PrizePicks Built Its Atlanta Headquarters in a Betting Holdout

PrizePicks cut the ribbon on a 33,000-square-foot Midtown Atlanta headquarters on December 12, 2024, with Gov. Brian Kemp at the scissors. Georgia still has no legal sportsbooks. The daily fantasy company, founded in Atlanta, used the day to pledge hometown jobs and a tech-hub pitch.

The bet underneath the bunting was simpler. PrizePicks sells pick’em contests in a state that will not license FanDuel or DraftKings to take a Falcons spread. Allwyn later paid $1,533 million for a majority stake, and the Georgia House still voted sports betting down.

PrizePicks Cut the Ribbon in a Betting Holdout

The ceremony sat in the Star Metals building at 1055 Howell Mill Road, in West Midtown. Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp joined CEO Mike Ybarra and the rest of the leadership team for what the company called a ceremonial opening of its new 33,000-square foot headquarters, with staff set to move in during early 2025.

PrizePicks said the project would create an economic impact of $25 million for Georgia. On April 4, 2024, when it first announced the lease, the company also committed to 1,000 new jobs over the next seven years. Kemp, speaking that spring, called Georgia a driver of tech growth and said he looked forward to seeing the impact of those thousand jobs on Atlanta.

I want to thank the entire PrizePicks team for your commitment to creating jobs and fostering innovation. Today is certainly a proud moment for both this team, but also for our state. It spotlights areas where we’re seeing our greatest success stories.

Gov. Brian Kemp, ribbon-cutting, Star Metals, December 12, 2024

Ybarra, who had taken the chief executive job in August 2024 after running Blizzard Entertainment, thanked the Kemps and talked about homegrown talent and recruiting tech workers from other states. The company about-blurb that week said it was operating in 46 jurisdictions. Sports betting was illegal in the building’s own ZIP code.

Kemp is term-limited and will leave office after the November 3, 2026 election. The headquarters outlasts the photo op. It is still the company’s listed home, and it still sits in a state with no sportsbook licenses.

The Office Was Built to Look Like Las Vegas

The top floors were still bare concrete and glass when the ribbon came down. Ybarra told guests he wanted the finished rooms to feel like a Las Vegas sportsbook, with high-top bars and screens on every game. “Imagine you’re in Las Vegas and you see all those screens with games on them. We’re going to mirror that here,” he said.

That is a loud design brief for a company that insists it is not a book. PrizePicks frames its product as skill-based daily fantasy, closer to assembling a lineup than laying a point spread. Ybarra has compared users to people who study stats the way a fund manager studies holdings. The office aesthetic points the other way: a trading floor for player props, built in a city that cannot host a licensed window.

The company said it expected to occupy the space in February 2025. Independent headcounts of how many of the 1,000 pledged roles have been filled have not been published. The pledge itself still runs on the April 2024 clock, through 2031. Star Metals remains the address Allwyn used when it described PrizePicks as headquartered in Atlanta.

People who actually open the app already treat it like a sportsbook. They check whether PrizePicks is legal before they book a trip, the same way they would check FanDuel. Some play it as a guess with no roster knowledge at all. That habit is the point of the Atlanta floor plan. The screens are for sweating picks, not for drafting a season-long team.

Georgia’s House Voted Down Sports Betting Again

Georgia has no licensing framework for online or retail sportsbooks. Licensed U.S. books run a geolocation check and refuse a wager if the phone is in the state. The constitution and criminal statutes still treat casino-style gambling as forbidden, with narrow exceptions for the lottery and charitable games. Daily fantasy is the workaround residents actually use.

Lawmakers have tried for years to put sports betting on the ballot or to tuck it under the lottery. They have not gotten it out of the House with the votes a constitutional change requires.

THE PRIZEPICKS ATLANTA TIMELINE

1. April 4, 2024: PrizePicks announces the Star Metals headquarters, 1,000 jobs over seven years, and a $25 million economic impact for Georgia.
2. December 12, 2024: Kemp cuts the ribbon; the company says staff will occupy the office in early 2025.
3. February 2025: Planned move-in date for the 33,000-square-foot floor.
4. September 22, 2025: Allwyn agrees to buy a majority stake at a $2.5 billion upfront value.
5. November 2025: PrizePicks launches regulated prediction markets and partners with Kalshi and Polymarket.
6. January 16, 2026: Allwyn closes, paying $1,533 million for 62.3%.
7. March 6, 2026: The Georgia House votes down HR 450, 63 to 98, on Crossover Day.

