Nebraska debates DFS legalisation
DraftKings and FanDuel believe that there’s a need to regulate the fantasy sports industry to protect their costumers.
US.- The daily fantasy sports (DFS) giants said during the debate on Legislative Bill 469 that they believe that without a proper regulation, their costumers won’t be able to get the protection that they need. The companies said that a quarter million of their 57 million players in the US come from Nebraska.
Both DraftKings and FanDuel believe that DFS is not a game of luck since it requires skill to draft players, set a lineup and look up the opponents. According to Omaha World Herald, Sean Ostrow, representative of Fan Duel, told the Senate that legalising the DFS industry in Nebraska is not an expansion of gambling. The state is not so keen on the regulation of the activity since the local constitution doesn’t allow games of chance, except for lotteries and horse racing.
State Senator Tyson Larson of O’Neill introduced a bill last year but he later pulled it out because he realised he would not get the amount of votes that he needed. He then drafted Legislative Bill 469 in order to redefine DFS as a game of skill. On the other hand, Nate Grasz, policy director of the Nebraska Family Alliance, said: “Fantasy sports gambling is simply an online casino under the guise of fantasy football. The harms of gambling are serious, even if the mechanism is not.”
