Online casino, daily fantasy sports, and sports betting platforms don’t maintain continuous, seamless operation with magic. Behind the scenes, information technology (IT) personnel empower online gamblers and sports fans to enjoy these products. In the near future, a new FanDuel Atlanta tech hub will be part of that.
FanDuel plans to open a new 68,000-square-foot center for its product development and IT operations in Midtown. Thus, app users all over the country will soon benefit from the expertise of these professionals.
FanDuel’s Atlanta tech hub creates jobs, trains students
According to Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, FanDuel expects to get the hub running at full capacity over the next five years. FanDuel has committed to spending $15 million on the facility.
In addition, FanDuel will mimic the training program for area college students it offers at its New York headquarters in Atlanta. In total, the company expects to employ over 900 people when the hub is humming.
Those people will be employed in a variety of roles focused on both maintaining current programs and driving the company’s technology growth. In time, that may include doing so for other Georgians on a greater scale. If that happens, FanDuel is in a prime position to capitalize on it.
Will GA residents benefit from FanDuel’s innovations?
Any and every advancement that makes FanDuel’s online products faster and easier to use is great, but will the very people responsible for creating them also get to enjoy them? It seems likely but it’s too early to call it a certainty.
Earlier this year, lawmakers in Atlanta couldn’t get bills to expand gambling across the finish line. However, legislators can try again without having to start from scratch early next year. The GA General Assembly’s sessions last for two years, meaning failed measures may still advance the following year.
If that effort is successful early enough in 2022, Georgians could be voting on gambling expansion that November. FanDuel could be part of that new framework; likely to receive favorable consideration of any license application given their presence in the state capital.
That’s still a big if. Conservative anti-gambling interests had some success in defeating these measures this year. That stance is unlikely to change simply with the passage of time. FanDuel could prove more pivotal this time around simply because of its local presence.
Will FanDuel continue lobbying in 2022?
Since 2016, FanDuel has donated over $70,000 on a bipartisan basis to GA officials. It’s fair to expect more of the same next year if gambling expansion bills come back up for votes. With this new hub in the works, FanDuel might have additional motivation to be more active.
That, in turn, might sway enough votes to get legal sports betting in Georgia to the voters. FanDuel might also be active in terms of running ads to sway voters to approve a new constitutional amendment as well.
All of that is purely speculative right now. What’s not is that a FanDuel Atlanta tech hub is in the works, centering operations and tapping into the GA labor market for years to come.
