Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan ruled Wednesday that daily fantasy sports are illegal gambling under current Illinois state law. She did not go so far as to order DFS sites out of the site as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman did, but one could probably assume that she would recommend that course of action. Illinois becomes the eighth state to explicitly say that DFS is illegal.
Also unlike Schneiderman, Madigan did not appear to show any specific prejudice towards top sites FanDuel and DraftKings, though they were used as examples in her ruling. The basis of her ruling was very straightforward: the law defines gambling a certain way and daily fantasy sports fall under that definition. She cited the following portion of the Illinois Criminal Code in her ruling:
(a) A person commits gambling when he or she:
(1) knowingly plays a game of chance or skill for money or other thing of value; unless excepted in subsection (b) of this Section;
[…]
(12) knowingly establishes, maintains, or operates an Internet site that permits a person to play a game of chance or skill for money or other thing of value by means of the Internet or to make a wager upon the result of any game, contest, political nomination, appointment, or election by means of the Internet.
The key here is that DraftKings and FanDuel have always said their offerings are legal because they are games of skill, but in this case, Madigan is saying it doesn’t matter at all. As she says, “The statutory language is straightforward and unequivocal. It clearly declares that all games of chance or skill, when played for money, are illegal gambling in Illinois, unless excepted. While the Contest Organizers assert that daily fantasy sports contests are games of skill’ rather than games of chance, that argument is immaterial because subsection 28-1(a)(1) expressly encompasses both.”
It really does seem to be a very simple, reasonable interpretation of the law. There doesn’t seem to be much room for argument by the DFS sites. Of course, that hasn’t stopped FanDuel from issuing the following statement that means nothing:
Chicago may be the best sports town in the country. It’s a city — and Illinois is a state — that plays fantasy sports like almost no other. “The League” is even set in Illinois. So why the Attorney General would tell her 13.5 million constituents they can’t play fantasy sports anymore as they know it — and make no mistake, her opinion bans all forms of fantasy sports played for money — is beyond us. Hopefully, the legislature will give back to the people of Illinois the games they love. A sports town like Chicago and a sports-loving state like Illinois deserves nothing less.
Madigan even notes that there is legislation pending in both chambers of the General Assembly that would legalize daily fantasy sports, a fact that she says supports her ruling, as if DFS was legal, there would be no need for the bill.