Inside Asian Gaming

september 2016 inside asian gaming 67 Gambling and the law and is anchored by the Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill). But, while Jeb’s comments implied that DFS is merely a harmless hobby, Christie tore into the Debate moderator for daring to raise the subject. “We have $19 trillion in debt,” he fired. “We have ISIS and al-Qaida attacking us and we’re talking about fantasy football? Can we stop?” Christie’s statement proved to be prescient, though not necessarily in the way he intended. In fact, his statement can be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy: although his emphasis was on how unimportant DFS is compared with issues like Islamic terrorism, his plea at the end, “Can we stop?” has come true. Discussion of DFS on the federal level has almost completely disappeared, in part because Governor Christie, helped by the inane comments by Jeb Bush about his fantasy team, made the issue embarrassing. Following that Debate there has been no discussion by any presidential candidate, in debates or otherwise, on the federal government’s role in fantasy sports. But that has not meant the issue has disappeared at the state level. Fights in state legislatures often come down to which side has the most money. Even generated grass-roots supports, like having 100,000 DSF fans contact their state representatives in the New York Legislature, costs money. As I predicted in Gaming Law Review & Economics last year, proponents of DFS have more money and thus more political power than their opponents and have been successful in getting state lawmakers to bail them out of their current crisis. Most of the lobbying money comes from FanDuel and Draft Kings, the two largest DFS operators, who control almost the entire market. But they have powerful allies. The extremely rich and powerful sports leagues, with the sole exception of the NCAA, love DFS. Even the fanatically anti-gambling NFL allows its team-owners to be directly involved with DFS operators. Mass media companies, like ESPN, also love DFS. Teams and broadcasters need viewers and DFS players watch athletic events to the bitter end, even when it is a blow-out. They want to know how the individual real-world athletes in their fantasy team do, because the statistics “Discussion of DFS on the federal level has almost completely disappeared, in part because Governor Christie, helped by the inane comments by Jeb Bush about his fantasy team, made the issue embarrassing.” generated by those athletes are the only thing that matters. Who is on the other side? The main opponents of DFS are established legal gambling operators, who have a lot bigger things to worry about. The other main opponents of DFS are the “anti’s” – mostly religious groups opposed to all legal gambling. The anti’s lost that battle decades ago. So, the proponents of DFS have the power to get laws passed, expressly making their activities legal. New York is now the seventh state this year to expressly legalize fantasy sports. “Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia also have passed laws clarifying the legality of fantasy sports and setting consumer protection regulations,” explained wire service AP in August. Prior to this, there was only one state, Maryland, where the Legislature had considered the issue of DFS worthy of debate and legalization. It took almost a half-century for state lotteries to spread across the country. During that time, Governor Chris Christie