HR 450 needed a two-thirds majority, 120 votes in the 180-seat House, to send a constitutional amendment toward the ballot. It received 63 yes votes and 98 no, 57 short of the bar. Rep. Matt Hatchett’s HB 910, which tried to legalize mobile sports betting as a lottery product without amending the constitution, also failed to advance. A House study committee had spent 2025 writing recommendations. None of that produced a license.

WHAT GEORGIA ALLOWS NEXT TO THE HQ

California and Texas are the only larger states still sitting out legal sports betting. Georgia’s holdout is now a business fact for the company that put its name on Howell Mill Road, not a pending surprise.

Allwyn Paid $1.53 Billion for a Majority Stake

On January 16, 2026, Allwyn International AG completed its purchase of a 62.3% stake in PrizePicks. The closing check was $1,533 million, subject to ordinary post-close adjustments and excluding earnouts. PrizePicks carried no loans at closing. Ybarra stayed CEO. Co-founders Adam Wexler and Jay Deuskar, plus the rest of the management team, kept most of their existing ownership. Wexler joined the board. PrizePicks remains a standalone brand.

The September 22, 2025 agreement had put the expected cash at about $1.6 billion and the upfront enterprise value at $2.5 billion, with performance-based earnouts of up to about $1.0 billion in 2029 that could lift the implied value to $4.15 billion. Those earnouts were not part of the $1,533 million close.

Allwyn’s investor deck is the cleanest look at why a lottery group wrote that check. PrizePicks reported $339 million in adjusted earnings for the twelve months ended June 2025, with revenue up more than 60% from the prior year. The same pack listed more than 20 million registered player accounts and about 2 million monthly active players, across more than 45 U.S. jurisdictions at announcement. By the January close, Allwyn said the company was operating in more than 48 jurisdictions.

THE ALLWYN CHECK

• Stake bought: 62.3% of PrizePicks, closed January 16, 2026.
• Cash at close: $1,533 million, with PrizePicks carrying no debt.
• Upfront value: $2.5 billion enterprise value in the September 2025 agreement.
• Run-rate: $339 million adjusted earnings in the year through June 2025, revenue up more than 60%.

Allwyn already runs lotteries, including Illinois. PrizePicks gives it a mobile sports product in the states that still will not license a sportsbook, and a prediction-markets wedge in the states that will. Robert Chvatal, Allwyn’s chief executive, said the deal strengthens the group’s presence in the United States. Ybarra called it a defining moment and pointed to Allwyn’s scale. Neither man mentioned Georgia’s constitution. They did not have to. The customer map already does.

The Fantasy Contests Bill Georgia Never Passed

Georgia never finished the law that would have licensed and taxed the product PrizePicks sells from Midtown. In 2017 the House passed HB 118, titled the Fantasy Contests Act, by 126 to 32. The bill would have required fantasy contest operators to register, set player protections, and collect tax. The Senate tabled it on March 28, 2017, brought it back, and tabled it again on March 27, 2018. The Fantasy Contests Act died in the Senate and never became a statute.

A later try, HB 1329 in 2024, would have put fantasy contests under the lottery corporation and charged a 20% privilege tax on adjusted receipts. It did not reach the Senate. PrizePicks and its rivals serve Georgia anyway, in the gap between no prohibition and no license. That is a different posture from Tennessee or Massachusetts, where the Allwyn deck says PrizePicks holds the permit those states require.

BILLS THAT NEVER BECAME THE RULES

• HB 118, 2017-18: House passed the Fantasy Contests Act 126-32; Senate tabled it twice and never sent it to the governor.
• HB 1329, 2024: Lottery-run fantasy contests with a 20% receipts tax; died before the Senate.
• HR 450, 2026: Constitutional amendment for sports betting; House 63-98 on March 6, 57 votes short of 120.
• HB 910, 2026: Lottery-product path for mobile sports betting; failed to advance on Crossover Day.

