The US Federal Trade Commission has joined two US states to seek an injunction blocking the merger of the corporate-backed daily fantasy sports companies.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking to block the agreed merger between US-based daily sports fantasy platforms DraftKings and FanDuel on competition grounds.

FanDuel and DraftKings operate broadly similar business models, running games where users can pick fantasy teams for each round of a sporting league and pay to enter a contest, winning money if their players perform best.

The companies, which between them have raised a total of approximately $1.05bn from a pool of investors including several…