Peer-to-peer sports gaming platform Lucra announces launch in 37 states with iOS app

  • Lucra facilitates social engagement among friends around sports, with real money stakes

  • Lucra’s simple, plain English wagering terms, user-generated contests and social emphasis dramatically expands the sports gaming market

  • “Lucra is for anyone who has ever filled out a bracket, bought a Super Bowl square or teased a friend about their favorite player or team.”

Lucra Sports, a new social-first sports gaming platform that is changing the game in the sector by growing the market and limiting costs, today announced its launch as an iOS app available via the Apple App Store to adults in 37 states.

Lucra Sports is a peer-to-peer, real money sports gaming platform that allows fans to compete with their friends. Lucra’s attitude, “Winning is fun, beating your friends is better,” encapsulates the company’s mission to bring a new form of social engagement to casual and avid sports fans alike through a marketplace of skill-based contests. Designed primarily to facilitate social interactions within its community, Lucra users can create highly customizable and quick-touch player vs. player contests to send to a friend, group, or the Lucra public feed.

Lucra’s backers include Raptor Group, a preeminent investment group offering deep operating and strategic expertise in the sports & media space; Milwaukee Bucks owner/Avenue Capital founder Marc Lasry; sports tech investor SeventySix Capital; Toy Ventures; and professional athletes including former world top 10 tennis player John Isner, US women’s national soccer team star Julie Ertz and Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz. Lucra’s cost-structure as a peer-to-peer, skill-based game is advantageous to investors and consumers alike.

Chief Executive Officer Dylan Robbins, a lifelong sports fan who founded Lucra Sports based on a vision for a social experience that all sports fans could enjoy, commented, “We are thrilled to welcome fans ranging from wild to mild, sports gaming enthusiasts and novices, to Lucra. Lucra is for anyone who has ever filled out a bracket, bought a Super Bowl square or teased a friend about their favorite player or team. Everything is more fun with friends, and above all, Lucra provides a fun way to engage with friends around sports.”

Lucra’s management team also includes Chief Operating Officer Hannah Farr, who combines experience in finance and the business of sports with a distinguished two-sport Division 1 collegiate career; Chief Technology Officer Ed Psyk, whose more than 25 years of software development and engineering experience is evident in Lucra’s rock-solid technical performance and user experience; and Chief Strategy Officer Michael Madding, whose most recent roles at Goldman Sachs were within its Executive Office and Firmwide Strategy groups, helping to build and operate new businesses.

Farr stated, “Lucra’s innovations are challenging the prevailing trend in sports gaming of heavy spending to acquire a narrow demographic of customers through mergers and promotions. By contrast, during our pre-launch period we found that Lucra’s approachable, plain English, easy-to-use format appeals to people new to sports gaming, Lucra’s user-generated contests spread the wealth, and Lucra’s social-first focus drives user growth with referrals.”

Based on user data from Lucra’s three weeks of live pre-launch operations, for example:

  • The average amount wagered in each contest is about $10 – Lucra is a low-stakes place for fun!
  • Over 15% of Lucra users are women, which is estimated to be about 2x-5x the share for daily fantasy sports sites – strong validation of the platform’s approachability
  • More than 50% of Lucra users have won a contest, and nearly 45% are “net up” – metrics that correlate to limiting “user churn,” which in turn limits the need for promotional spending to replace users
  • Each Lucra user is referring about 2 additional users to the platform, and has established a network of more than 4 friends with whom to compete – metrics that highlight the network effects inherent in Lucra’s social platform
  • Prior to launch, Lucra already has been used in 30 of the 37 states where it is offered, indicative of its potency as a peer-to-peer network connecting real-life friends separated by geography

How using Lucra works

As a marketplace of user-generated sports gaming contests, Lucra provides a quick-touch, intuitive interface for users to create head-to-head contests between professional athletes based on a wide choice of individual performance measures. Users can create contests between athletes who play the same position, different positions, different games or even entirely different sports. Users can offer contests only to their friends, or to all Lucra users. And users only play fees on Lucra if they win a contest.

Examples of contests users can create on Lucra include:

  • Same sport/same position/same statistic/different games:
  • A contest wagering that quarterback Tom Brady will have more touchdowns than Aaron Rogers
  • Different sports/customized line:
  • A contest wagering that Serena Williams will have at least two more aces than Steph Curry will have three pointers

About Lucra Sports:

Lucra Sports is a peer-to-peer sports gaming platform that sits uniquely at the intersection of sports gaming and fantasy sports. Lucra allows users to create player vs. player contests in which they compete against friends for real money. Customization of players and stats allows users to be more creative than any existing platform. Social channels are at the heart of Lucra and allow you to share contests and smack talk with friend groups. Finally, Lucra is founded upon transparency, with the lowest fees in the marketplace and an easy-to-use platform that users can trust. Visit Lucra Sports at www.lucrasports.com and download the iOS app at the Apple App Store.

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