PD Editorial: Fantasy sports madness is gambling, pure and simple

Whether it's picking a No. 12 seed during March Madness or rooting for the smallest kid on the baseball field, America loves an underdog.

When it comes legislation now working its way through the state Legislature regarding fantasy sports, it's hard to find a bigger underdog than North Bay Assemblyman Marc Levine.

When Assembly Bill 1437, which seeks to license and regulate the daily fantasy sports industry, went to the Assembly floor last month, it passed on a vote of 62-1. Levine, D-San Rafael, was the lone dissenting voice.

But Levine is right. And while he may not win this battle against the deep pockets of the fantasy sports industry, his perspective deserves its share of fans.

Here's the central question: Is the new world of online fantasy sports, which allows consumers to put down money on the performance of hand-picked players for cash payouts, gambling?

It's no surprise that businesses such as FanDuel Inc. and DraftKings Inc., which reap millions in profits from consumers seeking to join expensive pools, claim it's not. They contend that fantasy sports is a game of skill because players 'draft' players for teams, which then compete based on how the athletes perform on the actual field in statistical categories such as home runs, runs batted in, etc. They claim their fantasy gaming sites merely digitize what has been taking place in family rooms and pizza parlors for more than 30 years. But this is not your father's season-long neighborhood 'Rotisserie' league. Through these online businesses, leagues exist for a single week or a single day. And in the process, large sums of money can be earned — and lost. Analysts predict that by 2020, entry fees in these leagues will reach $18 billion.

A good example of the high-stakes involved was on display this week as DraftKings and FanDuel offered consumers a shot at $900,000 in prize money for March Madness picks.

Meanwhile, this kind of big money in sports is prone to create all kinds of mischief, as demonstrated by the story in October about a DraftKings employee who was found profiting from bets on FanDuel using information not generally available to the public.

Thus the better question is how is this not gambling?

'I believe that if you're betting on the performance of athletes, that is gambling,' said Levine during a recent visit with The Press Democrat Editorial Board.

Seven different state attorneys general around the nation agree with him on that point, leading the states of Texas, New York, Washington and Illinois to ban daily fantasy gaming outright.

Meanwhile, a number of states, like California are moving ahead with legislation to license and regulate the industry.

Levine has petitioned California Attorney General Kamala Harris to issue an opinion, but so far she has been silent.

She needs to respond. It's difficult to see how betting on the performance of a horse is gambling but betting on the performance of an athlete isn't.

In the meantime, the state Senate or the governor needs to put a halt to AB 1437 before this gets too far down the track.