the game within the game
August 30, 2016 12:50 PM Subscribe
As of August 3rd, it is again legal to play Daily Fantasy sports in New York State. But having spent a fortune on legal bills (and even more on marketing) it may be too late for the two major players in the DFS world, DraftKings and FanDuel (previously) to ever become profitable. ESPN and Outside the Lines go into what went wrong (Spoiler alert: "The implosion of the daily fantasy industry is a bro-classic tale of hubris, recklessness, political naïveté and a kill-or-be-killed culture.")
Does this mean there will be fewer than a hundred DraftKings commercials during every NFL game this year?
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:29 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:29 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
So, good riddance, dirtbags.
this seems like a pretty crappy thing to say given that they just wanted to hire you. Reading the articles gave me a much better idea of what the issues are with this industry and they seem like they had good (or at least neutral) intentions to create a fun, legal version of gambling without a ton of risk.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:33 PM on August 30, 2016
this seems like a pretty crappy thing to say given that they just wanted to hire you. Reading the articles gave me a much better idea of what the issues are with this industry and they seem like they had good (or at least neutral) intentions to create a fun, legal version of gambling without a ton of risk.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:33 PM on August 30, 2016
I've thought about playing DraftKings. If only they publicized their promotional codes more effectively.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 1:41 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by DrAstroZoom at 1:41 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
without a ton of risk
If you're defining "risk" as just the buy-in to participate in a single game, then yeah, there's little risk. However, I've always thought of sports gambling as more addictive than typical casino games because the illusion of control is greater -- maybe I know something that Vegas / the other players don't! -- and DFS magnifies this, in my view.
Combined with how much negative impact DFS has had on coverage of fantasy sports, and the stories that came out about fraud / insider trading, I will not shed a tear for these companies if they do disappear.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:04 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
If you're defining "risk" as just the buy-in to participate in a single game, then yeah, there's little risk. However, I've always thought of sports gambling as more addictive than typical casino games because the illusion of control is greater -- maybe I know something that Vegas / the other players don't! -- and DFS magnifies this, in my view.
Combined with how much negative impact DFS has had on coverage of fantasy sports, and the stories that came out about fraud / insider trading, I will not shed a tear for these companies if they do disappear.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:04 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
I have a different threshold for risk than regular people I know but still--DFS costs about as much to participate regularly as a freemium app on your phone, has some element of skill involved, and has a non-zero chance of actually making your money back.
All the mistakes they made were definitely mistakes but calling them dirtbags is missing the point, imo. I think there's a puritanical anti-gambling streak to a lot of the glee over this article that is weird coming from people that ostensibly are not puritans.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:11 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
All the mistakes they made were definitely mistakes but calling them dirtbags is missing the point, imo. I think there's a puritanical anti-gambling streak to a lot of the glee over this article that is weird coming from people that ostensibly are not puritans.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:11 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
The real meat of this story for me, having followed these sites for a few years and having just read the ESPN long-form article, is the power that being able to understand large swathes of data can confer to a person. This is especially the case when you get to the part about the insider information that the employees of both companies were using to play on their competitor's platform. It's sort of like having a sprinting contest where one contestant is an out of shape couch potato recovering from knee surgery, and the other is Usain Bolt. But the guy with the bum knee only finds that out after he's paid his entry fee. The ESPN article mentions that they've banned scripting, but I'm extremely dubious about what that even means - if it's just automated scripting (like the bot that finds donkey newbies in pick-up games and pounces on them) then there has to be a way around them, and they can't really ban large-scale data analysis, which I would see as the true advantage in the game, can they?
I'm not sure what exactly you could do to fix this. Maybe have some sort of tiering system where you can only compete against players in your tier? In that case, I'm not sure you could generate the kinds of jackpots that make for good advertising. There pretty much has to be the illusion that anyone can win in order to draw in the whales with the scripts who are plunking down hundreds of thousands of dollars a week (and giving a 7% rake back to the site, of course). The end of the article mentions badging and highlighting top players, but once again, it seems easy to circumvent measures like this.
posted by codacorolla at 2:11 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure what exactly you could do to fix this. Maybe have some sort of tiering system where you can only compete against players in your tier? In that case, I'm not sure you could generate the kinds of jackpots that make for good advertising. There pretty much has to be the illusion that anyone can win in order to draw in the whales with the scripts who are plunking down hundreds of thousands of dollars a week (and giving a 7% rake back to the site, of course). The end of the article mentions badging and highlighting top players, but once again, it seems easy to circumvent measures like this.
posted by codacorolla at 2:11 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
All the mistakes they made were definitely mistakes but calling them dirtbags is missing the point, imo. I think there's a puritanical anti-gambling streak to a lot of the glee over this article that is weird coming from people that ostensibly are not puritans.
