Daily Fantasy Sports Are Deemed Illegal Gambling In Illinois

By Mae Rice in News on Dec 24, 2015 5:36PM

Illinois State’s Attorney Lisa Madigan has released an opinion that daily fantasy sports play, conducted on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, amounts to illegal gambling.

Her opinion, and every opinion on this subject, is hilariously complicated. There is no simple way to describe a) what gambling is and b) what fantasy sports are. Hence the document Madigan released Wednesday, which is 14 pages long.

Though gambling, especially gambling on sports, is illegal almost across the board (except in Vegas, where there are no laws), regulators have typically given fantasy sports a pass. As long as the games held up to three rules, that is: a) the size of winners' prizes was established before the game started, b) winning depended on skill, not chance, and c) no win was based on play in a single game.

However, this approach doesn’t hold up to careful reading of the law, which "clearly declares that all games of chance or skill, when played for money, are illegal gambling in Illinois," according to Madigan.

Illinois lawmakers seek to change that, though. Democratic state Rep. Mike Zalewski of Riverside wants to legalize and regulate fantasy sports.

For now, Madigan’s office has sent letters to DraftKings and FanDuel, asking them to add Illinois to their sites’ lists of prohibited states. They don’t like it.

In a statement on Wednedsay, DraftKings said it "will continue to abide by all relevant laws and will follow the direction of the courts. Pending that resolution the company will preserve the status quo.”

In a meatier statement, FanDuel said:

Chicago may be the best sports town in the country. It's a city -- and Illinois is a state -- that plays fantasy sports like almost no other. 'The League' is even set in Illinois. So why the Attorney General would tell her 13.5 million constituents they can't play fantasy sports anymore as they know it -- and make no mistake, her opinion bans all forms of fantasy sports played for money -- is beyond us. Hopefully the legislature will give back to the people of Illinois the games they love. A sports town like Chicago and a sports loving state like Illinois deserves nothing less.

In her statement, Madigan only discusses daily fantasy sports sites, but the implications of her reasoning certainly seem far-reaching.

In closing, let us all read Madigan’s hilariously convoluted explanation of fantasy sports, which will make even veteran players no longer understand what they're doing:

The term “fantasy sports contest” commonly refers to contests involving virtual teams in which participants choose current athletes in a given professional or college sport to create a fantasy sports team and then compete against other fantasy sports participants, with the winner or winners determined based on how those athletes individually perform in their actual professional or college sports game.