Fantasy big calls it ‘betting’
Interview oops
LAS VEGAS — As more states scrutinize the daily fantasysports industry, the office of Nevada’s attorney general said it used DraftKings’ own words and online images as evidence the sites qualify as gambling.
A day after Nevada regulators ordered the sites out of the state unless they get a gambling license, a memo issued Friday cited a threeyearold online “Ask Me Anything” interview on Reddit.com where the office of the state’s attorney general said DraftKings CEO Jason Robins compared his site to a casino and described the concept as a mashup between poker and fantasy sports. The memo also pointed to text attached to images on DraftKings’ Web site that used the word “betting” to describe it.
DraftKings and others in the fantasysports industry, including competitor FanDuel, have insisted their sites aren’t gambling and are legal under a 2006 federal law that exempted fantasy sports from onlinegambling prohibition.
“It appears that although the sites’ representatives publicly state that they do not believe daily fantasy sports involve ‘wagers’ or ‘bets,’ they do use the terms ‘betting’ and ‘wagering’ when they are not dealing with lawenforcement agencies,” the memo noted.
DraftKings did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In less than two weeks, the two highprofile companies in the evergrowing industry had gone from being a seemingly unstoppable, untouchable force to facing intense scrutiny of their business practices and legality from investigators, lawmakers, regulators and even their own players after it was revealed employees often played on competing sites, raising questions about insider information being used to win.
Nevada’s determination is being watched by other states and lawmakers weighing whether the sites constitute gambling or not based on their own laws.
Participants on the unregulated sites assemble teams that earn the most points based on reallife stats by players.
Entry fees on DraftKings range from 25 cents to more than $5,000. Some prizes top $1 million.