the original partner group in 2021. The company entered U.S. sports betting by acquiring PointsBet’s American business and launched in New York in February 2024.
Two years later, it has a place in the NFL’s official sportsbook lineup.
Fanatics reaches sports fans differently from a conventional betting operator. Its wider business already spans licensed merchandise, trading cards and collectibles. A customer can encounter the brand while buying a jersey or collecting cards before ever opening its sportsbook.
The new agreement connects that commerce network more directly to betting. It expands Fanatics’ existing NFL relationship in merchandise and collectibles and adds two designations: Official Sports Betting Partner and Official Online Casino Marketing Partner.
Fanatics Betting and Gaming CEO Matt King described the company’s ambition as creating a broader digital sports platform where fans can bet, play and engage with the NFL. The strategy is clear. The unresolved question is whether Fanatics can convert the reach of its commerce and collectibles businesses into lasting sportsbook market share.
The NFL partnership will not answer that on its own. It does give Fanatics a level of league association that would be difficult for a newer operator to reproduce through advertising alone.
The change can be summarized in two lines:
2021: Caesars + DraftKings + FanDuel
2026: Fanatics + DraftKings + FanDuel
The original agreements expired in March 2026. FanDuel and DraftKings renewed, Fanatics joined, and Caesars was not included in the NFL’s August announcement.
That does not mean Caesars can no longer accept NFL wagers. Caesars Sportsbook can continue offering legal football markets in jurisdictions where it is licensed. It simply no longer holds a place in this specific group of official league partners.
“Official partner” is a commercial designation, not permission to take bets. State regulators determine whether a sportsbook can operate. The NFL decides which companies may use its partner status and receive the commercial assets attached to it.
Caesars’ absence also shows how quickly the competitive map has changed. Fanatics was not positioned to join the original group in 2021. In 2026, it occupies a place previously held by one of the country’s best-known casino brands.
The three sportsbooks will receive official play-by-play data, proprietary Next Gen Stats and BetVision access through Genius Sports, the NFL’s exclusive data distributor.
Each product has a different function:
Play-by-play data supports the rapid pricing and settlement of markets.
Next Gen Stats use player- and ball-tracking data to measure elements such as speed, separation and completion probability.
BetVision combines a live broadcast with interactive statistics and betting functionality in supported sportsbook environments.
Access to official data does not guarantee that one partner will offer a better price than another. Sportsbooks still apply their own models, trading rules and risk controls, and live markets can still be suspended during important plays.
It does give all three companies access to the same authoritative league data layer. The competitive difference then becomes how quickly and clearly each operator turns that information into a usable betting product.
For bettors, that is more meaningful than the NFL shield in an advertisement. Price, market depth, app stability, limits and settlement rules still determine the practical experience.
The commercial benefits come with conditions.
FanDuel, DraftKings and Fanatics agreed to follow the NFL’s game-integrity policies and cooperate with the league on information sharing, advocacy and responsible gambling. They will also work with the NFL to prevent markets the league considers objectionable.
The announcement specifically identified wagers involving officiating decisions, player injuries and outcomes that may be known in advance or easily controlled by one person.
Those restrictions become more important as betting grows faster and more granular. Not every measurable event surrounding a game makes a suitable market, particularly when the outcome can depend on non-public information or the decision of one participant.
The NFL’s wider integrity program includes annual gambling-policy education for players and staff, suspicious-betting monitoring and an Integrity Representative assigned to every club. According to the league, those representatives are generally retired FBI agents or senior law-enforcement officials.
The relationship therefore works in both directions. Sportsbooks receive the NFL’s marks, data and audience. The league gains formal channels to the companies taking wagers on its games and greater influence over the markets they offer.
The American Gaming Association estimated that legal U.S. sportsbooks would accept approximately $30 billion in wagers during the 2025 NFL season. That was a preseason forecast rather than a final audited handle figure, but it illustrates the scale of the market.
Handle alone does not explain football’s value. The NFL combines a national audience with a betting rhythm no other U.S. league quite reproduces: prime-time games on three nights, a dense Sunday schedule, hundreds of player markets and a new slate one week later.
One matchup can generate moneyline, spread and total wagers, touchdown and yardage props, same-game parlays and an entirely new set of prices after kickoff. Multiplied across an 18-week regular season and the playoffs, the NFL becomes the backbone of the sportsbook calendar.
That is why official status matters even though it does not determine which operator offers the best odds. It places a sportsbook inside the league’s commercial ecosystem during the most valuable part of the betting year.
All three official partners are among the legal online sportsbooks in New York.
Their NFL status will shape advertising, promotions and media integrations during the season, but bettors should not treat the league logo as a product rating. The strongest choice on a particular Sunday may still depend on the price, available props, live-market performance and terms attached to a promotion.
The three partners also enter the season from different positions. Through July 2026, FanDuel and DraftKings together accounted for more than two-thirds of New York’s mobile betting handle. Fanatics remained a smaller operator, but its new NFL agreement gives it another route to challenge that duopoly during football season.
NYSafeBets will follow those differences throughout the year through our NFL betting hub, operator reviews and weekly analysis. Our early 2026 NFL Week 1 predictions are also live ahead of the opening slate.
Five years after the NFL created its first official sportsbook category, betting is no longer a cautious experiment at the edge of the league’s business. It is embedded in the data, media and commercial structure around the game.
The 2026 lineup — FanDuel, DraftKings and Fanatics — is the clearest snapshot yet of which operators currently hold the NFL’s most valuable betting relationships.
