Daily fantasy sports firms adopt different approaches to U.S. scrutiny
News on 30 Nov 2015
News on 30 Nov 2015
In an article published Monday the Associated Press news agency takes a look at the effect of the increased attention being paid to daily fantasy sports in the United States by political and enforcement interests.
The article reports that CBS’s SportsLine DFS venture appears to have “quietly withdrawn” from the market until greater legal clarity is achieved, whilst Yahoo remains active but avoids the Florida, Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada and Washington markets, and market leaders DraftKings and Fanduel are also cautious in which states they continue to operate, although they remain in Florida despite a Grand Jury investigation into the industry.
Other companies are reportedly scaling back on their US operations, with one UK company focused on professional soccer – Mondogoal – exiting seven states so far. Founder Shergul Arshad, who lives in Massachusetts, says he’s considering pulling up stakes entirely from the U.S., pointing out that 90 percent of his customers are resident outside the United States.
David Copeland of SuperLobby, a UK daily fantasy sports monitoring site, told AP that many companies are retrenching, but their movements haven’t significantly hurt the market.
Amaya, which recently launched a rebranded DFS site under the title StarsDraft is playing a cautious game, perhaps fearing to undermine its campaign to achieve legalised status in California and other US states. AP reports that only weeks after launching it has exited a number of markets and now operates only in Massachusetts, Kansas, New Jersey and Maryland.
Amaya communications chief, Eric Hollreiser, told the new agency that the company was not giving up market share to its competitors but was “running a marathon and won’t compete in the expensive marketing sprint the others are running.”
Finally, AP reports that New York-based Star Fantasy Leagues has pulled out of 25 US states due to the high legal risk factors involved, and instead intends to focus on developing daily fantasy sports platforms for other operators, such as state lotteries.