I don't know what people you're talking about, but speaking only for myself, the difference is in the level of regulation that's applied to casino gaming and DFS. That's not to say that DFS is unregulated (although it basically was at the beginning) but that casino gaming doesn't have nearly as many moving parts as DFS does with respect to transparency, preventing cheating, insider trading, etc. and that the regulatory bodies are better-positioned to regulate casino games because they've been around forever than they are DFS.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:24 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't know what people you're talking about, but speaking only for myself, the difference is in the level of regulation that's applied to casino gaming and DFS. That's not to say that DFS is unregulated (although it basically was at the beginning) but that casino gaming doesn't have nearly as many moving parts as DFS does with respect to transparency, preventing cheating, insider trading, etc. and that the regulatory bodies are better-positioned to regulate casino games because they've been around forever than they are DFS.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:24 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty okay with betting a few bucks between friends, but parasitically making a living as the house scratches me the wrong way.
Thing is, most people are fine with that, and I think if they hadn't bought multiple obnoxious ads on every goddamned commercial break last year there would be a lot less animosity toward them. People don't dislike them because of what they do. People dislike them because they're assholes about it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:26 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
Thing is, most people are fine with that, and I think if they hadn't bought multiple obnoxious ads on every goddamned commercial break last year there would be a lot less animosity toward them. People don't dislike them because of what they do. People dislike them because they're assholes about it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:26 PM on August 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
This is something that everyone within 100 yards of a television last season will understand.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:55 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:55 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Watching them stumbling around the Illinois statehouse last year was pretty entertaining ... They just had NO CLUE and didn't think to hire lawyers or lobbyists who had clues. They didn't consider themselves gambling, seemed shocked it wasn't up to them to decide, and were just horrified to discover it's a highly regulated industry.
I was really angry they were sponsoring, like, the on-screen scoreboard during college games. I know that was through deals with the broadcasters, not the schools, but that is TOTALLY inappropriate, even for the NCAA and its questionable standards. I wrote to my alma mater complaining about it and I actually got an email back Monday from the Athletic Director personally, who was also kinda snarked off about it. I was ... amazed.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:57 PM on August 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
I was really angry they were sponsoring, like, the on-screen scoreboard during college games. I know that was through deals with the broadcasters, not the schools, but that is TOTALLY inappropriate, even for the NCAA and its questionable standards. I wrote to my alma mater complaining about it and I actually got an email back Monday from the Athletic Director personally, who was also kinda snarked off about it. I was ... amazed.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:57 PM on August 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
For me, DFS really killed something that I had enjoyed - having a fantasy keeper league for hockey. I ran the league, and it was largely fun for the first couple of years because we were all friends and co-workers who enjoyed hockey and the money was secondary to the bragging rights and the enjoyment of managing the roster. But, starting in the second year and then getting stronger throughout the third - as DFS became a bigger and bigger thing - was a huge focus from some of the players on everything being perfect. If the stats hadn't updated properly the morning after, I got emails. If somebody thought another player was bending a rule, I got emails. If they disagreed with how I said the rule applied, they emailed.
I wanted fun, and I guess I largely got it for a couple of years. But I also learned which of my friends were a little too into it, and when at the end of the third season about a third of the players said they were leaving the league, I just folded it. No real desire to try it again, either. DFS seemed to take things for some people into a level of hyper-competitiveness that I just didn't enjoy.
posted by nubs at 3:18 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
I wanted fun, and I guess I largely got it for a couple of years. But I also learned which of my friends were a little too into it, and when at the end of the third season about a third of the players said they were leaving the league, I just folded it. No real desire to try it again, either. DFS seemed to take things for some people into a level of hyper-competitiveness that I just didn't enjoy.
posted by nubs at 3:18 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
I love (fair, well-regulated) gambling. DFS has always seemed to me to combine an otherwise fun and harmless hobby with the worst aspects of technolibertarian resistance to regulation and day trading. Since there are players out there with a technological advantage, it feels less like the poker room at the Taj and more like the three card monte game on the street corner.
