Twice weekly, we’ll comb through as many articles, tweets and podcasts as we can find related to the world of sports betting and daily fantasy sports, and publish the good stuff here.
Stumble upon something you think we should include? Email info@bettingtalk.com.
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Canadian congress members will debate a bill today that would allow providences and territories the ability to allow betting on single sports events. While sports betting has been legal in Canada for decades, it’s only existed in a parlay format.
Masse, the NDP critic for Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, said the bill will help with the issue of organized crime and recognizes that significant funds from gaming could be regulated and put toward education, infrastructure and other provincial matters.
“The bill has robust support from many different parts of this country and allows provinces to bring in single event sports betting products if they so choose,” said Masse.
“So it doesn’t make anything have to happen, it’s about provincial governments having the ability to act on this and bring that product to market in the fashion they see fit and the first step is eliminating a sentence in the criminal code and then we move from there,” he added.
A Capitol Hill briefing to discuss sports betting is set for this week. The American Gaming Association will co-host the event with Sports Integrity Monitor.
The event to be known as “The World of Sports Betting and Safeguarding Sports Integrity” comes as the world of sports betting continues what the AGA describes as a “rapid rise.” It will focus on “global issues” and include a discussion on legal and regulated sports betting with leading experts from around the world.
A Newsweek writer suggests that DraftKings and FanDuel might need to merge in the future to stay afloat.
Then there’s the last item on that to-do list: a merger. Technology markets tend to be winner-take-most. Users tend to like to be on sites where other users are, and they don’t want to have to evaluate their choices. Two equals in a long-term head-to-head fight can damage a category. Look how that played out in online freelance marketplaces. Two companies, oDesk and Elance, fought each other, exhausting resources. Finally, in late 2013, they merged, forming Upwork, which seems to be thriving. The same thing happened with Seamless and GrubHub. FanDuel and DraftKings would probably be better off going that route.
In a response, LegalSportsReport’s Dustin Gouker explores why the two sites won’t merge.
FanDuel and DraftKings, together, hold in excess of 90% of the DFS market. A merger would create a near monopoly of the industry — Yahoo is a distant No. 3 in terms of marketshare — and one that would be exceedingly difficult for any company to dislodge.
DFS legal expert Marc Edelman — who also works on antitrust matters — said he believes theFederal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice would be extremely likely to challenge a DraftKings-FanDuel merger under antitrust law.
“It is very rare that the FTC or DOJ would allow the No. 1 and No. 2 players in a highly concentrated industry to merge without further investigation,” Edelman said.
RotoGrinders.com co-founder Cal Spears makes an appeal for Tennessee legislators to support daily fantasy sports in an op-ed piece published by the Tennessean.
Seven members of team RotoGrinders recently went to the capitol to discuss our local business and the skill involved in DFS with our representatives. We were the ideal group for this — if DFS wasn’t a skill game, then our business wouldn’t exist.
We need legislation in place to protect this hobby and those who play it. Ensuring a level playing field should be a priority. Legislation should protect player funds and ensure that all prizes are paid out. Regulations should also protect irresponsible players from themselves, with deposit caps or similar precautions. The proposed legislation that has already passed the Senate is incredibly thorough on the consumer protection front.
Nevada governor Brian Sandoval said he thinks Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis is actually interested in moving his NFL team to Las Vegas and isn’t just using the move as leverage for a new stadium in California.
Sandoval recently met with Davis, and he told the Las Vegas Sun in an interview on Wednesday that the encounter left a good impression on him. Although the governor wouldn’t discuss details of his private conversation with Davis, he said the meeting was arranged in order to get a sense of “how earnest (Davis) is about coming” to Las Vegas, and that he was “incredibly impressed” by their conversation.