Georgia’s state Senate tabled a bill to regulate daily fantasy sports after the state’s attorney general’s office issued an opinion that DFS constitutes illegal gambling under the state’s laws.
The opinion had been requested by the Georgia Lottery Corp. and was issued as the state Senate was scheduled to consider a bill from state Senator Renee Unterman to regulate the industry, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The bill would have set regulations for DFS for operations and payouts in the state and set an age restriction of 18 years or older.
The sites would also have to pay an initial $50,000 fee and $10,000 annually to accept players in the state, the report said.
Unterman called the legislation a “consumer protection” effort, saying an estimated 1.5 million people play daily fantasy sports in Georgia, according to the paper.
The bill, however, would have separated daily fantasy sports from sports betting, which is illegal in the state.
But the attorney general’s opinion said that fantasy sports constitutes illegal gambling and are not allowed under Georgia law. The opinion was described as “informal” and it is not clear if the attorney general’s office plans any action against DFS sites, the Constitution reported.
The two biggest DFS sites—DraftKings and FanDuel—have been battling it out in several state legislatures for legitimacy.
DraftKings lawyer Randy Mastro told the paper that daily fantasy sports games are “a legitimate business activity that has operated openly and permissibly in Georgia for years.”
“It is the citizens of Georgia, through their elected representatives, who should decide whether they can continue to enjoy fantasy sports,” Mastro said. “DraftKings will therefore support legislation that regulates fantasy sports with thoughtful and appropriate consumer protections, and we urge Georgians to tell their elected representatives that they want to be able to continue to enjoy fantasy sports.”
Meanwhile, the country’s top daily fantasy sports companies attracted nearly $3 billion in player entry fees in 2015, according to an analysis by the research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming LLC.
The estimates, show that FanDuel was the largest DFS company with nearly $1.8 billion in fees collected from players. DraftKings Inc. remained the second-largest, collecting nearly $1.2 billion. The two account for nearly all of the US daily fantasy sports market.
Other Developments
In New York—where state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading the most high-profile attempt to shut down the sites in a state—a new icitizen poll sponsored by New York Assemblyman and Assistant Speaker Felix Ortiz found support for regulation in the state split almost 50 – 50.
Fifty percent of icitizen users supported regulating DFS as gambling companies. Age, however, played a factor as just 30 percent of millennials strongly favor regulation, while a substantial 65 percent of baby boomers do according to a report in the Casino City Times.
In Vermont, the state Senate approved a bill to regulate daily fantasy sports despite hearing testimony earlier that DFS might also be illegal under that state’s laws.
The state’s Assistant Attorney General John Treadwell had also told a Senate committee, however, that the games are a very low law-enforcement priority and that there’s been no effort to stop them in the state, according to the Associated Press.
The bill now goes to the Vermont House.
In Illinois—another state where the state attorney general has declared the games illegal—a new bill to exempt and regulate the industry has been introduced.
State Rep. Mike Zalewski’s bill was first introduced in October, but he renewed calls to consider the bill to end the legal limbo now faced by DFS players in the state.
“Illinois now is in” legal limbo of what’s OK and what’s not OK, and that’s not acceptable when you have, by some estimates, 2 million people playing fantasy football in Illinois,” Zalewski said.
His bill would define what is considered daily fantasy sports in Illinois, bar anyone younger than 18 from playing, establish “best practices” for the industry and prohibit athletes and industry insiders from playing.
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association announced it supports the Illinois bill, which fits in with model regulations it has proposed for state legislature’s to consider.
In the U.K. NMi has partnered with DraftKings to undertake compliance testing with the country’s gaming Commission technical standards.
“We have had quite a bit of experience with fantasy products across Europe already, so when DraftKings approached us for the UK, NMi were in a great position to support them,” said Julian Borg-Barthet, Business Development Manager for the NMi Gaming division. “Daily Fantasy Sports as a new category have phenomenal potential here, and having DraftKings as one of our clients is a proud moment for us at NMi. We’re excited to see where the relationship takes us from here.”
