Texas latest state to call daily fantasy sports illegal

Daily fantasy sports sites operating online in Texas are doing so illegally, according to an opinion released by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday.

The opinion makes clear that traditional fantasy sports leagues are, as a general rule, legal under Texas law.

An attorney general’s legal opinion does not have the force of law in Texas, but is considered “highly persuasive” and “entitled to great weight” by the courts, Paxton’s office said on its website. “Accordingly, a court would likely determine that participation in daily fantasy sports leagues is illegal gambling”.

“Simply put, it is prohibited gambling in Texas if you bet on the performance of a participant in a sporting event and the house takes a cut”, Paxton said Tuesday.

Last week, a top law enforcement official in Vermont said fantasy sports games are illegal in that state as lawmakers there took up discussion of a bill that would exempt the popular games from the state’s anti-gambling laws.

A DraftKings logo is displayed on a board inside of the DFS Players Conference in New York November 13, 2015.

Paxton forcefully rebutted that assertion: “Texas law does not require that skill predominate”, he wrote succinctly. The request came days after New York’s attorney general declared such sites to be illegal gambling.

The opinion doesn’t have any immediate impact on daily fantasy sports sites, such as such as DraftKings and FanDuel.

The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is holding its winter meeting this week in Dallas, Texas.

The newspaper based its report on more than 400 emails, including communications with fantasy sports lobbyists, that it reviewed.

Importantly, the decision differentiates between daily and seasonal fantasy games.

Grief said in a written statement that he would say only that the commission had stopped its efforts.