ALISO VIEJO, CALIFORNIA--(Marketwired - May 2, 2016) - Fantasy Aces Daily Fantasy Sports Corp. (the "Corporation" or "Fantasy Aces") (TSX VENTURE:FAS)(OTC PINK:FASDF) is pleased to provide investors with a corporate update.
Fantasy Aces ended 2015 with impressive year over year growth in multiple categories, retaining its position within the top six of Daily Fantasy Sports ("DFS") active companies, led by the two market leaders DraftKings and FanDuel.
However; the Corporation had a sizeable operating deficit in 2015. The 2015 yearend financials are available in SEDAR. Two primary factors contributed to this deficit:
Overlay: Guarantee Prize Pools ("GPP"), which is an industry retention standard. If the Corporation fails to fill all the "seats" in a GPP contest, it's up to the Corporation to cover the difference. Fantasy Aces dramatically increased the size of the GPP contests starting in September 2015 to increase revenue and attract new users. Concurrent with these higher prize offerings was the industry regulatory situation which measurably lowered the user participation expected for these contests. This was a significant cost in 2015, as the Corporation averaged Overlay of greater than 100% on its NFL tournaments. Fantasy Aces has made significant changes to its contest creation and management in 2016, and as a result of those changes it has lowered the average overlay percentage in April 2016 to less than 30%, an important reflection of the operating margins expected going forward.
User Intensity: There was a measurable reduction in our user's intensity starting in October, 2015 concurrent with the regulatory situation. That reduction was measured on all DFS sites. It not only affected the GPP tournaments but also the non-guaranteed "cash tournaments." In 2016, the Corporation has seen both the intensity of its users, as well as an increase in its user base, grow measurably, an indication that much of this anxiety is receding.
Fantasy Aces performance versus the DFS regulatory process
This regulatory process has slowed the industry's trajectory since October 2015, but not the rate at which Fantasy Aces has performed. Fantasy Aces' growth and industry standing has continued to increase since January 2016. Culminating during April 2016, with Fantasy Aces daily user tournament participation surpassing even Yahoo to take over the number three position within the industry.
Shortly after the completion of the Transaction with DraftTeam in October 2015, many US State Attorney's General realized just how big DFS was becoming through the highly exposed TV advertising of the two market leaders. The result of this new market size awareness, led by the New York Attorney General, brought far greater scrutiny from many states, and has now resulted in state by state legislative activity to formally legalize and regulate the DFS industry. This process will take one to two years to completely resolve itself and the Corporation is satisfied that the industry will continue to prosper at an even greater rate than it does currently once the states regulate the industry.
Tom Frisina CEO comments: "The industry has been demonstrably impacted by the U.S regulatory mood since last fall. Since then, we have witnessed an expected and impressive evolution in the process to adopt laws state by state to fully legalize DFS and to date in 2016 five states have adopted full regulation. We anticipate that the process will continue to advance even more rapidly on many fronts as a result of these initial adoptions."
Due to the current regulatory status in the U.S., Eilers Research, the industry's leading market research firm, as a precautionary measure until complete resolution is achieved, has lowered its previous 2020 industry tournament prize payouts projection from $25B to $15-$18B, resulting in industry gross revenues if achieved in the $1.5B to $2B USD range for 2020.
What that means for the DFS industry and Fantasy Aces in particular, is the Corporation's 2015 gross revenues will grow impressively moving forward to the revised industry 2020 projection in spite of the lower forecast.
Fantasy Aces 2016 update
During the first 4 months of 2016, the Corporation has continued to see considerable growth, even in light of the ongoing regulatory issues
January thru April 2016 to 2015 in USD:
Q1 historically is 13-15% of FAS annual business and approximately that of the DFS industry.
As demonstrated above Fantasy Aces has shown tremendous growth in 2016 and expects to continue with this grow in the coming periods, even with the impending regulatory changes to the industry.
