FlowPlay merges casual fantasy sports with poker in 5 Card Draft

FlowPlay, which makes a platform for social casino games, is branching out today with the launch of an online fantasy sports card game.

The Seattle-based company is launching 5 Card Draft, an online multiplayer card game with a fantasy football them. Daily fantasy sports is hot as rivals such as Draftkings and FanDuel battle it out to gain control of the market. 5 Card Draft is one more title targeted at the more than 51.6 million people in the U.S. who play fantasy sports games (according to Fantasy Sports Association). Market researcher Ipsos estimates that each player spends an average of $465 on fantasy sports competitions, up from $95 in 2012.

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Now available within FlowPlay’s social casino Vegas World, 5 Card Draft is a casual game that merges poker gameplay with fantasy sports drafting mechanics. In addition to the launch, FlowPlay also announced findings from a recent survey of Vegas World players, which examined casual gamers’ interest in fantasy sports.

The survey of 4,700 players found that one third of casual gamers – defined in the survey as users who are “extremely interested” in casual games – are interested in online fantasy sports, and more than 50 percent expressed heightened interest if real-money betting was not required.

With 5 Card Draft, FlowPlay is working to close the gap between daily fantasy sports experiences and the widely established and legal casual games industry, the company said.

5 Card Draft randomly selects five cards for up to five players in any given game. Each card has a different professional football player and a hand will always include a quarterback, kicker, running back, and two wide receivers. Those players are selected from any of the 32 football teams, with two trades allowed per hand. Points are earned based on each player’s stats from the randomly determined year and week of the season for that round. The winner is then determined at the end of six rounds.

In the survey, FlowPlay found that 57 percent of the most dedicated casual gamers would be more inclined to play fantasy sports if real money was not involved. Further, users that  classified themselves as fantasy sports players – 79 percent – said they would also engage more if there was an option to do so without using real money.

“With the current landscape of the fantasy sports market, millions of sports enthusiasts have largely been alienated from engaging in fantasy sports due to the complexity and time required to play the existing products,” said Derrick Morton, CEO of FlowPlay, in a statement. “5 Card Draft is the first of several products that we’ll be launching in the coming months that aim to intersect casual games and fantasy sports. With the goal of connecting with unreached audiences, our fantasy sports games will include a range of gameplay options and feature sports beyond football.”

FlowPlay has created other games such as its social casino title Vegas World, and a social-casino game platform that other companies can use. FlowPlay was founded in 2006, and it is funded by Intel Capital and the creators of Skype.