Vancouver-based sports betting and iGaming provider FansUnite Entertainment is acquiring the businesses and brands of American Affiliate, established by industry entrepreneur Chris Grove.

FansUnite will pay $58.2m to acquire the business, which it said in a release would help strengthen its position in the U.S. online betting market and serve as the cornerstone of a wider U.S. affiliate strategy. The release noted American Affiliates’ Betting Hero brand is the number-one live activation company in the U.S. sports betting and online gambling market.

American Affiliate is a collection of assets focused on generating new depositing customers for legal sportsbooks, online casinos, online poker site, and adjacent products in the U.S. To date, it has generated more than 150,000 new depositing customers for major U.S. brands such as DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, PointsBet, and WynnBet. It also counts Betting Hero, Props.com, BetPrep, and Wagers.com among its network of affiliate brands.

FansUnite chief executive Scott Burton said the acquisition of American Affiliate represents the most significant milestone for FansUnite to date, noting it made “clear strategic sense” to enter the affiliate market to establish links with some of the betting sector’s largest brands as the U.S. expands.

“This transformative transaction will provide us further access to the lucrative US regulated sports betting and online gambling market while generating accretive, high-margin revenue, expanding our leadership team, and accelerating the growth of our company’s footprint in the global gambling market,” Burton said. “We will now own and operate an unparalleled customer acquisition portfolio, allowing us to leverage our technology, brands, and talent to immediately capture share in the US sports betting and online gambling market.”

American Affiliate chief executive Grove said sportsbooks were spending billions to acquire and retain customers, and his business’ teams and technology could facilitate that while “producing some of the highest margins in the U.S. online betting ecosystem”.

“But that success is only a starting point, we anticipate unprecedented near-term growth as legal online betting continues to expand into new states and new products,” Grove added. “Joining with FansUnite was key to our strategy of aggressively scaling our business to meet that opportunity head-on.”

While this acquisition is squarely focused on the U.S. market, FansUnite has also taken strides in its Canadian operations in recent weeks.

The Canadian Gaming Association member announced on November 1 it has formally applied to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) to become a fully registered Gaming Related Supplier – Manufacturer, which would give it license to provide its full-service proprietary sports, esports, and casino white-label gaming platform Chameleon to other AGCO-approved operators.