4 ms·

They left out the UIGEA which specifically legalized fantasy sports for money and the fact that FanDuel was not the first daily fantasy sports site (went throug

They left out the UIGEA which specifically legalized fantasy sports for money and the fact that FanDuel was not the first daily fantasy sports site (went through YC with one myself in 2007) but good primer nonetheless.

exogeny 1y ago
Yeah, as someone who lived through this entire saga first-hand as well, it's...an OK article but it's really missing a lot of things. DFS, in particular, was and is very legitimately a game of skill. (In fact, looking at it from an Elo perspective and from the perspective of "Who should win?", it's more of a game of skill than the sports themselves!) There was absolutely no reason for it to be made illegal, other than to protect the tribal gaming interests in California and Florida. They pushed back so hard and with such little justification that the tide really, really turned against them in a much more broad way than they ever anticipated. The ironic thing is, Matt King at FD and Jason Robins at DK probably would have been perfectly happy if the outcome had been that they be allowed to merge and that DFS is legalized and regulated. Instead Robins is a billionaire and Flutter made the best corporate acquisition of the 2010s.
- aprilthird2021 1y ago
  The article itself is garbage and I strongly believe it's AI generated. But even on top of that, the coverage of this issue is severely lacking. There were already many online sports books "legally" HQ'd in the Caribbean or other offshore locales. They were pointed to as proof of how much money could be made and money won. That's the story. We allowed greed to addict millions of young men on sports gambling because we lost our spines in this country.
- HWR_14 1y ago
  How is it being a game of skill better for society than random chance?
  - xboxnolifes 1y ago
    It's not a moral argument. Skilled games don't typically fall under gambling laws.
    - mattmaroon 1y ago
      That’s not true. Poker is only legal in a few states where gambling otherwise isn’t. (This was true still back when gambling was legal in far fewer states.) A game that is both skill and gambling (of which there are many) still generally is regulated as gambling.
      - xboxnolifes 1y ago
        Poker is very much a game of chance. It falls in the (known) gray area of gambling laws since it has some skilled elements.
  - lmm 1y ago
    Much lower risk of people getting addicted to games of skill, and much less expensive for people who do get addicted?
    - bluecalm 1y ago
      It's the opposite on both counts. There is additional mechanism to get addicted - delusion of having an edge. If you're a bad addicted player you will also lose more (cause others have an edge over you bigger than casinos at their games).
      - lmm 1y ago
        Chess is the biggest game on Twitch, but getting addicted to it is pretty rare, and you certainly don't hear of people losing their house over their chess addiction.
        bluecalm 1y ago
- bluecalm 1y ago
  It doesn't matter if it's a game or skill it not. It's still gambling and it's still terrible. You can even argue that games of skill for money are worse than pure chance game because there is one more mechanism for people to get addicted: delusion of having an edge. If DFS is legal roulette should be legal as well because it has fewer negative consequences for society. I know it's popular narrative among pro gamblers that games of skill deserve a different (better) treatment but it's just self serving nonsense in my view (I've spent most of my adult life in a gambling world as both a pro player and software developer).

exogeny 1y ago

Yeah, as someone who lived through this entire saga first-hand as well, it's...an OK article but it's really missing a lot of things. DFS, in particular, was and is very legitimately a game of skill. (In fact, looking at it from an Elo perspective and from the perspective of "Who should win?", it's more of a game of skill than the sports themselves!) There was absolutely no reason for it to be made illegal, other than to protect the tribal gaming interests in California and Florida. They pushed back so hard and with such little justification that the tide really, really turned against them in a much more broad way than they ever anticipated. The ironic thing is, Matt King at FD and Jason Robins at DK probably would have been perfectly happy if the outcome had been that they be allowed to merge and that DFS is legalized and regulated. Instead Robins is a billionaire and Flutter made the best corporate acquisition of the 2010s.

aprilthird2021 1y ago
The article itself is garbage and I strongly believe it's AI generated. But even on top of that, the coverage of this issue is severely lacking. There were already many online sports books "legally" HQ'd in the Caribbean or other offshore locales. They were pointed to as proof of how much money could be made and money won. That's the story. We allowed greed to addict millions of young men on sports gambling because we lost our spines in this country.
HWR_14 1y ago
How is it being a game of skill better for society than random chance?
- xboxnolifes 1y ago
  It's not a moral argument. Skilled games don't typically fall under gambling laws.
  - mattmaroon 1y ago
    That’s not true. Poker is only legal in a few states where gambling otherwise isn’t. (This was true still back when gambling was legal in far fewer states.) A game that is both skill and gambling (of which there are many) still generally is regulated as gambling.
    - xboxnolifes 1y ago
      Poker is very much a game of chance. It falls in the (known) gray area of gambling laws since it has some skilled elements.
- lmm 1y ago
  Much lower risk of people getting addicted to games of skill, and much less expensive for people who do get addicted?
  - bluecalm 1y ago
    It's the opposite on both counts. There is additional mechanism to get addicted - delusion of having an edge. If you're a bad addicted player you will also lose more (cause others have an edge over you bigger than casinos at their games).
    - lmm 1y ago
      Chess is the biggest game on Twitch, but getting addicted to it is pretty rare, and you certainly don't hear of people losing their house over their chess addiction.
      - bluecalm 1y ago
bluecalm 1y ago
It doesn't matter if it's a game or skill it not. It's still gambling and it's still terrible. You can even argue that games of skill for money are worse than pure chance game because there is one more mechanism for people to get addicted: delusion of having an edge. If DFS is legal roulette should be legal as well because it has fewer negative consequences for society. I know it's popular narrative among pro gamblers that games of skill deserve a different (better) treatment but it's just self serving nonsense in my view (I've spent most of my adult life in a gambling world as both a pro player and software developer).