The Corporation will award close to $2MM USD in Tournament Prize Payouts in April 2016, a 125% increase compared to April 2015 performance, and approximately the same percentage increases are expected in Game Entries (240,000 entries), Deposits and Gross Revenue.
One of the many hallmarks of the Fantasy Aces brand respect comes from the "Live" end of season tournaments. In December 2015, and March 2016, Fantasy Aces hosted in Newport Beach and San Diego, California, respectively, $500,000 NFL and $250,000 NBA live events for 60 of the top players on its site and their companions.
Q2 Outlook
Fantasy Aces will continue its forward progress on many fronts in Q2 2016 including business development, launch of the Apple iOS App, efforts to capture a major strategic investor and exploration of a potential full US market listing;
With the MLB launch in April, the continuing PGA golf and the NBA playoffs, the Corporation will continue to maximize its dollars invested in marketing efforts, featuring the partnership announced earlier this year with Fantasy Alarm.
Since the Financing completion in Q1, the Corporation accelerated the development and testing of its brand new Apple iOS App with the launch scheduled for early May. Fantasy Aces considers this development a game changer and should contribute significantly to its growth going forward.
In March 2016, Fantasy Aces retained the Camron-Thomson Group (CTG) of Toronto to capture a major strategic investor. Involvement of such a partner will expand dramatically the Corporation's current 32,000 users and provide the necessary working capital to thrust the Corporation forward at an even higher rate of achievement.
An important statistic attached to the current 32,000 registered users is that greater than 50% of them deposit and actively play on the site. To the best of our unofficial measurement this stat is at or near the top of the industry.
The popularity of DFS in Europe has resulted in multiple inquiries from major European casino and sports entities for Fantasy Aces to consider partnering opportunities ranging from white box label technology licensing to strategic arrangements. Fantasy Aces expects to launch European Football (Soccer) and one additional sport to increase its current six sports lineup by another two during 2016.
Investor Conference Call
The Corporation will be hosting an investor conference call on Wednesday May 4, 2016 at 9:00 am EST The live conference call will be available by calling:
United States/Canada toll-free dial-in number: 1- 888-789-9572
Participant code: 3869891
The conference call is open to any investor or stakeholder, including shareholders, broker dealers and other securities professionals. To submit one or more questions to the CEO, please e-mail your question to jerome@fantasyaces.com with the words "investor question for conference call" in the subject line. Fantasy Aces management will do its best to address as many of these questions, along with any brought forward on the conference call, as possible in the time allocated for the call.
About Fantasy Aces
Fantasy Aces is a leading DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) site focused on everyday skill-based fantasy sports games. Fantasy Aces has developed proprietary software which allows users to create fantasy teams from the player rosters of actual sports leagues and then use their teams to compete against other users in various categories such as points scored, yards gained, goals, assists or home runs registered, depending on the specific sport. The FantasyAces.com website currently offers daily and weekly skill based fantasy sports games for six major North American sports, including the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, College Football and the PGA. Fantasy Aces also offers a variety of entry fee contest options for its members to play, in addition to free roll tournaments to attract new members to the site. Fantasy Aces charges a management fee from all entry fees collected on the website.
Reader Advisory
Certain information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements or information ("forward-looking statements"). By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond the Corporation's control, including the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, currency fluctuations, operational risks, competition from other industry participants, stock market volatility, and the ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources. Although the Corporation believes that the expectations in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, its forward-looking statements have been based on factors and assumptions concerning future events which may prove to be inaccurate. Those factors and assumptions are based upon currently available information. Such statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results or events and cause actual results or events to differ materially from those stated, anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, as no assurance can be provided as to future results, levels of activity or achievements. Risks, uncertainties, material assumptions and other factors that could affect actual results are discussed in our public disclosure documents available at www.sedar.com. Furthermore, the forward-looking statements contained in this document are made as of the date of this document and, except as required by applicable law, the Corporation does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The forward-looking statements contained in this document are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.
Trading in the securities of Fantasy Aces Daily Fantasy Sports Corp. should be considered highly speculative.
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