Daily Fantasy Sports specialist FanDuel has muscled its way into the New Jersey online sports betting market with the launch of Fan Duel Sportsbook. Going live online in September 2018, FanDuel Sportsbook NJ has quickly become one of the most popular online betting destinations thanks to its slick app, wide range of betting markets and strong promotions. How does FanDuel compare to rival New Jersey online sportsbooks? Read our forensic sports betting review to find out.

FanDuel has been one of the biggest names in fantasy sports for the best part of a decade. The company has long had designs on entering the legal sport betting market, and it struck a deal with Paddy Power Betfair PLC – one of the world’s biggest betting companies – to help it crack the US market. FanDuel agreed to be acquired by Paddy Power Betfair in 2018, but it will retain the FanDuel branding for the US market. Paddy Power Betfair has an excellent reputation in the global gambling industry, well known for fair gaming practices and for bringing new innovations to the market.

FanDuel is licensed by NJDGE (New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement). It has tied itself in with the well-known Meadowlands Racetrack, where it runs an on-site sportsbook, in order to receive that vital license. FanDuel utilizes SSL capable web browsers for encrypting your transactions, keeping your financial and personal details secure.

It’s important not to conflate FanDuel’s reputation as a daily fantasy sports provider with its reputation in sports betting. While FanDuel is relatively new to that side of the industry, it has an experienced partner in Paddy Power Betfair to bring a competitive sports betting product to New Jersey. Indeed, reviews of Fan Duel’s New Jersey sportsbook have been widely positive since it launched in 2018, with many reviewers citing FanDuel’s depth of betting coverage, in-play options and speedy processing of withdrawal among the sportsbook’s strong points.

All bases are covered for deposits and withdrawals at FanDuel, including the option to pay and collect cash at Meadowlands Racetrack. FanDuel aims to complete all withdrawal processing within 24-48 hours.

FanDuel Sportsbook has been optimized for mobile betting, so you don’t necessarily have to download the sports betting app. However, there is an official FanDuel mobile betting app available for Android or Apple handheld devices.

The Android app can be downloaded directly from the FanDuel site, as Google does not yet list NJ sports betting apps in its Play Store. The download is quite simple, and it will start automatically once you click the Android icon when accessing FanDuel through a mobile handset. FanDuel recommends either Samsung or Firefox internet browsers on your Android device for optimum performance.

You can download the FanDuel Sportsbook Apple app from the Apple store. The app will be compatible with most modern Apple devices, requiring iOS 8.1 or later, and can be downloaded onto iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone.

The FanDuel app is easy to use, well-structured and non-buggy. In fact, it’s one of the best-presented sports betting apps we have seen for a while. Everything is compartmentalized, but easily accessible, allowing you to instantly flip through live betting markets, betting history and promos.  All betting features available on the desktop site are available on the app. 

FanDuel has a new bettor welcome offer, which it calls “a $500 risk free bet”. That’s arguably a little misleading, as it’s not exactly risk free. However, that should not detract from what is an excellent sports betting offer for new customers. Essentially, FanDuel will refund your first bet if it loses, matching the value of it up to $500. The refund comes in the form of “site credit”, which means it cannot be instantly withdrawn. You must wager that site credit once before it become real, withdrawable cash. Those terms sound pretty fair to us, especially when you consider there are no further restrictions with using the site credit, i.e. no minimum odds or betting market restrictions. As a welcome offer, this beats most of FanDuel’s competitors.

There isn’t a huge amount of other regular promotions on offer at FanDuel, but we feel it has opted for quality over quantity because the few online betting promotions on offer are very good. For example, FanDuel offers Multi Sport Parlay Insurance: Pick a parlay bet of four or more legs from any sport and you will receive a 100% refund up to $25 if all your legs are successful except one. You can avail yourself to this promotion up to four times each day. There are some restrictions, such as each leg of the parlay must have odds greater than 1.50 (-200), but it’s still an excellent promotion and not one regularly found with other NJ sportsbooks online.

FanDuel also has daily odds boosts, which we felt weren’t very exciting. For example, a typical odds boost promotion was offered on the New York Yankees vs Tampa Bay Rays MLB regular season game 07/15/19). It boosted the odds of a Yankee’s victory coupled with a Gary Sanchez home run at any point in the game from 4.30 (+330) to 4.80 (+380). Not bad, yet not enough to get anyone too excited.

Just as with the betting app, FanDuel Sportsbook’s desktop site is excellent in terms of its design and layout. The key to creating the best sports betting site is to ensure fast navigation so as to not overwhelming the user with too much information on one page. FanDuel adheres to that rule, cleverly organizing the site’s sections through the use of icons and selected sporting and promotional highlights. It may seem like an inconsequential point, but the blue and white color scheme is pleasant and works to improve your overall betting experience.  FanDuel uses IGT (International Gaming Technology) to provide the software for the sportsbook. IGT has been involved in tech solutions for betting and gaming for decades and has a global reputation for providing quality products.

FanDuel offers betting on 16 different sports, which is about average for the online sportsbook industry in New Jersey. It does not offer horse betting or wagers on New Jersey-based college sports teams due to restrictions on all NJ online sportsbooks in those areas. However, all other major sports are covered on the betting site. That includes MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, MLS, and all major international events in soccer, cricket, rugby, golf and tennis. Perhaps a few more niche sports could be added to satisfy some bettors, but the majority will be happy enough with the list of sports offered.

As for the range of markets within each sport, FanDuel is clearly ahead of the game, offering some of the most in-depth betting coverage of any online sportsbook. For example, we counted 141 different betting lines for a regular season MLB game, which is around double the amount you will see in most other sportsbooks. There were similar numbers for MLS games and ATP tennis matches. You’ll find all the standard moneyline, spread, totals, round robins, props and teasers at FanDuel, and there are lots of betting markets, such as grand slam betting in baseball, that you simply won’t find elsewhere.

We were keen to check the quality of FanDuel’s odds, as risk assessment and pricing is overseen by Paddy Power Betfair, which has a reputation for competitivity. We picked an event at random – the 2019 Men’s US Open tennis tournament – and compared FanDuel’s betting odds with rival NJ online sportsbooks, playMGM Sports and Golden Nugget Sports. For the four leading players in the betting markets – Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev – Fan Duel had the best odds for three players, and only narrowly missed out on the best price for the fourth. This was only one test, of course. And we should add that while FanDuel gets a lot of credit for its betting odds competitivity, there is some evidence cited in other reviews that FanDuel is not as competitive when it comes to teasers betting. Regardless, we believe most bettors will be happy they are betting with a competitive bookmaker with FanDuel.

FanDuel offers an impressive in-play betting platform, one that mimics the pre-game betting markets in terms of depth of coverage. For example, when we checked the live coverage, FanDuel offered around 50 betting lines on a live MLB game, with the betting coverage complemented with score updates, game animations and stats. Even the coverage of more obscure sports leagues was strong, with dozens of live betting markets offered on Irish and Icelandic soccer games. If we were pushed to come up with one criticism, we’d probably ask for a more rounded stats database to accompany the live game coverage. Nevertheless, FanDuel operates one of the best live betting experiences around.