This week, the Wall Street Journal published an article outlining the PrizePicks strategy to target users, including in non-legal US sports betting states. The piece comes on the heels of a pointed comment about some daily fantasy sports operators from FanDuel Head of State Government Relations Cesar Fernandez at the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States summer conference in Denver this month.
Fernandez is a familiar face in the government relations world, especially at its intersection with the tech sector. The 2015 “30-under-30 rising stars” honoree has a resume that includes four years on Uber’s in-house lobbying team. At Uber, Fernandez was instrumental in the passage of the landmark statewide ridesharing regulation bill during the 2017 Legislative Session.
“There are companies today posing as fantasy-sports operators, and they are running illegal sportsbooks,” Fernandez said at NCLGS.
The scrutiny around daily fantasy sports companies offering sports betting-like products continues to grow in the US as media outlets and major sportsbook operators focus in.
DFS offering sports betting products?
Some DFS operators offer users parlay-style prop bets, allowing them to pick over-under on stats for specific athletes. Representatives from multiple operators at the NCLGS conference told LSR the games fall under the DFS laws of game-of-skill rather than the gambling definition of chance.
While many regulators have allowed DFS operators to keep offering the products, some have clamped down. PrizePicks stopped offering its products in Maryland and West Virginia after regulators broached the topic with the company.
In the other hand Coalition respond: we are skill, not chance
The statement continues by referencing the age-old argument about skill and chance in DFS:
“Regulators across the country have verified our games as contests of skill, not chance, making them legally identical to fantasy games that have been offered for nearly a decade. We respect the views of regulators, including regulators in multiple states who have expressly approved our games as fantasy contests under their fantasy sports statutes. We likewise respect the views of regulators in the small number of jurisdictions who have taken a different view based on issues specific to those states.”
The situation reminds Underdog Vice President of Government Affairs and Partnerships Stacie Stern of the early days of daily fantasy sports when she was at FanDuel. There, she dealt with the “razzing” of season-long fantasy operators saying it was sports betting in disguise.
Now will see how the soap opera continues …
