GAMBLING: Are online fantasy websites illegal, and should they be?
By Andrew Carlson, Staff Writer
Everywhere you look, there are advertisements for online fantasy sports offering extensive amounts of cash. While it may seem like your average, barely legal claim with several strings attached, some lawyers have tried to make an argument that those websites, particularly DraftKings and FanDuel, violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which “prohibits any person engaged in the business of betting or wagering from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling.” This gambling act has prevented many forms of online gambling, but there are some loopholes, as seen in the fantasy argument.
The corporations have been able to stay legal because they are “games of skill, not chance.” Despite this argument, a few states have made Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) illegal, the most recent being New York. The state attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, ordered DraftKings and FanDuel to stop accepting “wagers” in the state. His basis for this controversial act was that “each DraftKings/FanDuel wager represents a wager on a ‘contest of chance’ where winning or losing depends on numerous elements of chance to a ‘material degree.'” Due to this criteria, Schneiderman deduced that the customers of DraftKings and FanDuel “are clearly placing bets on events outside their control of influence, specifically on the real game performance of professional athletes.” Schneiderman makes a good point because, in a way, the success in DFS sports is very much up to chance, which clearly constitutes gambling.
The question of legality comes down to whether online fantasy sports are a game of skill or a game of chance. It is a clear game of chance because there is no possible way to guess exactly how a player will perform on a given day. Sure, it takes strategy and skill to predict which player will have the best performance, but it is never a certain thing. No one, not even the most skilled football analyst, can account for a breakout game or a “dud” game. The problem arises in the incessant ads that imply that any random sports fan can win a big check. The fine print in one DraftKings TV ad, for example, boasts how the average user’s winnings over a 12-month period is $1,263. What it doesn’t tell you is how much was spent to earn those payouts.
There is room to say that fantasy sports are legal. They do require skill, but their ads need to be toned down and more closely reflective of the truth. All in all, DFS programs are a controversial topic in the modern, technologically infused sports culture and should continue to remain legal until another scandal substantially breaks legal doctrine.