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Fantasy Sports Sites Ordered To Stop Taking Bets In New York State (nytimes.com)
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports that in a major blow to a multibillion-dollar industry that introduced sports betting to legions of young sports fans, the New York State attorney general has ordered the two biggest daily fantasy sports companies, DraftKings and FanDuel, to stop accepting bets from New York residents. He said their games constituted illegal gambling under state law. "It is clear that DraftKings and FanDuel are the leaders of a massive, multibillion-dollar scheme intended to evade the law and fleece sports fans across the country," says NY attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, "Today we have sent a clear message: not in New York, and not on my watch."
Fantasy sports companies contend that their games are not gambling because they involve more skill than luck, and because they were legally sanctioned by a 2006 federal law that exempted fantasy sports from a prohibition against processing online financial wagering. "Fantasy sports is a game of skill and legal under New York state law," says FanDuel. "This is a politician telling hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers they are not allowed to play a game they love and share with friends, family, co-workers and players across the country." The attorney general's office also said that ads on the two sites "seriously mislead New York citizens about their prospects of winning." State investigators found that to date, "the top 1 percent of DraftKings winners receive the vast majority of the winnings." Schneiderman's investigation was spurred after reports arose that a DraftKings employee used internal data to win $350,000 on rival site FanDuel, which the operators denied. While both companies had allowed employees to place bets on the others site, they have since banned such practices.
Fantasy sports companies contend that their games are not gambling because they involve more skill than luck, and because they were legally sanctioned by a 2006 federal law that exempted fantasy sports from a prohibition against processing online financial wagering. "Fantasy sports is a game of skill and legal under New York state law," says FanDuel. "This is a politician telling hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers they are not allowed to play a game they love and share with friends, family, co-workers and players across the country." The attorney general's office also said that ads on the two sites "seriously mislead New York citizens about their prospects of winning." State investigators found that to date, "the top 1 percent of DraftKings winners receive the vast majority of the winnings." Schneiderman's investigation was spurred after reports arose that a DraftKings employee used internal data to win $350,000 on rival site FanDuel, which the operators denied. While both companies had allowed employees to place bets on the others site, they have since banned such practices.
He can order all he wants, but unless a court of law compels them to stop his order is just an opinion.
Now people can stop wasting their money
Typical Nazi York government overreach tactics. So glad I don't pay taxes there anymore!
The odds are so much better!
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
No kidding. Even the Ghost Busters are banned in New York, even though all they've been trying to do is prevent the Keymaster of Gozer from joining with Zuul the Gatekeeper.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Get a PO Box in New Jersey
"Today we have sent a clear message: not in New York, and not on my watch."
Mess with football betting, and the Democrats will finally be put out to pasture.
How is it that Wall Street gets to operate? If we can't call it gambling, it's because it's rigged.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It's only a movie dude. Not real.
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
There is skill in makeing the bets based on the stats and it is gambling under the law.
It's only a movie dude. Not real.
It did happen, but you're too young to remember.
If it's gambling, then explain: "the top 1 percent of DraftKings winners receive the vast majority of the winnings."
Wouldn't there be a more even distribution of winners?
It could be that there's some combination of skill and chance like blackjack. But then it's gambling.
I'm a libertarian and I'm OK with being treated like an adult, so I would favor legalization.
Don't' get me wrong, I'm sick of seeing their commercials constantly and the participation of major league sports doesn't seem kosher.
and the electronic media who is the beneficiary of hundreds of millions in ad revenue seems to be mostly silent in this discussion.
"A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Seltzer Down your Pants" -Chuckles The Clown
Lots of gambling involves some skill. There's skill in playing poker. Sure, it involves some luck of the draw, but it also involves playing the odds and manipulating opponents. Lots of games have some skill, but they're still generally banned as illegal gambling when money is involved.
Fantasy sports are still legal, just not these sites. I can see that playing over the course of a full season is very much a game of skill. Drafting well for the season, making trades, and dropping and adding players all involve skill. Over the course of a season, the performance of a player is generally fairly predictable. It's far from perfect, but it's predictable. And that makes it more a game of skill than a game of chance.
Daily fantasy sports are more a game of chance, with much more limited skill. The performance of players is highly variable from game to game and week to week. A lousy hitter in baseball can have a great week and put up big numbers. A really good QB in football can throw four interceptions in a game and have an awful week. There's a lot of luck involved. As they say in the NFL, any given Sunday...
