Boston: MA AG Proposes Regs for Fantasy Sports

Today, MA Attorney General Maura Healey filed proposals that will impose tighter regulations on operation of the industry within the state.

“This is a form of gambling“. So, you are spending money in hopes of winning money, which leads us to one very important question: How is this legal? Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment.

Since the start of the National Football League season in September and a deluge of fantasy sports business ads, Beacon Hill has been abuzz with debate over whether daily fantasy sports is gambling or a game of skill, and whether the state ought to regulate the burgeoning industry.

“Because of this, student-athletes, coaches, administrators and national office staff may not participate in sports wagering, including fantasy league games with a paid entry fee”.

Initially, online DFS games were legal in the state because land-based casinos only offer traditional sports betting, not fantasy sports games. People calling for regulation feel they are strong enough to reign in the industry, and the industry (by and large) believes the regulations aren’t so burdensome as to be crippling to their business. He drew a clear connection between daily fantasy and other types of gambling.

Players may not open more than one account.

Golfweek reports the Tour shared its view in a weekly newsletter shared with members, telling players to keep away from the games because they are considered illegal in several states and banned in several others. This is nearly certainly true as an academic argument. But what used to be a game played between close friends in leagues with annual drafts is quickly evolving.

DraftKings told ESPN that the “purported FSTA board minutes are not a verbatim transcript”, merely an “interpretation … by one non-lawyer reflecting what another non-lawyer said about a complex law”. “Why is that so?”

Operators must limit the number of entries in each contest based on total entries.

In daily fantasy, putting together your roster is usually determined by the “price” of each player, and there’s a cap on how many fantasy bucks you can spend. The daily fantasy industry is just over five years old yet these two companies plan to pay out a billion dollars to players this year.

That seems unlikely, at least in the short term. The negative publicity that DraftKings and FanDuel have inspired through omnipresent -and allegedly misleading-advertising hurts that cause. Under Healey’s recommendations, the regulation of the DFS industry would fall under consumer protections and not as gaming, as Gambling Compliance’s Kevin Cochran noted on Twitter. But actions like Healey’s would allow the industry to clean itself up without shutting down.

The proposal represents a much lighter touch than most of the regulators who’ve taken a shot at the industry in the past month – especially the current legal challenge from the NY attorney general’s office, which has adopted the most hard-line approach yet towards shutting the industry down.

At Healey’s press conference, she was asked explicitly whether she thought that sports gambling itself should be legal.