Fantasy sports site FanDuel to lay off 55 employees

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Popular fantasy sports company FanDuel announced Wednesday that 55 employees at its Maitland facility will be laid off.

All the former employees were part of a game design team and hired less than a month ago for a project the company is no longer pursuing.

The embattled company is currently being investigated by the FBI over allegations the “entertainment” on the site is actually illegal gambling in disguise.

Six states have labeled daily fantasy sports as gambling and have enacted laws banning the practice.

Between FanDuel and DraftKings, the other powerhouse in online fantasy sports, more than $100 million was spent on advertising by the company in two months.

Personnel in the engineering department dedicated to research and development will be affected, not the core online product, the company said.

Company officials said the layoffs were an isolated incident, and they plan to help the workers find new jobs.

The company’s Maitland facility will remain open, sources said.

A FanDuel company spokesman released the following statement via email:

In 2015, we saw continued growth with more than six million users registering for FanDuel and our largest NFL season to date, despite regulatory pressure. As we plan for the future, we are building out our customer service operations in Florida and will continue to hire for select roles throughout the company. We did have a group of developers in the Orlando office that were focused on R&D for ancillary games and applications that we will not be investing in moving forward. We are helping the individuals in these roles find employment elsewhere and are grateful for the work they did at FanDuel. There are open positions on the Careers section of our website, which can be found here.

Cox Media Group