All NC State had to do was concede a safety, and Wolfpack backers would have been home.
- Sportsbooks and prediction market operators have been providing injury-related refunds, bonuses, boosts, and other promotions to attract and retain bettors and traders this football season.
- The generosity comes at an important time of year for the industry, football season, and as operators are trying to acquire all the customers and business they can.
- The generosity could be helping, with DraftKings recently reporting a 15% increase in sportsbook handle.
Yet somehow, someway, NC State quarterback CJ Bailey fumbled away what appeared to be a sure win over Vanderbilt last Saturday, causing one of the all-time bad beats.
And that might have been the end of this story, had not Fanatics decided to refund Wolfpack wagers in FanCash, the operator’s loyalty currency. It was, a spokesperson said, the type of “goodwill” gesture that the company has made before.
“If we see a pain point, we try to make sure our customers know that we have their back,” Fanatics’ Kevin Hennessy told Covers on Tuesday.
WORST BEAT IN CFB HISTORY?? 🤯@BradPowers7 breaks down the disastrous end to the NC State-Vanderbilt game 😭 https://t.co/aWHwBmcZNh pic.twitter.com/er6bA7P2gJ
— Covers (@Covers) September 19, 2026
The decision was an example of the forgiving attitude that Fanatics and others have adopted so far this football season. Bettors and traders are on the receiving end of that forgiveness, which can also include refunds in connection with injured NFL superstars.
Under its Fair Play Max injury insurance program, for instance, Fanatics Sportsbook issued 18 FanCash payouts in Week 2 of the NFL. Those payouts were for players who exited games in the first or second half, as well as via Fanatics' Forward Progress protection that bails out bettors when a quarterback takes a knee or a running back loses yards on a rush.
DJ Moore’s injury in the Lions-Bills game last Thursday triggered the largest such payout ever, Hennessy noted. For the same game, Josh Allen’s 70+ rushing yard props were honored as winners despite the kneeldowns that left the Bills QB with 69 total rushing yards.
FanDuel, meanwhile, told Covers that it has “protected” more than one million bets for "free" through the first two weeks of the NFL season. That's via its Bet Protect+ program, which historically cost 3% of a wager but is being offered without the fee for NFL games during September.
Every little bit helps
All the injury insurance is also in addition to all the usual sign-up bonuses, boosts, and other promotions (such as loyalty programs) that are there for bettors at the start of football season. It adds up to a pretty generous attitude by the sports betting industry, but there are business reasons for that generosity.
Some of it is just good form. Football season is a critical time of year for sportsbook operators, and a little bit of forgiveness now could go a long way with customers who want to wager until February. Bettor loyalty could be lost or gained at any point.
Meanwhile, in states with legalized sports betting, the freebies could help guard against the risk of bleeding customers or handle to prediction markets.
Legal sports betting handle actually began to stagnate somewhat late last year, according to analysts, and the straightforward way in which sportsbook operators can credit their customers could contrast with the approach of exchange operators. Put differently, it can be easier for an online sportsbook to be generous than it can be for a federally regulated prediction market.
“Following 2Q26 earnings, investor feedback called for two options - maintain existing spending levels and risk losing market share in sports betting and prediction markets, or materially increase investment to capture more customers in 2026,” stock analysts at Citizens wrote in a note on DraftKings on Thursday. “The latter is now happening, which we believe was the consensus view but now raises questions around both the magnitude of incremental spend and how long it will persist.”
Week 2 has been brutal for injuries.
— FanDuel Sports (@FanDuelSports) September 22, 2026
We hope to see all impacted players back on the field soon, including Giants QB Jaxson Dart.
Thankfully, Bet Protect+ is there for you whenever injuries strike.
Full-game, FREE injury protection for all September 🫡#NFL | #BigBlue pic.twitter.com/weApsh3NLQ
However, there are also efforts by online sports betting operators to build up prediction markets in states that lack legal sports betting. There can be generosity there as well, such as Fanatics extending its Fair Play program to single and combo trades.
Again, it's not just Fanatics being generous, though. A report from stock analysts at Jefferies earlier this month said FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment “appears to be leaning in to generosity at the start of the NFL season.”
That included, the Jefferies analysts noted, a $350 sign-up bonus for new FanDuel users this year, which was in line with what Fanatics was offering but up from FanDuel's $300 promotion last year. FanDuel and DraftKings were also dangling sign-up bonuses of $100 and $200, respectively, for their prediction market platforms, which was more than some other rivals in the space.
DraftKings CEO Jason Robins suggested this week that the success they're seeing so far in states that lack legalized online sports betting could lead them to pull forward some prediction market-related spending they'd planned for 2027 to this year.
Asked about how that money would be spent, Robins said it would be for both marketing and customer promotions.
"It’s really a bit of both because ... more new customers mean more new customer promotions," the CEO explained during an investor webinar. "So, it is some additional marketing spend that we are deploying into a very friendly and efficient environment. Also it’s just the fact that we’re getting a higher volume of new customers than we thought, and even if we didn’t spend any more in marketing that would come with more new customer promotions, but also, of course, comes with more gross profit next year."
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Easy does it
So it is, generally speaking, a more forgiving time to be a bettor or trader. At least for now.
The approach could be paying off for operators. More than $611 million was bet with New York's online sportsbook operators during the week that ended Sept. 20, compared to $555.8 million a year earlier.
DraftKings, which offers its own Early Exit injury insurance program, has seen sportsbook handle increase 15% this season compared to last, according to its CEO.
It also helps to have a lot of stuff to bet. Robins said this week that DraftKings now has three times as many NFL betting markets as the competition, as well as one-and-a-half times the markets of the competition for college football. He added that the company has “a ton of new features” still to come.
"We have a lot more planned for the coming weeks and months," Robins said.
