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State regulators continue to pressure fantasy sports operators that offer pick’em style games to leave their states, including new action from Florida regulators requiring operators to cease the games by March 1.
The Florida Gaming Control Commission sent initial letters to three daily fantasy operators — PrizePicks, Underdog Fantasy and Betr — in September, ordering them to cease offering “bets or wagers … on the results of any contests of skill such as sports betting, including, but not limited to, bets or wagers made connection with fantasy sports.”
In follow-up letters dated January 31, Louis Trombetta, the commission’s executive director, said that each of the three companies represented that their operations were compliant with state law, and that they would seek judicial affirmation of that fact.
However, he added that the companies informed the commission they would comply with the cease-and-desist order in the interim, which the commission said would be effective within 30 days of the letters being sent.
“If the cessation is completed within that timeframe, the commission will deem the company and all of its officials, directors and employees to have complied with the demands of the cease-and-desist order, and the commission will not take further action, including referral to the Office of Statewide Prosecution or to any State Attorney,” Trombetta wrote.
A source confirmed to Vixio GamblingCompliance that Underdog will stop offering its pick’em-style games on March 1, but will continue to offer traditional daily and season-long contests in Florida.
In addition to the Florida developments, Arkansas became the latest state to launch its own offensive against the operators, with the state’s Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) sending cease-and-desist letters Thursday (February 15) to PrizePicks and Underdog.
The DFA claims that the single-statistic games offered by the operators is a form of sports betting that violates the state’s constitution, calling them “player prop bets.”
“Back in the day, places that tolerated illegal gambling were referred to as ‘wide open,’” said DFA regulatory administrator Trent Minner in a statement Thursday. “The internet is today’s equivalent of a ‘wide open town’ where unlicensed gambling thrives outside of the taxation and age-verification requirements required by the law.”
“As the state’s regulator of licensed sports betting, DFA is putting these companies on notice that Arkansas is not ‘wide open.’”
Fantasy sports in Arkansas is not regulated, but the activity is permitted by a 2017 law that taxes fantasy contest operators at 8 percent of gross revenues.
However, the DFA said in its release that the law “does not allow these operators to offer unlicensed sports betting.”
More than a dozen states have taken some kind of action over the last year to try to curb the popular daily fantasy games, including changing regulations in New York, Michigan, and Colorado, as well as sending cease-and-desist letters and carrying out reviews by state attorneys general or gaming regulators in various states, including Virginia and Kansas.
“We continue to make important progress against unlicensed sports-betting sites masquerading as daily fantasy products,” said Bill Miller, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, in a post on X. “Encouraging to see regulators in Florida, Kansas and Arkansas keep up the pressure with an influx of enforcement action this week.”
