Entry fees down at daily fantasy sports firms

Chris Grove, a gambling industry analyst, told an informational forum on daily fantasy sports set up by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission this week (see previous reports) that entry fees have declined at major DFS operators following the recent furore over “insider” allegations and increased scrutiny by the media and law enforcement agencies.

Grove, who is a consultant with Eilers Research, said that daily fantasy sports companies such as Boston-based DraftKings Inc. expected in September that they would collect around $3.7 billion in entry fees, but this amount had now been revised downward to about $3.1 billion, a reduction that he described as a “pretty drastic haircut.”

A request for judicial guidance on whether DFS constitutes gambling has been submitted to the New York judiciary by the New York Attorney General’s Office and the court’s opinion is currently awaited.

In the meantime federal law enforcement officials in Massachusetts, New York, and Florida are also investigating the legality of the industry, and Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker has asked the state Gaming Commission and the state Attorney General to examine how daily fantasy sports might be regulated .

Maura Healey, the Massachusetts AG, has suggested a set of regulatory requirements which both DraftKings and FanDuel have acknowledged would be generally fair and reasonable.

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