00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - Yeah, let's start off with Daily Fantasy.
00:05 We've seen so many different states
00:08 legalize sports betting this year.
00:09 We've also seen a lot of states with a ton of pushback
00:13 on Daily Fantasy operators.
00:15 Naturally, for people who are unaware of this,
00:17 the Daily Fantasy operators don't pay the same taxes
00:20 as the sports betting operators,
00:21 which seems to be the dividing line amongst the companies.
00:25 And now we have another story happening in Virginia.
00:28 What is the latest there?
00:30 - Yeah, it's the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it?
00:34 At least from my standpoint as a writer,
00:36 it feels like every day I'm writing about a new state
00:38 that's cracking down on Daily Fantasy sports,
00:41 more specifically, the Pick'em games
00:44 that we talk about all the time on this show,
00:45 which a lot of places have basically said,
00:48 hey, this looks like prop betting.
00:50 We're gonna either tax it as prop betting
00:53 and regulate it as prop betting,
00:54 or you have to leave the state.
00:56 Now Virginia is the latest
00:58 where there's that uncertainty
00:59 for these large Pick'em operators,
01:01 which includes the likes of Underdog Fantasy,
01:03 Prize Pick, Sleeper, and Better.
01:06 Essentially, their attorney general
01:07 issued an opinion recently,
01:10 kind of saying, I think that this is sports betting.
01:13 There's nothing I can do specifically,
01:15 but I'm gonna recommend that if the state passes a law
01:18 or is thinking about passing a law,
01:19 they take this into account.
01:21 This came after a lawmaker,
01:23 Wren Williams, a state delegate in Virginia,
01:26 approached the attorney general's office
01:27 and asked him about the issue.
01:29 You'd have to think that kind of his,
01:32 the impetus for that was just looking
01:34 at all these other states and what they've done.
01:35 New York, Michigan, Florida, now California recently.
01:39 So no state kind of wants to get left behind,
01:42 it seems like, with regulating this
01:44 or at least taking a look at it.
01:46 So essentially the biggest issues
01:48 that they outlined in his opinion was,
01:51 this looks, if it's player versus house
01:53 and you're not competing against other players
01:55 like you would in normal fantasy sports lineups,
01:58 then it's kind of seems like gambling
02:00 if there's a house involved.
02:01 And then the other one being that
02:02 you're basically parlaying player props.
02:05 So it just looks like gambling to them.
02:07 So now the legislature doesn't get together until next year,
02:11 but I'd have to think this is one of the topics
02:13 they're gonna bring up.
02:14 Virginia was one of the,
02:16 was actually the first state to legalize
02:18 daily fantasy sports and pass a law several years ago,
02:21 but that was before companies like these existed.
02:24 Like you mentioned before,
02:25 and a lot of sports betting operators
02:27 want them to be paying the same taxes
02:29 or regulated by the same rules
02:31 if they're basically offering the same product.
02:32 We've seen these apps become very popular for a good reason
02:35 because they can kind of operate in a low margin
02:38 compared to the sports betting business.
02:40 So the coalition for fantasy sports,
02:42 which represents those companies has come out and said,
02:45 we're open to working with Virginia.
02:47 We hope to find an amicable solution here.
02:50 This isn't a binding opinion and it's not.
02:52 So you'd expect their lobbyists to be at the front lines
02:55 come January when the legislature meets.
02:59 And I expect that'll be the case
03:01 in many, many other states as well,
03:03 especially the big ones like California and Florida,
03:05 where they're basically fighting
03:06 to hold onto their business.
03:08 (upbeat music)
03:11 [MUSIC]
