“New Yorkers can certainly play on FanDuel”, Nigel Eccles, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told reporters.
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However, after the NY attorney general sent those same companies a “cease and desist” notice this week telling them their product was gambling and they needed to stop “illegally accepting wagers” in NY, their reaction was a bit different.
Four other US states ban all fantasy sports, including seasonal games run by ESPN, CBS and Yahoo.
Mr. Eccles also declined to address the matter of whether companies that process player payments, an essential link in fantasy-sports operations, would refuse to do so if the company operated in NY. SB9 makes distinctions among games of skill, games of chance and hybrid games “while recognizing that all three are gambling games”, the attorney general’s memo said. “I think if people want to gamble at their own risk and own peril then I don’t think the government should control it”.
Schneiderman said both companies are unregulated online gambling operations. “Certainly not an attorney general who is supposed to enforce the law, not create laws”.
DraftKings is headquartered in Boston, FanDuel in ny.
Are new laws necessary in MA to allow this new industry to continue? Those messages, Schneiderman says, are a tacit admission that daily fantasy sports constitute “games of chance”, which are considered gambling, and not, as the companies contend, “games of skill”.
FanDuel and DraftKings, two similar organizations that provide sports fans an outlet to place wagers on their favorite players and teams, have been ordered to stop allowing their NY customers to spend money on their fantasy services.
A few NY lawmakers were critical of Schneiderman’s stance. That’s where daily fantasy sports differs.
The pair still live in the Scottish capital, although the site’s headquarters are in NY.
“Obviously, they both deal with the same general topic, but they go apples to oranges after that”, said Chris Grove, publisher of Legal Sports Report, a website that monitors the daily fantasy sports industry.
The suit seeks an injunction prohibiting FanDuel and DraftKings from taking additional “bets” from Florida residents and forfeiture of the proceeds of any cash generated by the sites.
“I see the gambling aspect of it but I don’t necessarily see a need to over regulate these things”, said Sam Insalaco of Buffalo. These casinos began targeting these daily fantasy sites, saying there is no oversight and they are drawing a huge amount of revenue away from them, all being done completely unregulated which questions the legitimacy.
“Daily fantasy sports is neither victimless nor harmless, and it is clear that DraftKings and FanDuel are the leaders of a massive, multibillion-dollar scheme meant to evade the law and fleece sports fans across the country”, Schneiderman said in a statement issued after the letters were sent. He doesn’t think fantasy sports will atrophy like online poker after the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down its biggest players, but says new rules will squeeze smaller companies.
While the sites have opted not to do business in a handful of states, including Washington, where regulators have made clear they’re not welcome, they have been up and running in a number of others – like NY – where they’re legally dubious.
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According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, almost 57 million North Americans play fantasy sports, spending an average of $465 annually.
