The nation’s biggest daily fantasy sports operators are "opposing New Jersey’s effort to regulate them because a proposed measure does not explicitly say they offer games of skill instead of gambling," according to Wayne Parry of the AP. A rep for DraftKings, FanDuel and the Fantasy Sports Trade Association told a state Senate panel yesterday that the DFS industry "needs the state to adopt the companies’ stance that their products are games of skill and not games of chance." The bill would "regulate and tax" DFS, but take "no position as to whether they offer games of skill or chance." Advocacy & Management Group co-Founder AJ Sabath, who is repping the DFS companies, said the bill as currently written would "create a significant level of uncertainty about the future of our industry in New Jersey." Sabath said that without an "explicit definition" of DFS as a game of skill, the industry "cannot invest in setting up operations in the state." Parry noted the bill "adds consumer protections and imposes" the same 9.25% tax rate on DFS companies’ gross revenue that Atlantic City casinos "pay on their winnings, when mandatory reinvestment payments are included" (AP, 3/14).
THE ONGOING DEBATE: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver last week at SXSW said of DFS, "It’s been interesting to watch the analysis in a lot of these states, the Attorneys General have come in -- and the debate has been is it a game of skill or is it a game of chance -- gambling. To me, I think it’s a game of skill. But it’s pointless to debate. It’s daily fantasy, and ultimately the decision should be, for those state legislatures -- do you want to legalize it?" He added, "What I don’t get is where then the interpreter goes on to moralize about the notion that this is gambling and therefore evil -- when in the very same states they have casinos, racetracks and lotteries (shrugs)." More Silver: "Regulated gambling is part of Americana now. ... From a personal standpoint, I don’t see it as an evil" (NORTHJERSEY.com, 3/14).