posted by backseatpilot at 3:43 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by backseatpilot at 3:43 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
Huh, I don't watch major networks until live games start so have no idea if they've really cut back on ads but on all the NFL related podcasts I listen to DK just started their big push. I did notice the "please check the website for eligibility rules" as something new. But the volume of ads to podcast seems the same as last year.
posted by M Edward at 5:13 PM on August 30, 2016
posted by M Edward at 5:13 PM on August 30, 2016
i like daily fantasy sites and enjoy playing them
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:46 PM on August 30, 2016
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:46 PM on August 30, 2016
Nigel Eccles is such a quintessentially English name.
posted by monotreme at 5:47 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by monotreme at 5:47 PM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have a different threshold for risk than regular people I know but still--DFS costs about as much to participate regularly as a freemium app on your phone, has some element of skill involved, and has a non-zero chance of actually making your money back.
Freemium apps are scummy too, IMO, a fact that I believe in enough that it's one of the reasons I haven't tried to make one, because Drebnar knows I could use the money.
And let's not make the mistake here that "non-zero" is an understated way of saying even slightly substantial. The only players who more than break even at this are sharks. As the article itself says, most people play a little while, correctly figure out that it's a sucker's game, and quit.
When they say it's a "skill-based game," we aren't talking about plucky individuals with a sports almanac and a canny eye for overlooked talent. We're talking about programmers and statisticians who compile tables of every relevant sport statistic that human beings will never use, that are entirely the domain of computing processes that will make the most profitable choices, down to several decimal points. They've taken moneyball to fantasy leagues. You aren't going to beat them in the long run unless you match them, and that requires substantial investment in computing resources, talent and time.
I have thought a great deal about the relationship between skill and chance, to the degree that I have been working on and off on an article about it for years. My opinion here is that money is in the game. Money is too damn valuable. Once you have substantial amounts of money on the line and a "skill based" game played over a network connection, well, there are serious technical challenges to preventing people from just running bots to farm such a system for profit.
These are long-standing issues. Did you know that most computer games don't use "true" random numbers? They instead use what are called pseudo-random number generators, basically convoluted, obfuscated mathematical operations that operate on a seed value that seek to obscure the essentially deterministic nature of their output. This doesn't matter for most purposes because, hey, it's a huge outlay of time and energy for a computer game.
But people have successfully used such systems to game NetHack, the prominent roguelike computer game, and NO money is on the line there. I shudder to think that a decent mathematician with a good understanding of the limitations of pseudorandom number sequences could do to online poker.
This comment was sent using the wifi of a bus traveling to Atlanta.
posted by JHarris at 7:42 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Freemium apps are scummy too, IMO, a fact that I believe in enough that it's one of the reasons I haven't tried to make one, because Drebnar knows I could use the money.
And let's not make the mistake here that "non-zero" is an understated way of saying even slightly substantial. The only players who more than break even at this are sharks. As the article itself says, most people play a little while, correctly figure out that it's a sucker's game, and quit.
When they say it's a "skill-based game," we aren't talking about plucky individuals with a sports almanac and a canny eye for overlooked talent. We're talking about programmers and statisticians who compile tables of every relevant sport statistic that human beings will never use, that are entirely the domain of computing processes that will make the most profitable choices, down to several decimal points. They've taken moneyball to fantasy leagues. You aren't going to beat them in the long run unless you match them, and that requires substantial investment in computing resources, talent and time.
I have thought a great deal about the relationship between skill and chance, to the degree that I have been working on and off on an article about it for years. My opinion here is that money is in the game. Money is too damn valuable. Once you have substantial amounts of money on the line and a "skill based" game played over a network connection, well, there are serious technical challenges to preventing people from just running bots to farm such a system for profit.
These are long-standing issues. Did you know that most computer games don't use "true" random numbers? They instead use what are called pseudo-random number generators, basically convoluted, obfuscated mathematical operations that operate on a seed value that seek to obscure the essentially deterministic nature of their output. This doesn't matter for most purposes because, hey, it's a huge outlay of time and energy for a computer game.
But people have successfully used such systems to game NetHack, the prominent roguelike computer game, and NO money is on the line there. I shudder to think that a decent mathematician with a good understanding of the limitations of pseudorandom number sequences could do to online poker.
