Top U.S. gambling exec again queries legal position of daily fantasy sports

Jim Murren, CEO of the giant MGM Resorts casino group in the United States, has again questioned the legal position of daily fantasy sports, drawing a line between that and traditional seasonal fantasy sports which enjoy a legislative carve-out in federal US law.

During a long interview with CBS News3LV in Las Vegas this week, Murren claimed that the booming daily fantasy sports business is different to the more traditional seasonal fantasy sport betting and should be regulated as gambling.

Murren asked: “Who in the world thinks that [DFS companies] FanDuel or DraftKings… who’s going to tell me that’s not gambling? Of course it’s gambling. But people are doing it, they are doing it all over the place. It’s not regulated.”

The MGM chief acknowledged that there was clearly a demand for fantasy sports products, and he had no problem with that.

“They should be able to do that,” he said. “I am not ‘Mr. Moral’ that I am supposed to impose my morals on somebody else. What I am is someone that is highly concerned that illegal activity is being undertaken today that is hurting all of us.”

This is the second time this year that Murren has raised the issue – in April he strongly asserted that DFS activity was gambling, and needed to be regulated.

The gambling state of Nevada is currently considering the legal status of DFS, a booming market involving hundreds of millions of dollars.