A N.Y. lawmaker “wants to expand fantasy sports games and update rules to keep pace with fan preferences and changes in the market,” according to Carl Campanile of the N.Y. POST. The industry’s status in N.Y. was “complicated by years of legal battles on whether it constituted gambling or skill.” The proposed law advanced by Senator Joe Addabbo would “allow the state Gaming Commission to license a broader set up of operators to generate” $150M in new revenue over several years by charging a $5M license fee to “new operators and a renewal fee of 1% of gross revenues every five years.” But the one catch -- the bill “would also raise the age to play from 18 to 21.” The state Gaming Commission reports the following operators have “temporary permits” to offer fantasy sports games in N.Y.: DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo, Fantasy Draft, RUMBL, Fanamana, Data Force, RealTime Fantasy Sports, For Players by Players, Vauntek, Sports Hub Technologies, MastersFantasyLeagues.com, Boom Fantasy, and Fulltime Fantasy Sports. Popular Fantasy Prize Picks, Underdog, Sleeper, and Betr are the “four big operators currently left out of the state’s fantasy sports law.” The bill “seeks to correct the exclusion by expanding the State’s regulatory structures to include new fantasy operators and contests such as Pick’Em and peer-to-peer contests” (N.Y. POST, 4/21).
