Fantasy Sports Trade Association President Paul Charchian this morning predicted the fantasy sports industry would soon recover from the current environment of legal and legislative scrutiny around daily fantasy sports. Charchian cited record levels of participation in fantasy sports, and successful lobbying efforts to legalize fee-based daily fantasy in six states, with ongoing lobbying efforts in nearly two dozen more. “It is going to get better. We are going to have a better environment going forward. I am confident of that,” Charchian said, calling the current period a “low water mark.” He added, “The turbulent times are here, but so are your customers. We’ve never had more customers. And we continue to gain customers.” Charchian acknowledged the FSTA was naive in its initial lobbying efforts around daily fantasy, which saw the industry presented by regulators with operator fees in some jurisdictions that were well beyond the reach of many smaller game providers. “This is all very new to us. We got blindsided by fees in the first few states that came along, and frankly, I don’t think we were ready for that,” he said. “We didn’t do enough to prepare ourselves for that. But I think we’ve learned and we’ve done better.” Charchian also took particular aim at fantasy companies that have failed to protect customer fees, such as daily fantasy startup FantasyHub, which suspended operations in February and owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to players. “If you are in the contest space, and you are not protecting your customer funds, you are spending customer funds, that is completely wrong,” he said. “There is never a good enough reason for that. You’re damaging the reputation of the industry. You’re damaging other companies in the industry. You may be committing a criminal act, and the FSTA will not be a safe harbor for you.”
