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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
The odds are so much better!
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
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.
It's only a movie dude. Not real.
It did happen, but you're too young to remember.
Governments all over the world tend to take a hostile view on gambling... unless they get a piece of the pie.
horse racing is regulated and defined as gambling in pretty much any country that regulates gambling though.
or put in other way, if betting on sports straight up is gambling then fantasy sports betting is gambling too. exactly same amount of 'skill'.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
Arizona, Montana and Nevada banned FanDuel and DraftKings long before NY did. How you got modded insightful is beyond me.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
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.
I'll just be happy if I don't have to see their stupid adds shitting up TV constantly. 50% of all commercials being for Draft Kings or Fan Duel during NFL games is rather much...
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.
That is the key example. In horse race betting:
- bettors look at the stats of the horse in previous races and against various competitors. Just like looking at stats for a QB, running back or wide receiver.
- bettors look at the jockey and their results with different types of horses. similar to checking out the coach or how team mates impact results in football.
- bettors look at the length of race and track conditions and how well a horse did in similar conditions. In football we look at weather, dome or not, on the road or at home.
Football games and results can be impacted by defense and horse races by how other horse block the path of a horse, or who rides the rail and which gate they get. Not perfect but all of the above show that fantasy sports betting and race betting are basically the same, with the fantasy guys doing a lot of marketing to try to create a new reality and promote their business as not being betting. But we all know better. In horse racing if we pick a trifecta based on all of these stats and past results it is *GAMBLING*. Fantasy sports is basically not different. It isn't a game of skill, but is as much a game of chance as horse race betting.