Mitch Perry
Daily fantasy sports have exploded into a multibillion-dollar industry in recent years. Advertisements for both FanDuel and DraftKings are inescapable during broadcasts of football games and on ESPN. But is the party going to end soon?
In September, New Jersey Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone requested that the Energy and Commerce Commission hold advanced hearings to determine the legal status of daily fantasy sports. The committee has jurisdiction over professional sports gambling. Then allegations of insider trading emerged last month when an employee of DraftKings mistakenly released data before the start of the third week of NFL games that provided an obvious advantage.
In Tampa Monday visiting the facilities of St. Joseph’s Hospitals in West Tampa, Pallone said nothing has changed since he made that request back in September, except for the urgency to investigate.
“The chairman of the committee (Michigan Republican Fred Upton) says we will likely have a hearing at some point,” Pallone said. The Jersey Shore representative in Congress said he actually had been called to speak at a legislative committee in Trenton Monday in the New Jersey Legislature regarding fantasy sports, but had sent his chief-of-staff to honor his commitment by colleague Kathy Castor to visit St. Joseph’s energy efficient equipment at its West Tampa facility.
In 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed Congress as a ban to most forms of online gambling. Online fantasy sports betting was seen as a special case in the eyes of Congress and became exempt from the anti-gambling act. It was labeled a game of skill, which is legal in almost every state in the Union. For now, sites like DraftKings and FanDuel are completely legal. However, the present legislation could change if further regulation is deemed necessary.
“My concern, of course, is that it’s unregulated and it’s probably illegal in the sense that the carve-out for fantasy sports, you know, it was the only type of online betting that was carved out as an exception is, we have all kinds of problems,” Pallone says. “It wasn’t envisioned that there would be daily sites where people would be gambling for millions of dollars. They say it’s not gambling, but it is gambling! So I think this is an issue this is gambling and it probably shouldn’t even be allowed by federal statute. “
Congressman Pallone is an advocate for legalizing sports betting in general, and supported a 2011 nonbinding referendum legalizing sports betting at casinos and racetracks in New Jersey. Last fall, the four major pro sports leagues, and the NCAA filed a motion in federal court to block the state attorney general’s decision to relax enforcement of New Jersey’s sports betting ban.
“It’s clearly hypocritical,” Pallone says of the established sports leagues suing New Jersey when, in fact, he says that promote and invest in fantasy sports every day of the week.
“We want them to be legal, but not just the Wild West,” he says of sports betting.
