FairPlay Sports Media has made a “strategic investment” in WagerWire as the oddschecker parent plans to rapidly expand into the prediction markets space.
FairPlay Sports Media, which is owned by Bruin Capital, has made the undisclosed investment into the US firm, which also runs Wire Markets.
WagerWire started life as a marketplace for users to trade bets, with the group venturing into prediction markets and securing licence approval in principle from Gibraltar to launch a B2C brand.
As well as the investment, FairPlay Sports Media will push Wire Markets to its consumers across its affiliate brands, which is headed up by flagship site oddschecker.
Prediction markets in the UK, where oddschecker is focused, require a licence under a betting exchange from the Gambling Commission.
FairPlay Sports Media also owns SuperScommesse in Italy, football-focused WhoScored and the Confido Network.
A statement read: “By embedding Wire Markets within its media experiences, FairPlay can connect content, data and audience intent directly to a regulated marketplace where users can act on what they believe will happen next, creating a new model for how media companies participate in the prediction-market economy.”
The investment from FairPlay Sports Media into WagerWire marks the firm’s first deployment of capital since it snapped up Quarter4 in early 2024.
The platform was eventually rebranded to FairPlay AI. In 2023, SuperScommesse was acquired from Catena Media.
Bruin Capital purchased FairPlay Sports Media, then knowns as Oddschecker Global Media, from Flutter Entertainment in August 2021 for £155m.
FairPlay’s capital injection comes more than four years after WagerWire raised $3m in a seed funding round led by Roger Ehrenberg in 2022.
The funding round also saw Betr CEO Joey Levy’s 305 Ventures and Simplebet co-founder Scott Mashall take part.
Further investors came onboard in December 2024, including former Pinnacle CEO Paris Smith, Wall Street veteran Danny Moses and GoodPaper Ventures
Stuart Simms, FairPlay Sports Media CEO, said prediction markets were a “natural fit” for the affiliate.
He added: “Partnering with Wire Markets, FairPlay can provide users research and comparison tools, while accessing the best predictions.
“Together we believe we can bring these new capabilities to a wide range of media environments, creating more useful, engaging experiences.”
Zach Doctor, WagerWire CEO, added: “Recent major acquisitions and funding rounds in predictions are a major signal of where the industry is headed.
“FairPlay’s investment in WagerWire reflects that same conviction on an international scale.”
The post FairPlay Sports Media makes investment in WagerWire as part of prediction markets push first appeared on EGR Intel.
Oddschecker parent commits undisclosed capital to US firm which launched Wire Markets earlier this year as part of its B2C ambitions
The post FairPlay Sports Media makes investment in WagerWire as part of prediction markets push first appeared on EGR Intel.