LAS VEGAS (AP) – As more states scrutinize the daily fantasy sports industry, the office of Nevada’s attorney general said it used DraftKings’ own words and online images as evidence the sites qualify as gambling.
A day after Nevada regulators ordered the sites out of the state unless they get a gambling license, a memo issued Friday cited a three-year-old online “Ask Me Anything” interview on Reddit.com where the office of the state’s attorney general said DraftKings CEO Jason Robins compared his site to a casino and described the concept as a mashup between poker and fantasy sports. The memo also pointed to text attached to images on DraftKings’ website that used the word “betting” to describe it.
DraftKings and others in the fantasy sports industry, including competitor FanDuel, have insisted their sites aren’t gambling and are legal under a 2006 federal law that exempted fantasy sports from an online gambling prohibition.
“It appears that although the sites’ representatives publicly state that they do not believe daily fantasy sports involve ‘wagers’ or ‘bets,’ they do use the terms ‘betting’ and ‘wagering’ when they are not dealing with law enforcement agencies,” the memo noted.
A transcript of the interview that remains online doesn’t identify Robins by name but an introduction indicates the three men who started DraftKings were answering the questions.