By Abby Newman For years, people all over the United States have enjoyed the pleasure and excitement of participating in fantasy sports leagues. Fantasy sports are part of an online gaming system in which participants choose players from sports teams in order to win money based on the players’ skill. The idea of fantasy sports began with Major League Baseball in 1979 and has since skyrocketed into a multi-billion-dollar industry (1). While fantasy sports can be a fun pastime among friends, in the past six years a new form of fantasy sports, known as daily fantasy sports has emerged and left the country in an everlasting game of tug of war concerning its legality, for it allows participants to obtain large portions of money in a manner that closely resembles internet gambling. According to the Legal Sports Report website, online daily fantasy sports franchises, FanDuel and DraftKings being the most prominent, are already considered illegal in the states of Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada and Washington (2). Within the past month, a New York judge ruled that FanDuel and DraftKings must be shut down in the state of New York as well (3). This has been an overlying issue in New York since November when Attorney General Eric Schneiderman demanded that the two major daily fantasy sports companies cease operations. FanDuel and DraftKings immediately fought back, arguing that each have been operating legally for years in the state of New York. David Boies, the legal counsel on behalf of FanDuel and DraftKings argued that while these companies may be considered illegal elsewhere, they do not violate the gambling laws of New York, which are largely based on the material element of chance (4). DraftKings explicitly states on its website that “Daily fantasy sports is a skill game and not considered gambling” (5). However, this did not alter the growing opinion that these entities are “the leaders of a massive, multi-billion-dollar scheme intended to evade the law and fleece sports fans across the country”, in the words of the Gaming Control Board of Nevada. While the Attorney General may have deactivated the companies for now, Boies clearly stated in an interview with Fortune that a change in the law should come from the legislation and not a single prosecutor, and warned that shutting down FanDuel and DraftKings would have excruciating national economic consequences (4). That being said, this may not be the end of daily fantasy sports. While this issue may have been temporarily settled in New York, the game of tug of war still continues, with the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, or the UIGEA, serving as the rope. The UIGEA was created in 2006 in order to monitor the growing issue of internet gambling. This law says explicitly that it is illegal to place stakes on the outcome of a sporting event, which would easily make daily fantasy sports illegal. However, there are six provisions of the UIGEA that serve as a sort of life preserver for fantasy sports. These provisions are as follows: 1. prohibit participants from controlling “fantasy teams” of only athletes from one professional or amateur organization; With this in mind, fantasy sports companies should be able to operate as usual, but many people still believe that fantasy sports are not games of skill, but games of chance. Other arguments can be made that provision #1 was violated in the 2015 Super Bowl, when a fantasy sports company allowed its participants to choose from only the players competing in the Super Bowl, which is one professional organization (6).
Other arguments in favor of daily fantasy sports involve the vast economic impact that the industry has on the United States. Focusing specifically on the case of fantasy football, these games have changed the way that fans follow the sport. In the past, NFL fans generally would only focus on local games, but now that their money is on the line, fans view games taking place across the country each week. It is said that the NFL paid DirecTV 1.5 billion dollars to show out of town games each week for local viewers. In addition to that, an entire new network entitled NFL RedZone was created for the sole purpose of broadcasting fantasy stats. Stadiums across the country also began showing fantasy stats on the big screen during games and upgrading the stadium wi-fi in order for fans to stay updated (1). If fantasy sports are eliminated, the economic downfall would be lethal, due to the amount already spent by just the NFL alone. This is not to mention the advertising done by FanDuel and DraftKings. Since the ruling, entries for FanDuel have dropped 25% and DraftKings by 12%, instituting the downfall of a business, which is a terrifying thought in this economy (3). No matter what the final outcome in this series of events, there is no clear winner. Either unlawful internet gambling continues, or the economy suffers a mighty blow. This just shows that the legal system is in no way a fantasy. Sometimes heavy consequences may ensue, but that is the price we pay for a just legal system. Works Cited
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
March 2018
Categories |