American daily fantasy sports operator DraftKings has announced that it intends to start offering its online contests to players in Australia later this year after receiving a license from the Northern Territory Racing Commission.

Boston-based DraftKings explained that Australia has become the eighth nation to license its services before stating that it plans to begin granting punters from Perth to Proserpine access to its range of daily and weekly fantasy contests covering ten professional sports during the second quarter of 2018.

“Australia is an important market for DraftKings as it combines devoted sports fans with sophisticated [and] tech-savvy consumers, [which are] exactly the kind of people who love competing on DraftKings.” read a Tuesday statement from Jason Robins, Chief Executive Officer for DraftKings.

DraftKings proclaimed that the Australia authorization represents the first time its services have been licensed outside of Europe and North America in advance of estimating the giant southern nation’s current fantasy sports market at around 1.65 million players.

“Within the last few years, Australia’s burgeoning fantasy sports market has dramatically evolved, adding a variety of daily fantasy sports platforms, feeding the appetite of the many passionate sports fans who love getting closer to the teams, athletes and sports they love,” read the statement from Robins.

DraftKings declared that fantasy sports contest customers ‘enhance the overall sports media market’ by engaging with more content than non-enthusiasts and ‘adding value to nearly all aspects of the sports experience’. It also cited a recent company survey as indicating that nearly half of its players had begun to follow another sport since first using its services while some 80% had increased their overall consumption of sports content.