In Brooklyn, a man who lost a bet with fantasy sports sites DraftKings and FanDuel has sued the sites together with the credit card company who lent him the money to bet on what he calls the sites’ “illegal gambling schemes,” new court documents state.
The lawsuit says that DraftKings and FanDuel are operating illegal online sports betting business which violates Alabama’s gambling laws. Both DraftKings and FanDuel operate under the false declaration that their daily fantasy sports games are games of skill, not surprisingly, the lawsuit claims.
Most traditional season-long fantasy sports sites make their money from administrative fees and advertising. However, DraftKings and FanDuel take a cut of each bet. This is what bookmakers do, and it is therefore illegal in New York.
“Both Fanduel and DraftKings operate similarly to good old fashioned bookmaking,” said Tommy Spina, one of the lawyers for the man. “If you win you get money if you lose they get money.”
Originally, these contests lasted a whole season, and Yahoo has quickly become the first place to play the games. But in recent years, competitors have added games based on single games, like NFL games on Sundays, making it more similar to sports betting which is illegal in most states, compared to games of skill which are allowed under federal law.
“In traditional fantasy sports leagues, contestants draft their teams before the season, maintaining the same core roster for months,” the lawsuit states.
Those, in turn, help to attract an audience of Yahoo’s sports news, and advertising-supported content.
“After the sporting events are concluded, Defendants calculate a score using the scheme they created that awards points based upon the various individual college and professional athletes’ performance and pays bettors that have the highest total number of points.”
Yahoo considered last month’s live video stream of the the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars N. F. L. game to be a success. This week, The NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been meeting with Yahoo and other companies about possibly streaming “Thursday Night Football” games.
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