Hawaii, Indiana, and Mississippi are three states where daily fantasy sports (DFS) is being debated. The three states are representative of what is likely to occur in every state.
Last week, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin issued an advisory opinion that DFS was gambling under Hawaii law.
Gambling generally occurs under Hawaii law when a person stakes or risks something of value upon a game of chance or upon any future contingent event not under the person’s control…The technology may have changed, but the vice has not.
Gambling is illegal in Hawaii, and on January 27, 2016, the state Attorney General issued a formal advisory opinion confirming what I have long believed: That daily fantasy sports contests are a form of gambling and violate Hawaii statutes.
It appears DraftKings will leave Hawaii.
Meanwhile, the Mississippi Attorney General also issued an opinion that DFS is illegal in the state. The opinion notes that DFS would be illegal both in a casino (there are casinos in Mississippi) and outside of a casino. Neither DraftKings nor FanDuel has left the Magnolia State.
Today, the Indiana State Senate sent legislation to the Indiana House that would explicitly legalize and regulate DFS. It is unclear whether or not the bill will eventually make it into law.
The wild cards that could both negatively or positively impact DFS are:
- Will the current federal investigations of DFS in Florida lead to prosecutions?
- Will New Jersey win the en banc appeal of New Jersey’s legalization of sports betting (the lower court and the Court of Appeals ruled that New Jersey was barred by the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA))? A loss by New Jersey could make DFS illegal nationally; one interpretation of PASPA is that it makes all sports betting, including indirect betting such as DFS, illegal (except for the states specifically exempted within the law). A win by New Jersey might overturn PASPA.
- Will the lawsuits and appeals filed by DFS companies in New York and Illinois succeed in anything but delaying DFS exits from these states?
- Will the payment processors leave DFS making the industry financially unable to continue?
- Will the IRS rule that DFS is or isn’t gambling?
- Will Congress act on gambling in any manner?
- Will an anti-gambling candidate become the next President of the United States?
A lot will happen over the next two to three months. Because it’s Tax Season, I won’t be following this as closely as I have been over the last couple of months. A great resource on DFS is the Legal Sports Report.
An observer might ask, what does this all mean? I believe that we will see a dichotomy within the states on how they treat DFS. I believe that about 20 states will explicitly ban DFS, another 20 states will legalize and regulate DFS, while a few states will ignore DFS and let it continue in its current unregulated state. But the wild cards noted above could drive the DFS industry under or make it wildly successful.
Tags: daily.fantasy.sports