Bitcoin Bowl: FanDuel Offers Cryptocurrency As Prize For Fantasy Football Contest

As the football season reaches its apex, with bowl games happening at the college level and the playoffs set to kick off in the pros, daily fantasy sports platform FanDuel has launched a new contest that will reward the winner with Bitcoin.

FanDuel’s aptly titled Bitcoin Bowl will run during the course of the NFL playoffs—set to start on Saturday, January 6—and will provide the top finishers with payouts provided in the popular cryptocurrency that has seen its value soar in recent months.

The Bitcoin Bowl will include two separate contests, including one tournament that will offer free entry and another that requires a $3 entry fee to play.

The free play contest will award the winner with one Bitcoin, currently valued at about $15,000. For those willing to pay the $3 entry fee, the prizes are expanded. The first place winner will score two Bitcoin, second place will take home 0.5 Bitcoin and third and fourth place will each get .25 Bitcoin.

What makes the prizes for the Bitcoin Bowl particularly appealing is the fact—unlike with a set award pegged to USD—the value of Bitcoin could fluctuate wildly over the course of the contest, making the final payday potentially much more (or less) valuable than it is currently.

Over the course of 2017, Bitcoin jumped from being valued at under $1,000 at the start of the year to just short of $20,000 by year’s end. The price has undergone wild swings , gaining and losing as much as 50 percent of its value in a matter of hours.

In FanDuel’s terms and conditions for the contest, it notes that Bitcoin was valued at approximately $13,500 at the time the promotion was launched, but noted that price is not guaranteed for the contest winners.

Once the contest is over, FanDuel will contact the winner and offer them the ability to claim their prize, which will have to be transferred to a Bitcoin wallet. They’ll have 30 days to transfer the prize, during which the price could vary considerably from where it started.

“FanDuel is neither responsible for any fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin from the Valuation Time to the date and time the Prize is sent to the winner’s BTC Address...nor any fluctuations thereafter,” the company stipulates.

“FanDuel has always sought to deliver the most unique and rewarding experiences or prizes to our users,” said FanDuel CFO Andy Giancamilli in a statement. “In awarding Bitcoin, we’re recognizing that most of our users are early adopters of technology and have a significant interest in cryptocurrency.”

While FanDuel will give away Bitcoin as a prize for the contest, it won’t be accepting the cryptocurrency to cover entry fees for the time being. The fantasy sports platform appears to just be experimenting with the digital token—and capitalizing on the cryptocurrency trend while it’s hot.

It’s also worth noting that FanDuel’s Bitcoin Bowl is not to be confused with the 2014 Bitcoin Bowl—an actual college football bowl game that was sponsored by cryptocurrency payment service BitPay. That promotion lasted one year before the game found another sponsor.