FanDuel and Checkout.com team up for a winning payments strategy

The Super Bowl kicks off. Odds flip on a switch. Millions of fans move to bet at once.

For FanDuel, a leading platform for online sports betting, iGaming, and daily fantasy sports across the US and Canada, these high-pressure moments are make-or-break for the player. Traffic spikes hit without warning, driven by live events and surprise moments. Every second counts – and every play matters.

Payments sit at the center of that experience. When a user is ready to place a bet, performance has to hold. Delays or failed transactions disrupt gameplay at the exact moment it matters most. To keep pace with demand and push payment performance further, FanDuel partnered with Checkout.com. 

“We’ve worked hard to build a digital-first platform that millions of players love to use, and needed to find a partner we could trust deeply. Checkout.com consistently showed us they understood our market, our industry, and our business-critical payment needs. That kind of specialized knowledge isn’t easy to find,” said the FanDuel team.

CHALLENGE: NO TIME TO DROP THE BALL

When you’re processing very high volumes at peak moments, that level of demand puts constant pressure on performance. At these volumes, the checkout moment is critical.

Even small points of friction can interrupt betting for players. Any disruption risks revenue loss and a negative customer experience.

Reliability and redundancy are critical. To lower the risk of payment downtime, FanDuel looked for a secondary provider to maintain uptime.

At the same time, the team wanted greater control over payment performance. Improved visibility into granular data would help ensure all genuine payments hit authorization and capture – and open up opportunities for optimizing across their payments stack.

To strengthen resilience and take a more active role in performance optimization, FanDuel began the search for an additional payments partner. Checkout.com emerged as the right fit.

SOLUTION: HANDS-ON SUPPORT FROM TRUE PAYMENTS EXPERTS

Over the past year, Checkout.com has evolved to operate as an extension of FanDuel’s team, providing hands-on support across payment decisioning, data flows, and fraud prevention. Checkout.com’s dedicated workshops and close collaboration enable FanDuel to refine its approach and act on new opportunities quickly.

Such support is backed by Checkout.com’s experienced solutions engineers who support technical implementation and help bring strategic projects to life. Both teams work in close alignment, focused on improving payment performance in a high-demand environment.

“Working alongside FanDuel is one of the most exciting collaborations I’ve been part of. Their team is hungry for the win, yet dedicated to technical excellence. We sharpen each other’s ideas each time we meet, finding new ways to push up payment performance and increase efficiency. FanDuel shares our belief that success has no finish line, and we’re proud to be their partner,” said Zack Levine, Head of North America at Checkout.com.

Checkout.com’s Director of iGaming Account Management, Yu Ai Seet, supports FanDuel with regular check-ins and dedicated communication channels, creating a continuous feedback loop. This allows FanDuel to proactively identify opportunities to reduce false declines, strengthen data quality, and better align with issuer expectations.

FanDuel also uses Checkout.com’s Intelligent Acceptance, which analyzes millions of sequential network interactions, and applies real-time optimizations to maximize merchant revenue. This helps increase acceptance rates, reduce payment failures, and continuously improve performance, enabling faster, more informed decision-making while improving the checkout experience for users.

RESULTS: STRATEGIC TEAMWORK POWERS PAYMENTS WINS

Through its partnership with Checkout.com, FanDuel has strengthened its payments performance and reinforced its customer-first strategy. Players benefit from a more reliable experience, even during peak moments when demand is at its highest.

With ongoing performance monitoring and hands-on support from the Checkout.com team, FanDuel can respond quickly to changing conditions and maintain consistent payment success at scale. Deep in-market expertise and live insights help FanDuel capture more successful transactions and avoid disruption during critical moments.

Yu Ai added: “Working with FanDuel means operating at full speed, all the time. We’re in it together, constantly testing, refining, and pushing for better performance. That drive to keep improving is what sets this partnership apart.”

The momentum is already extending beyond FanDuel, with Checkout.com now working with Flutter Entertainment – FanDuel’s parent company – to deliver high-performance payments experiences at scale for its global family of brands worldwide.

And when the next big moment hits, FanDuel and Checkout.com continue to perform better together.