These sites focus on daily or weekly leagues rather than full season leagues. For that short amount of time, there's a huge amount of chance involved. Over the course of a season, the random luck usually averages out and it becomes much more a game of skill.
There's also the issue that the statistics about draft decisions aren't generally available to the public. But an employee of a daily fantasy sports site can get access to that information. Those statistics are likely to be similar with other daily fantasy sports sites. The employee has insider information that they can use to gain an edge over competitors on other sites.
M-I-Z
kU still sucks!
Protecting us from the scourge of fantasy sports. Gambling exploits people, so only government gambling that supports government payrolls should be allowed.
And that's the point. They're painting these things as games of "skill" because of its thin relation to actual fantasy sports. But there's only skill when you expand the game out long-term; you have to be strategic from week to week, pick players wisely, make good decisions, trade, etc. Daily fantasy takes away almost every element that is remotely skill-based and turns it into something that is pretty much a lottery. Speaking of that, in Canada, we have legal sports betting, and it's done through the lottery. How we do it has some issues of its own but it's better than nothing.
I've wondered how this wasn't gambling for some quite time. They say it's skill but is it really? Is it lack of skill or chance when the RB in your lineup tears his ACL on a play in the 1st quarter? Is it chance or lack of skill that the QB you chose had to leave the game with a concussion? Anyone who has ever played fantasy sports knows that no matter how much you try, you will still lose to some schmuck who knows nothing about the game and just randomly drafts a team.
From the summary:
"This is a politician telling hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers they are not allowed to play a game they love and share with friends, family, co-workers and players across the country."
All those hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are still allowed to play these games with their friends, family, and co-workers, but not while money/gambling are involved.
I'm not saying I agree with banning gambling, or what level of regulation there must be (if any), but it's a stretch to frame it like that, as if Dad is playing against his wife and kids in a friendly game.
I'm also a bit surprised this is a "multibillion-dollar industry". Maybe "surprised" is the wrong word, but wow.
No gambling isn't banned, they failed to pay off the politicians.
There are numerous gambling sites in NY. All very politically motivated and connected.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"It is clear that DraftKings and FanDuel are the leaders of a massive, multibillion-dollar scheme intended to evade the law and fleece sports fans across the country," says NY attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, "Today we have sent a clear message: not in New York, and not on my watch."
That statement might have some credibility if the State of New York didn't run their own gambling operation.
F'ing hypocrites...
Wouldn't there be a more even distribution of winners?
Not necessarily. See the NY State Lottery if you need examples.
It is gambling to bet on a team, but betting on a player isn't? I don't buy it.
There are a ton of new auction sites (Quibids, Swoopo, etc) where you actually pay for each *bid* you make, and in return you get a chance at buying the product for insanely small prices -- so for example they do penny auctions where it price for a $1,000 TV starts at $0.01 and each bid increment is a penny. The bids cost $0.60 so by the time the price reaches $100.00, the company has already made $6,000 on that TV. I'm trying to understand how fantasy sports could be considered worse than these auction sites.
I actually agree that fantasy sports are gambling, I just don't understand why some forms of gambling are banned and others are allowed.
'Nuff said.
Schneiderman, Schneiderman,
Does whatever a shyster can.
Has his lunch, issues writs[1],
Drops his pants, then he shits -
Look out, here comes the Schneiderman
[1] Couldn't think of anything that rhymes with "subpoenas" apart from "dry cleaners", and that totally won't scan.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I really don't see a difference between this and gambling at a horse track. Yes it gambling, but yes, there is a measure of skill that can help skew the results. Horse race gamblers pour over info about the horses and jockeys, the same as fantasy players pour over information about the football players. The issue here is NY is pissed they they are not getting their cut of it. The whole point of "regulating" gambling is that the States can set the percentages they get from the gambling going on.
Not without giving us our cut you don't.
Sex, fine. Sex for money, illegal.
Even if you disagree, it's still consistent. It does change if it involves money.
Learn to love Alaska
Of course it is gambling, and so should be subject to gambling regulation. If these regulations are unfair, argue against those. But fantasy sports definitely qualifies...
"Betting on the performance of individual players", is essentially betting on whether a particular player will do well/score this many points/run for this many yards/etc. They call those "props" in Vegas terms. Daily fantasy is essentially making a combination of props, which is called a "parlay". Look up the memo that Nevada's gaming board published on its similar assertion, and you'll see that calling it "fantasy sports" is literally a smokescreen for the fact that it is essentially betting. Oh, and DraftKings' CEO all but referred to it as being "almost identical to a casino" in a Reddit IamA.