Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra is now CEO of one of those technically-not-gambling daily fantasy sports apps

Former Blizzard President Mike Ybarra has a new position: CEO of PrizePicks. This is a daily fantasy sports firm.

Ybarra and Jen Oneal were appointed as co-heads of Blizzard in 2021. The pair replaced J Allen Brack who resigned after the California civil rights suit. Ybarra was the sole head of the studio until this year when Ybarra unexpectedly quit after the Microsoft acquisition. Johanna Faries, former Call of Duty general manger, is now Blizzard's president.

Ybarra announced that he was resigning at the same time as Microsoft laid off nearly 2,000 gaming employees, including a Blizzard team that had been working on a survival game. He gave little explanation, saying that it was "time for him to go". According to Jason Schreier of the reporter Jason Schreier's, Ybarra said previously that they would have to "drag him" away from Blizzard.

Ybarra’s new job does not give us any obvious clues as to what happened between him and Blizzard or Microsoft. In the press release he only mentions his old job briefly, and says that "PrizePicks" is the most exciting sports entertainment company today.

Ybarra's jump from PC games to Daily Fantasy Sports is suggestive. Recent innovations in the videogame industry, such as loot boxes and battle passes, daily missions, and rotating shops, would be right at home with daily fantasy sports and gambling.

Daily fantasy sports were born in the 2010s because of a loophole that exists in US law. Many places that ban gambling do not outlaw fantasy sports leagues that offer cash prizes. They are considered games that require skill, but there is no rule that states that the leagues must last the entire season. In apps such as DraftKings or PrizePicks players pay to enter contests where they select the rosters of athletes that are competing on a given day. If their picks do better than others, they win cash prizes.

Mobile gaming platforms such as Skillz offer cash prizes to players who compete in small-scale competitions. (Skillz refers to them as "casual mobile gaming tourneys," but I'd argue that if you put money down on Solitaire, you're not casual solitaire players.)