This comment was sent using the wifi of a bus traveling to Atlanta.
posted by JHarris at 7:42 PM on August 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Huh. I thought NY was opposed to them for gambling, but sounds like they just wanted a piece of the action. "Games of skill" indeed.
IMO these are gambling sites that use real world events to generate random numbers.
they seem like they had good (or at least neutral) intentions to create a fun, legal version of gambling without a ton of risk.
If it's gambling it's not legal they way they tried to do it. Hence the real fantasy, that this was "skill." (Technically you can do math to find out the sucker bets--like everyone picking Tom Brady--but that's on par with knowing that betting on a few squares of roulette are especially stupid.)
What do you mean by not "tons of risk?" Were they doing anything to ensure people didn't lose more than a few bucks? The adds didn't strike me as doing anything but fueling the get rich quick dreams.
I'm not morally opposed to gambling--I've played sports pools in the office and poker with my buddies. Both of questionable legality AFAIK. Not crazy about it being industrialized though or the hypocrisy of it being called something else (further deluding the marks.)
posted by mark k at 9:26 PM on August 30, 2016
IMO these are gambling sites that use real world events to generate random numbers.
they seem like they had good (or at least neutral) intentions to create a fun, legal version of gambling without a ton of risk.
If it's gambling it's not legal they way they tried to do it. Hence the real fantasy, that this was "skill." (Technically you can do math to find out the sucker bets--like everyone picking Tom Brady--but that's on par with knowing that betting on a few squares of roulette are especially stupid.)
What do you mean by not "tons of risk?" Were they doing anything to ensure people didn't lose more than a few bucks? The adds didn't strike me as doing anything but fueling the get rich quick dreams.
I'm not morally opposed to gambling--I've played sports pools in the office and poker with my buddies. Both of questionable legality AFAIK. Not crazy about it being industrialized though or the hypocrisy of it being called something else (further deluding the marks.)
posted by mark k at 9:26 PM on August 30, 2016
Then there's the pyramid scheme aspect where 'affiliates' generate 'recurring income'.
posted by mikelieman at 10:03 PM on August 30, 2016
posted by mikelieman at 10:03 PM on August 30, 2016
I've never been a fan of the fig-leaf distinction between "gambling" and "games of skill." I'll admit to having a kind of libertarian mindset to it, but I'd rather just see all regulation of "games that entice you with the possibility of winning but chances are you'll lose most of the time" be dialed back to the level of "Do what thou wilt but: make sure your customers are adults, don't rig the games, and be honest about terms & odds." (the history of gambling regulation in the U.S. and its ties with the gross treatment of Native Americans is a discussion for another thread though, I'm sure).
I also don't think there's anything wrong with startups "professionalizing" something that had been done informally between friends, since there's obviously a market for that (paid dungeonmasters are a thing, after all).
But all that being said, jumping all-in into an industry like this and just assuming that the "games of skill" fig leaf will automagically protect you seems dumb as hell (i.e., "a bro-classic tale of hubris, recklessness, political naïveté and a kill-or-be-killed culture.").
I wonder if there will ever be a moment in "startup culture" to make regulatory compliance/change an early priority, as opposed to what seems like the current assumption which is that "government moves too slowly for growth so ignore it until you have enough funding to throw lawyers at it."
posted by sparklemotion at 8:49 AM on August 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
I also don't think there's anything wrong with startups "professionalizing" something that had been done informally between friends, since there's obviously a market for that (paid dungeonmasters are a thing, after all).
But all that being said, jumping all-in into an industry like this and just assuming that the "games of skill" fig leaf will automagically protect you seems dumb as hell (i.e., "a bro-classic tale of hubris, recklessness, political naïveté and a kill-or-be-killed culture.").
I wonder if there will ever be a moment in "startup culture" to make regulatory compliance/change an early priority, as opposed to what seems like the current assumption which is that "government moves too slowly for growth so ignore it until you have enough funding to throw lawyers at it."
posted by sparklemotion at 8:49 AM on August 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
I don't know why they don't let people just gamble on sports already in this country. They already have people betting on sports in other countries without a problem.
Enough with the "skill" based daily fantasy games.
posted by 81818181818181818181 at 9:06 AM on August 31, 2016
Enough with the "skill" based daily fantasy games.
posted by 81818181818181818181 at 9:06 AM on August 31, 2016
"I don't know why they don't let people just gamble on sports already in this country. "
The short answer is, the mob. The longer answer is, it's awkward when mafiosi are threatening to kill college students if they don't throw a game, and that we're all still traumatized as a culture by "say it ain't so, Joe!"
