NY Asks Court to Shut Down FanDuel, DraftKings

“Yahoo does not comment on legal matters”, a spokesman said in a statement.

In the preliminary statement, NY Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman wrote that: “DraftKings, Inc”.

But for users who have questions about contests, please read below. “Today we have sent a clear message: not in NY, and not on my watch”.

Last week, daily sports fantasy site FanDuel quit taking new deposits from players in NY.

Schneiderman recently issued a formal cease-and-desist letter, ordering two major fantasy sports companies, DraftKings and FanDuel, to stop accepting sports bets from NY residents.

“Poker and DFS are both interactive games with a high degree of skill, which fosters critical thinking”, Pappas stated. If the restraining order goes through, FanDuel could operate despite the Attorney General’s actions.

The NY State Constitution has prohibited bookmaking and other forms of sports gambling since 1894.

FanDual stands by their business saying the company complied with state and federal law. “We look forward to the court vindicating our position next week”, a company spokesperson said. Unlike in games of chance, where the outcome of the game is predicated on a randomizing device, the outcome in games of skill is determined mainly by the player’s mental (or physical) skill, with a minor degree of chance. “Here, chance plays just as much of a role (if not more) than it does in games like poker and blackjack”.

He charges that Schneiderman and his office kept plans to shut down the games a secret from DraftKings despite a month of communication between his office and the companies. FanDuel told an early investor that its target market is the male sports fan who “cannot gamble online legally”. “‘We strongly disagree with the reasoning in his opinion and will examine and vigorously pursue all legal options available to ensure our over half a million customers in NY State can continue to play the fantasy sports games they love'”. The complaints against both companies were identical in many ways. Schneiderman contrasts DraftKings’ claims of easy winnings with the site’s own stats that show 89.3% of DFS players had a negative return on their investment between 2013 and 2014.

The rejection of the gambling label by the DFS sites is particularly hard to square with the overt strategy of recruiting gamblers. On Sunday, no topic was more important in the comedian’s eyes than DFS.

That might seem extremely unfair, especially as the other 99 percent consistently pour money and false hopes into their accounts week after week.

– The sites harm the community by fostering gambling addiction. But, in the long term, the popularity of DFS and the marketing and business skills displayed at DraftKings and FanDuel could generate historic change in the sports betting industry.

FanDuel said it is “temporarily suspending entry in paid contests for people located in NY”, in a statement on Tuesday.