A Hail Mary? The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News‘ Philly.com is now turning to sports betting to boost its online revenue. The paper has partnered with FanDuel.com so that its readers can bet on the outcome of fantasy sports games. How it works: Users choose an opponent, as well as how much they want to put down and then draft their teams. Games last one day and the contestant who earns the most points gets a cash prize of up to $90. It’s all legal, according to Fanduel (which is an offshoot of popular news betting site Hubdub) because “fantasy sports is considered a game of skill and received a specific exemption” from the ban on online betting in the U.S.
Yoni Greenbaum, the VP of product development at Philly.com, tells CNET that the company is trying to both differentiate its online content — and also increase its revenue. FanDuel Marketing Director Lesley Eccles tells us that Philly.com will get half of the net revenue it generates from users.
It’s the second big outside partnership for Philly.com this year. In January, the site partnered with another startup — ticket search engine FanSnap — so that readers could search for tickets directly from Philly.com.
Meanwhile, the fate of Philly.com parent Philadelphia Newspapers remains in limbo. The company filed for bankruptcy more than a year ago, but lenders rejected a proposed settlement in the fall. Since then, the lenders, along with CEO Brian Tierney, who led an investment group that bought the papers four years ago, have been battling it out in the courts.

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