I mean Harry Reid came up fighting organized crime in Vegas, at least a couple times with actual fistfights rather than the law. It's not that long ago sports gambling was 100% in the clutches of organized crime and politicians were actually assaulted for attempting to regulate it and bribery and corruption were rife and reached into both the sporting events and the statehouses.
The reasonably clean gambling of the 21st century is a very new development in the US.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:13 PM on August 31, 2016 [3 favorites]
The short answer is, the mob. The longer answer is, it's awkward when mafiosi are threatening to kill college students if they don't throw a game, and that we're all still traumatized as a culture by "say it ain't so, Joe!"
I mean Harry Reid came up fighting organized crime in Vegas, at least a couple times with actual fistfights rather than the law. It's not that long ago sports gambling was 100% in the clutches of organized crime and politicians were actually assaulted for attempting to regulate it and bribery and corruption were rife and reached into both the sporting events and the statehouses.
The reasonably clean gambling of the 21st century is a very new development in the US.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:13 PM on August 31, 2016 [3 favorites]
Related: How To Legalize Sports Betting
posted by tonycpsu at 1:38 PM on August 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by tonycpsu at 1:38 PM on August 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
Mob ties or not, there is heavy, heavy lobbying by a large variety of people to keep sportsbook betting local to Vegas. Gambling draws from a limited pool of people who want to gamble, and people who are already taking making money on sportsbooks / other forms of gambling don't want competition.
posted by codacorolla at 2:51 PM on August 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 2:51 PM on August 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
A good example of the above is actually Maryland's effort to introduce casino gambling to the state several years ago. There were tons of moralizing commercials about how gambling would destroy the moral fabric of Maryland... paid for by the people who own Charlestown Racetrack a few hundred miles down the street in WV. It's very frustrating, because at a certain level they have a point (specifically Casino as revenue source being a regressive tax) but buying into their campaign just makes you the useful idiot of some asshole who's raking in millions in slot money and wants to continue monopolistic practices.
posted by codacorolla at 4:10 PM on August 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 4:10 PM on August 31, 2016 [2 favorites]
"I don't know why they don't let people just gamble on sports already in this country."
I had a further thought to add. Sports in the US are relatively less corrupt than sports in most other countries (which is hard for Americans to believe until they read about FIFA, and big-money national soccer leagues). The specifics of the US's anti-sports-gambling history are tied up in Prohibition, organized crime, monopoly exemptions, collegiate sports, and Congress avoiding real work, but the general outcome is that because gambling on professional and semi-professional sports in the US was targeted early on by lawmakers as a font of bribery, corruption, crime, and so on, sports in the US are a lot more family-oriented and mass-market, and a lot cleaner of bribery. In many countries, paid professional sports operated on the fringes of polite society for a lot longer than in the US; in the US, Congress was forcing the issue that sports were family events, and good for national defense (because healthy young men for the army), and therefore had to be clean and morally salutory, as early as the 1920s. It forced, say, early baseball teams to be less like cockfighting and more like community rec teams, and a big part of that was removing gambling and insisting on financial transparency (through normal corporate reporting requirements). Some of the knock-on effects of this are that you can take your six-year-old to an NFL game and expect there NOT to be official racist team chants (Washington's football team excluded), or to hear obscenities from the announcers, or for there to be a mob crush where people die; the NFL expects there to be six-year-olds and organizes accordingly. (There's a reason it's called the No Fun League!) In many other countries, because professional sports operated on the fringes of society for a lot longer (and without the national lawmaking body scrutinizing them), sports fandom is far more limited to adult men, and may in some cases be actively dangerous for women and children.
