Fanatics' Matt King Wants NFL Fans to Bet, Play and Engage in One Place as Thanksgiving Shapes the 2027 Draft
Thanksgiving will look familiar. Bears at Lions at 1 p.m. ET, Eagles at Cowboys at 4:30, Chiefs at Bills under the lights at 8:20. What has changed sits around the games rather than in them.
This is the first Thanksgiving since the NFL named Fanatics its Official Online Casino Marketing Partner, and the same deal puts that partner on site at next spring's draft. The NFL is no longer keeping casinos at arm's length. It is building them into the calendar, from the slot floor in Oklahoma to the stage where the first pick is announced.
Fanatics Casino Joins the League's Partner List
Ahead of the 2026 season, the NFL signed multi-year agreements with DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics Betting and Gaming. The first two are long-standing betting partners. Fanatics was the headline. Its existing merchandise and collectibles relationship with the league was expanded to cover Fanatics Sportsbook and Fanatics Casino, and the company became the NFL's Official Online Casino Marketing Partner. "We are thrilled to have three world-class partners in the sports betting category," said Renie Anderson, the league's chief revenue officer. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the scope was. Online casino now sits inside the league's commercial program by name.
Matt King, chief executive of Fanatics Betting and Gaming, said the expanded deal lets fans bet, play and engage with the league in one place. The rights include on-site presence at league events, the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft among them. That is the part draft fans should notice. The casino side of the business is no longer an ad in the third quarter. It is in the building in April.
Aristocrat's NFL Slots and the Online Side
The land-based side got there first. Aristocrat Gaming signed a multi-year licensing deal with the league in 2021, and the first NFL-themed slot machines were unveiled in July 2023 before going live at 27 U.S. properties that September. This season Aristocrat added NFL Super Grand Champions, which debuted in June at Pechanga Resort Casino and WinStar World Casino and Resort with 32 team experiences built around characters inspired by each club's city and fanbase. The game layers a Gridiron Galaxy Hold & Spin feature, a Super Grand Bonus jackpot and a wheel offering four different free-game rounds on top of the team pick, and players can choose any club regardless of where the casino sits, so a Bills fan in California can still play under Buffalo's colors.
Online is where the Fanatics deal points, and online casinos run on a different kind of information. A cabinet on a casino floor pays by that floor's rules and rarely tells you much up front. Online, every slot carries a published return to player, or RTP, the share of stakes a game is built to pay back over time, along with its volatility. That makes the highest paying online slots something you can actually compare, title by title, across studios such as Pragmatic Play, NetEnt and Hacksaw Gaming. As more fans meet casino games through the same app they use for football, those numbers are what separate one game from the next. Theme and bonus features decide what looks fun. RTP and volatility decide how a session actually plays out, which is why the first thing worth checking on any new slot is the number, not the logo on the reels.
Eagles at Cowboys Is the Thanksgiving Game for the Draft
Through six weeks, the bottom of the league was crowded. The Chargers were 0-6, the Dolphins 0-5, and the Titans and Buccaneers both 1-5, with the Commanders at 1-3-1. Behind them sat a cluster of 2-4 teams, the Jets, Texans and Cardinals among them. None of them plays on Thanksgiving, but the holiday still moves the order.
The game that matters most for April is in Dallas. The Eagles and Cowboys both reached the second half of October at 2-4, and the Eagles sat seventh in the NFL Draft Buzz order after Week 6. Whoever loses that 4:30 kickoff takes a real step toward the top ten. The other two games point the other way. The Bears (4-2) and Lions (3-2) are fighting over the NFC North, and the 5-0 Chiefs against the 5-1 Bills is about seeding, which leaves those four teams looking at the back end of round one.
Holiday games are also prime time for the league's partners. The new deals give them access to NFL media inventory, including in-game advertising with the league's broadcast partners, so with an online casino partner now in the mix, the commercial side of Thanksgiving will look different even if the football does not.
Every result from that weekend feeds straight into the 2027 NFL Draft order, which updates week by week through the regular season ahead of the draft from April 29th to May 1st, 2027.
Six Weeks Left After Thanksgiving
After Thanksgiving there are six weeks left in the regular season, and December is when tanking turns into arithmetic. The teams at the top of the order will be watching tiebreakers while the contenders chase seeds. Come April, whichever franchise holds the first pick will make it on a stage the league now shares with its betting and online casino partners. The draft has always been about the future of 32 teams. This year it is also a window into where the league's business is heading, from the slot floor to the phone.