Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board publishes DFS report

Pennsylvania lawmakers have received the report and recommendations on daily fantasy sports which they commissioned from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, and the results are as many observers expected…DFS should be subject to the same or very similar stringent regulation that the land casino industry is governed by, with the Board exercising oversight.

DFS companies hoping for a milder form of acceptance will be disappointed in the conclusions reached, but it is now the lawmakers who must decide what to do about DFS…possibly as part of an omnibus gambling reform bill which appears to be morphing out of Rep. John Payne’s online gambling legalisation bill HB 649 (see previous reports).

The PGCB report has been made available to the public here:

http://gamingcontrolboard.pa.gov/files/communications/pgcb_Fantasy_sports_report_2016.pdf

A key – and novel – recommendation is that the vertical is offered by existing state slot machine licensees as a gaming related facility operated through licensee web-sites. This appears to require that DFS firms would be subject to suitability screening before forming service partnerships with Pennsylvania-licensed gaming companies

The Board suggests that the best way to handle the DFS legality question is to link it to the online gambling legalisation bill HB649 along with other gambling reform proposals. The Board’s opinion appears to be that DFS is in reality another form of internet gambling.

The report does not deal with licensing fees and taxes.

Rep. Payne’s House Gaming Oversight Committee has announced that the scheduled May 27 deadline for the presentation of the PGCB report is no longer relevant, which leaves the tentatively scheduled June 1 hearing of the committee as the next likely exchange of views on DFS, followed subsequently by regulatory drafting and possibly the inclusion of the DFS elements in HB649.

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