Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has come forth with her much-anticipated set of rules by which daily fantasy sports will be 
conducted in the Bay State. It’s not definitive yet (a public-comment period is forthcoming) and there may be some wiggle room, but as the first regulatory regimen devised for DFS in the United States, Healey’s example is bound to be influential. As one observer noted, “Maura Healey is a powerful law-enforcement officer. And DraftKings is headquartered in Massachusetts. To some extent, they have to play ball with Healey.”
That doesn’t mean DraftKings or FanDuel have to like the new rules. They include:
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- No participation by anyone under 21, consistent with casinos (this is sure to draw loud squawks from within the DFS industry).
- No insider participation.
- A $1,000/month loss limit.
- One account per user.
- No use of scripts. This also certain to be unpopular as it would weed out the high rollers and their practice of “bumhunting.”
Already Draft Kings is groaning that life under Healey’s Law, “will have a significant effect on the industry, and will be costly and complicated to implement.” Considering that we’re dealing with some of the best minds in DFS, who have access to considerable capital, we think they can handle it — although there is some question as to whether DFS operators are sufficiently sapient to detect scripts when they’re in play.
Fantasy Sports Trade Association Chairman Peter Schoenke wrung his hands and said banning scripts will “hurt innovation in our industry.” Since scripts are used only being used by a tiny percentage of the DFS player base, that would appear to be a pretty leaky argument. While the Massachusetts Gaming Commission would seem like the logical next place for the DFS ball to be thrown, it’s not yet clear who will be enforcing Massachusetts’ new status quo.
* DFS is also be revisited in Washington State, the only state in the nation where Internet gambling is actually a crime. (Lighten up, guys.) It’s a felony if one “knowingly transmits or receives gambling information by telephone, telegraph, radio, semaphore, the Internet, a telecommunications transmission system, or similar means” and if DFS is deemed to be 
gambling, that’s very bad news for the industry indeed. Ergo, a coalition of legislators is pushing a bill that would explicitly classify DFS as a game of skill. They’re bucking precedent, since Washington’s 2011 prosecution of Fantasy Thunder is the only successful case brought against a DFS site.
State Rep. Sherry Appleton‘s introduction of a bill to re-legalize online poker, meanwhile, came out of left field. Industry observers were so focused on similar efforts in California and Pennsylvania that they didn’t bank on Washington State getting into the fray. Nobody in the latter state actually prosecutes anyone for playing i-poker so there may at least be sentiment for downgrading it from a Class C felony. At present, the Appleton bill lacks a bad-actor clause and doesn’t address the issue of taxation, but its fate in the Washington Lege will be followed with interest.