The skill-versus-chance fight is the legal story PrizePicks tells everywhere it does not hold a betting license. The Allwyn pack describes DFS+ as peer-to-peer pick’em: a user selects two to six player stats, chooses more or less against a posted line, pays an entry, and wins against other users, not against a house book. After several states treated against-the-house pick’em as sports betting, PrizePicks shifted the live product toward that peer-to-peer pool. The Georgia user still cannot open a legal Falcons moneyline. They can still tap more or less on Bijan Robinson’s rushing yards from a phone in Midtown.

How Pick’em Fills the Georgia Vacuum

The mechanic is short. A slate lists athletes and a number, 27.5 points, 64.5 rushing yards, 6.5 strikeouts. The user builds a two-to-six-pick card, pays an entry, and waits for the games. PrizePicks prices the lines in house. That is why the Vegas-screen office is not a metaphor. The company is in the projection business, even when the contest is pooled against other users.

After the Allwyn announcement, PrizePicks added two more products. Team Picks, live in 30 states and Washington, D.C., lets users pick team outcomes instead of single-player stats. Culture Picks, live in 48 states and D.C., extends the same more/less format to awards shows and other non-sports events. The November 2025 prediction-markets launch, with Kalshi and Polymarket, and a Futures Commission Merchant registration from the National Futures Association, pushed the same company into event contracts that sit under federal commodities rules rather than a state sportsbook statute.

That mix is the Atlanta bet in product form. Holdout states still generate DFS volume because the sportsbook door is locked. Prediction markets and culture picks keep the app open if a state attorney general decides pick’em is betting. California’s attorney general issued an opinion that daily fantasy is sports betting, and PrizePicks moved that state onto its Arena peer-to-peer pool. Georgia has not issued that opinion. It also has not issued a sportsbook license. The hometown HQ sits in the space between those two facts.

Kemp’s line at the ribbon was about jobs and innovation. Ybarra’s line was about talent. The screens on the wall, the $1,533 million close, and the 63-98 vote are the same story told in three rooms. PrizePicks built a sportsbook-shaped office in a state that will not permit a sportsbook, then sold most of the company to a lottery operator that knows how to live next to a ban. Georgia’s next governor will inherit the building, the jobs pledge through 2031, and a House that has not found 120 votes.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did PrizePicks first announce the Star Metals headquarters?

April 4, 2024, while Adam Wexler was still co-founder and CEO; the company also cited Inc. 5000 fastest-growing sports-company ranking from 2023 and a Technology Association of Georgia top-10 nod from the same year in that announcement, months before Ybarra took over in August 2024 and months before the December ribbon.

Did Georgia ever license daily fantasy operators?

No. HB 118 would have created registration, consumer rules, and tax, but after the House vote of 126-32 on March 1, 2017, the Senate tabled the bill on March 27, 2018, so PrizePicks serves Georgia without a dedicated fantasy-contest permit of the kind it holds in states that require one, including Tennessee, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Alabama.

Who runs PrizePicks after Allwyn’s purchase?

Mike Ybarra remains chief executive, after a career that included 20 years at Microsoft and the presidency of Blizzard Entertainment; Marcus Sanford, formerly Blizzard’s CFO, is CFO, and Mike Quigley, formerly CMO at Niantic, is CMO, with Jay Deuskar still CTO and co-founder.

How is PrizePicks’ pick’em contest structured for a user?

A user picks more or less on two to six posted player statistics for games that day, pays an entry into a pool with other users, and wins by topping that group or hitting a perfect card, which is the format Allwyn’s deck calls DFS+ and which PrizePicks leaned on after several states treated house-banked pick’em as sports betting.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of PrizePicks’ Atlanta headquarters, Georgia’s gambling rules, and Allwyn’s completed purchase. It is informational only and is not betting advice, investment advice, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation to use daily fantasy apps, prediction markets, or lottery products. Readers who want to wager, invest, or rely on a state’s gambling law should consult a licensed attorney in that state and, if gambling is causing harm, a qualified counselor or a problem-gambling helpline. Job counts, license maps, vote tallies, and deal figures reflect the company, state, and Allwyn materials cited here and can change as hiring, bills, and products move.