While I think that modern American professional sports are probably resilient enough to have recreational gambling on the side (college sports are definitely not and that is a gigantic tire fire waiting to happen), it's important to recognize that this huge injection of money on the side introduces a large variety of incentives that weren't there before. Match-fixing and game-throwing by bought-and-paid-for athletes for the benefit of big gamblers or bookies is one; but because it's such a big-money endeavor it also introduces corruption into statehouses, local prosecutors, and so on, as big-money gambling outfits try to buy favorable treatment in the statehouse or prosecutors who'll look the other way when they run afoul of the law. (And gambling isn't morally neutral, IMO; while I think it probably should be legal and regulated, it's a common form of addiction and when states legalize it it tends to cost them more than they earn in tax revenue because of the costs of citizens who gamble themselves into poverty and other problems.) And while gambling's highly-regulated, it's as susceptible to regulatory capture as any other industry. Combining the big money of professional sports with the big money of legalized gambling is a huuuuuuuge, and highly professional, lobby that will be invading your local statehouse and attempting to buy up your inexpert local legislators and your state regulatory body -- with very little organized opposition, who have very little funding. It's simply a LOT of money to introduce into statehouse politics and that should give us pause. Sports lobbyists already convince states and cities to, say, use taxpayer dollars to fund boondoggle stadia so that private shareholders can make out like bandits -- imagine adding gambling money to the bad decision-making sports ALREADY induce in local governments.
Americans like their clean sports (and are furiously judgmental when they learn about match-fixing or doping or dirty sports money, to the level of Congressional investigations of home runs because obviously it matters to the health of the Republic if athletes take steroids), and thinking about how sports gambling will change American sports, and their long-term viability and profitability as mass-market family events, is a very legitimate concern. (And evidence does suggest that dirty sports costs viewers and fans.) But beyond the sports themselves, there's a very real concern about the kind of money and influence that legalized sports gambling introduces into politics and the political and economic incentives that legalized sports gambling creates for states, politicians, individual citizens, and individual athletes.
It's definitely better that corporations be the ones trying to screw us all out of our money through games of semi-chance, instead of the mob, as corporations are less likely to break your legs than (zombie) Al Capone. But corporations definitely want to buy your state legislators and that, in the end, may be more corrosive and dangerous. Which isn't to say it shouldn't be legal, but that it should be kept on a tight and very suspicious leash.
In a way it was a relief to see how incompetent the daily fantasy companies were in Illinois; they just kept insisting, "But it's a game of SKILL!" and the state AG kept being like "So's poker, assholes." And they clearly invested no time, money, or energy in finding out Illinois's specific history with gambling or its specific legal objections and restraints (and there are A LOT of lawyers who are good at gambling law because there are no casinos allowed in Chicago (but yes in not-Chicago) and Chicago would really, really like one, AND we just got video gaming like a year or two ago so they're fresh off a big lobbying effort anyway AND the licenses for the casinos are ridic expensive so it's good money for the lawyers). It was literally the hackiest lobbying effort I've ever seen from a big-money or even medium-money industry since I became a statehouse-watcher. But one day they'll be back with better lawyers and lobbyists and insider knowledge of state law and lots of friendly things to say to legislators from counties of 3,000 people about the jobs and tax receipts they can bring, and I have real questions about whether the legislature will make decisions in the interests of the citizens of the state rather than the out-of-state corporations who want to fleece the citizens of the state, if they can offer enough goodies to re-elect the rep from Podunk and the reps from other places rely on briefs from the gambling lobby.
(The other thing is, casinos in Illinois are STILL dirty-money magnets whose owners are involved in government corruption scandals ALL THE DAMN TIME. Like literally yearly. Big money gambling comes with crime and corruption and I have no reason to believe daily fantasy will be any different than the already-highly-regulated casino industry. Like the theoretical corruption from gambling interests is a concern -- but the ACTUAL CORRUPTION is a constant fact of life.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:26 PM on August 31, 2016 [6 favorites]
I had a further thought to add. Sports in the US are relatively less corrupt than sports in most other countries (which is hard for Americans to believe until they read about FIFA, and big-money national soccer leagues). The specifics of the US's anti-sports-gambling history are tied up in Prohibition, organized crime, monopoly exemptions, collegiate sports, and Congress avoiding real work, but the general outcome is that because gambling on professional and semi-professional sports in the US was targeted early on by lawmakers as a font of bribery, corruption, crime, and so on, sports in the US are a lot more family-oriented and mass-market, and a lot cleaner of bribery. In many countries, paid professional sports operated on the fringes of polite society for a lot longer than in the US; in the US, Congress was forcing the issue that sports were family events, and good for national defense (because healthy young men for the army), and therefore had to be clean and morally salutory, as early as the 1920s. It forced, say, early baseball teams to be less like cockfighting and more like community rec teams, and a big part of that was removing gambling and insisting on financial transparency (through normal corporate reporting requirements). Some of the knock-on effects of this are that you can take your six-year-old to an NFL game and expect there NOT to be official racist team chants (Washington's football team excluded), or to hear obscenities from the announcers, or for there to be a mob crush where people die; the NFL expects there to be six-year-olds and organizes accordingly. (There's a reason it's called the No Fun League!) In many other countries, because professional sports operated on the fringes of society for a lot longer (and without the national lawmaking body scrutinizing them), sports fandom is far more limited to adult men, and may in some cases be actively dangerous for women and children.
