States tried and failed to classify DraftKings and FanDuel as illegal gambling. Now they are working together to eliminate competition.
The Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers will soon compete for the National Football League championship title. Over 200 million people are expected to watch the game, and many will participate in small wagers, office pools, and fantasy sports contests over the 60-minute battle on the gridiron.
The explosive growth of the fantasy sports industry over the past ten years is the primary driver of today’s widespread interest and availability of sports gambling across the United States. The two companies most responsible for this growth, DraftKings and FanDuel, spent a decade battling state regulators, who unjustifiably tried to keep their games illegal. Of course, the Supreme Court’s decision in Murphy v. NCAA, the 2018 opinion which effectively granted states the authority to legalize retail and mobile sports wagering, shelved much of this friction. Sadly, however, DraftKings and FanDuel are now trying to use the same arguments that were used against them to convince regulators to shut their competitors out of the marketplace.
