One of the hottest trends in sports right now is the fantasy league, and of those, it’s fantasy football. Two of the biggest players in that arena are DraftKings and FanDuel made headlines during the off-season when Wall Street handed them a large financial boost grow their businesses.
Many of us play, or know someone who plays in a fantasy league, and many of us run multiple teams at the same exact time. It can be a real life-changing-experience for some people and some of those changes are good, but mostly they are bad. Many buy into the idea that they can spend a little money and hit it big just because they have a little knowledge of how the game is played and how the players of the game, play. Like most players of fantasy football they are not hitting it big and as they fuel their addiction and attempt try to broaden their chances of winning big, they fill the pockets of glorified corporation style bookies, who is only taking advantage of your addiction.
It is considered illegal gambling by definition under federal law, but the federal law allows state governments to dictate the legality of their own laws pertaining to gambling. Recently, three states, Texas, New York, and Illinois have already stepped up and deemed the daily fantasy sports as illegal, citing that is prohibited gambling if you bet on the performance of a participant in a sporting event and the house takes a cut. Similarly, some laws state that all games of chance or skill, when played for money, are illegal gambling.
The New York attorney General has already told both DraftKings and FanDuel they must stop taking bets in New York, as their operation is tantamount to illegal gambling.
Last year gambling regulators in Nevada recently issued cease and desist letters to FanDuel and DraftKings stating you can do this, but if you’re going to do this in our state it’s going to require a licensing fee, and in this case it’s $500,000. Also last year, the US attorney’s office in Boston had subpoenaed DraftKings Inc., seeking information about whether one of its employees had inside information that helped him win a fantasy sports contest on a competitor’s site.
Florida is also looking into whether or not the daily fantasy will be outlawed.
