{"id":17267,"date":"2015-11-24T13:31:13","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T21:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=17267"},"modified":"2015-11-24T14:58:44","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T22:58:44","slug":"dfs-sued-again-penn-disappoints-mgm-excels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/dfs-sued-again-penn-disappoints-mgm-excels\/","title":{"rendered":"DFS sued again; Penn disappoints, MGM excels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <strong>Florida<\/strong> attorney seems to have found the soft underbelly of the daily fantasy sports industry: its investors. <strong>Ervin Gonzales<\/strong>, representing two Sunshine State punters, has filed a class-action lawsuit that names among its defendants all the major sporting leagues, <strong>Jerry Jones<\/strong>, <strong>Robert Kraft<\/strong>, <strong>JP Morgan Bank<\/strong>, <strong>PayPal<\/strong>, <strong>Capitol One<\/strong> (&#8220;Who&#8217;s in <em>your<\/em> lineup?&#8221;) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com\/blog\/new-daily-fantasy-sports-lawuit-targets-dfs-investors\/\" target=\"_blank\">and so forth<\/a>. All are accused of illegal gambling, and the plaintiffs allege that &#8220;DFS sites acted in a deceptive manner by luring average players into competition with industry employees who had access to insider information.&#8221; At the very least, this could make payment processors skittish about providing DFS-related services.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/api\/embed\/iframe?id=fOzJ1KPcTkSLLBW0ITc5qA\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>DraftKings<\/strong> has lawyered up in <strong>New York<\/strong> with some high-powered legal talent, namely <!--more-->former <strong>Al Gore<\/strong> attorney <strong>David Boies<\/strong>. Unlike <strong>DraftOps<\/strong> and <strong>DraftMVP<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/2015\/11\/11\/daily-fantasy-draftops-halts-new-york\" target=\"_blank\">which have quit<\/a>\u00a0the Empire State, Boies <a href=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/2015\/11\/24\/draftkings-david-boies-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\">has no plans to shrink from a confrontation<\/a> with state Attorney General <strong>Eric Schneiderman<\/strong>. He is planning on ditching DraftKings&#8217; habitual likeness of itself to poker. &#8220;First, neither the entry fee they pay, nor the prize that is rewarded, is determined based on an outcome. They pay a fixed entry fee to compete for a fixed prize,&#8221; Boies&#8217; argument runs. &#8220;Second, even if this were a bet, it would be a bet on a contest of skill, the outcome of which the DFS player clearly influences.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The crux of Boies&#8217; argument is that there is a <em>material<\/em> amount of skill involved, which differentiates DFS from gambling. &#8220;The same people win repeatedly. That can\u2019t happen if there\u2019s a material degree of chance.&#8221; Boies will only have 20 minutes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/opinion\/david-boies-schneiderman-overreach-fantasy-sports-article-1.2442103\" target=\"_blank\">to make his case<\/a> at tomorrow&#8217;s hearing but seems to be fairly itching for a full trial. Two other gaming attorneys argue that not only is DFS here to stay, so is either self-policing or state regulation <a href=\"http:\/\/ggbmagazine.com\/issue\/vol-14-no-12-december-2015\/article\/the-path-forward-for-dfs\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">and offer a primer<\/a> on how to go about it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Massachusetts<\/strong> Attorney General <strong>Maura Healey<\/strong>, meanwhile, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2015-11-20\/draftkings-lawyer-boies-says-massachusetts-rules-bid-best-bet\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">summed up the DFS problem in two sentences<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cWe have a very robust regulatory legal framework that applies to casinos,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat we don\u2019t have is a similar framework that applies to fantasy sports.\u201d Bingo.<\/p>\n<p>* The Penn National Effect has struck the Bay State, where <strong>Plainridge Park<\/strong> is on track to come in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lowellsun.com\/opinion\/ci_29154656\/casino-concerns-mount-mass\" target=\"_blank\">$24 million short of the $200 million in gross gaming revenues<\/a> that were expected again. Attendance at <strong>New England Patriots<\/strong> games <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wcvb.com\/news\/patriots-home-games-affecting-new-massachusetts-casino\/36570862\" target=\"_blank\">is blamed for scaring away patrons<\/a> but the larger problem would seem to be that Plainridge is not generating enough return business, having fallen from $18 million in July to $13 million last month. The silver lining is that Plainridge is doing $280\/slot\/day, well above industry average.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in the state, <strong>MGM Resorts International<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/politics\/index.ssf\/2015\/11\/human_rights_campaign_names_mg.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">is making headlines<\/a> for having drawn a perfect score from the <strong>Human Rights Campaign<\/strong>&#8216;s Corporate Equality Index for the fourth year running. MGM\u00a0&#8220;goes above and beyond the call of duty, making commitment to equality a fundamental aspect of its corporate values,&#8221; said\u00a0HRC Foundation Workplace Equality Program Director <strong>Deena Fidas<\/strong>. Springfield is to be congratulated on having drawn such a sterling corporate citizen to town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida attorney seems to have found the soft underbelly of the daily fantasy sports industry: its investors. Ervin Gonzales, representing two Sunshine State punters, has filed a class-action lawsuit that names among its defendants all the major sporting leagues, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/dfs-sued-again-penn-disappoints-mgm-excels\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,37,189,112,11,69,25,74],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17272,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267\/revisions\/17272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}