While I think that modern American professional sports are probably resilient enough to have recreational gambling on the side (college sports are definitely not and that is a gigantic tire fire waiting to happen), it's important to recognize that this huge injection of money on the side introduces a large variety of incentives that weren't there before. Match-fixing and game-throwing by bought-and-paid-for athletes for the benefit of big gamblers or bookies is one; but because it's such a big-money endeavor it also introduces corruption into statehouses, local prosecutors, and so on, as big-money gambling outfits try to buy favorable treatment in the statehouse or prosecutors who'll look the other way when they run afoul of the law. (And gambling isn't morally neutral, IMO; while I think it probably should be legal and regulated, it's a common form of addiction and when states legalize it it tends to cost them more than they earn in tax revenue because of the costs of citizens who gamble themselves into poverty and other problems.) And while gambling's highly-regulated, it's as susceptible to regulatory capture as any other industry. Combining the big money of professional sports with the big money of legalized gambling is a huuuuuuuge, and highly professional, lobby that will be invading your local statehouse and attempting to buy up your inexpert local legislators and your state regulatory body -- with very little organized opposition, who have very little funding. It's simply a LOT of money to introduce into statehouse politics and that should give us pause. Sports lobbyists already convince states and cities to, say, use taxpayer dollars to fund boondoggle stadia so that private shareholders can make out like bandits -- imagine adding gambling money to the bad decision-making sports ALREADY induce in local governments.
Americans like their clean sports (and are furiously judgmental when they learn about match-fixing or doping or dirty sports money, to the level of Congressional investigations of home runs because obviously it matters to the health of the Republic if athletes take steroids), and thinking about how sports gambling will change American sports, and their long-term viability and profitability as mass-market family events, is a very legitimate concern. (And evidence does suggest that dirty sports costs viewers and fans.) But beyond the sports themselves, there's a very real concern about the kind of money and influence that legalized sports gambling introduces into politics and the political and economic incentives that legalized sports gambling creates for states, politicians, individual citizens, and individual athletes.
It's definitely better that corporations be the ones trying to screw us all out of our money through games of semi-chance, instead of the mob, as corporations are less likely to break your legs than (zombie) Al Capone. But corporations definitely want to buy your state legislators and that, in the end, may be more corrosive and dangerous. Which isn't to say it shouldn't be legal, but that it should be kept on a tight and very suspicious leash.
In a way it was a relief to see how incompetent the daily fantasy companies were in Illinois; they just kept insisting, "But it's a game of SKILL!" and the state AG kept being like "So's poker, assholes." And they clearly invested no time, money, or energy in finding out Illinois's specific history with gambling or its specific legal objections and restraints (and there are A LOT of lawyers who are good at gambling law because there are no casinos allowed in Chicago (but yes in not-Chicago) and Chicago would really, really like one, AND we just got video gaming like a year or two ago so they're fresh off a big lobbying effort anyway AND the licenses for the casinos are ridic expensive so it's good money for the lawyers). It was literally the hackiest lobbying effort I've ever seen from a big-money or even medium-money industry since I became a statehouse-watcher. But one day they'll be back with better lawyers and lobbyists and insider knowledge of state law and lots of friendly things to say to legislators from counties of 3,000 people about the jobs and tax receipts they can bring, and I have real questions about whether the legislature will make decisions in the interests of the citizens of the state rather than the out-of-state corporations who want to fleece the citizens of the state, if they can offer enough goodies to re-elect the rep from Podunk and the reps from other places rely on briefs from the gambling lobby.
(The other thing is, casinos in Illinois are STILL dirty-money magnets whose owners are involved in government corruption scandals ALL THE DAMN TIME. Like literally yearly. Big money gambling comes with crime and corruption and I have no reason to believe daily fantasy will be any different than the already-highly-regulated casino industry. Like the theoretical corruption from gambling interests is a concern -- but the ACTUAL CORRUPTION is a constant fact of life.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:26 PM on August 31, 2016 [6 favorites]
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posted by Mayor West at 1:06 PM on August 30, 2016 [3 favorites]