While regulated sports betting is busy conquering the US gambling market, a beef between rival daily fantasy sports operators is heating up. The battle started with The latest salvo in the DFS war comes from Underdog Fantasy CEO Jeremy Levine in the form of an open letter accusing DraftKings and FanDuel accusing them, among other things, of engaging in monopolistic business practices.
Levine’s letter came in response to comments made last month by FanDuel’s Senior Director of State Government Relations Cesar Fernandez at a gathering of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States. Fernandez lashed out DFS sites like Underdog Fantasy and Betr saying, “There are companies today posing as fantasy sports operators, and they are running illegal sportsbooks.”
Those comments spurred regulators in Wyoming to halt DFS operators from accepting certain prop-style wagers.
Not surprisingly, none of this sat well with Levine, who posted an open letter on Underdog letting the world know exactly how he feels about FanDuel, DraftKings, and the outsize power he feels they wield with regulators.
Levine holds nothing back in his letter saying, “As you may have seen, the right to play our fantasy sports contests has recently come under attack. The attention is not organic – it’s being directly fueled by the companies with a virtual monopoly in sports gaming: FanDuel and DraftKings.”
“They are waging a campaign in back rooms across the country, using their deep pockets and political muscle to try to influence government officials, and exerting their market power to influence our business partners. Today we’re pulling this issue out of the shadows. We want the Underdog community to understand why and how FanDuel and DraftKings are working so hard to eliminate fantasy sports innovation, kill competition, and boost their bottom lines at the expense of sports fans,” he added.
Levine goes on to point out, step-by-step, why Underdog meets the regulatory standards set for DFS operators and does not qualify as sports betting.
The issue of DFS operators masquerading as sportsbooks is particularly rich coming from DraftKings and FanDuel. When their DFS sites were accused of the exact same thing, both claimed that they were not interested in sports betting. So far there’s no word on when Wyoming regulators will make any more decisions on DFS sites in their state.