FanDuel, DraftKings, DFS wins big – still legal in New York (for now)

Daily fantasy sports players in New York can rest easy for awhile.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell reported Monday that FanDuel and DraftKings have received a permanent injunction against state officials who were looking to cease the companies’ operations in the state.

The Appellate Division of the New York state Supreme Court made an emergency stay (which was granted last month) permanent.

Late last year, New York attorney general Eric Schneidermansent FanDuel and DraftKings “cease and desist” orders.

FanDuel and DraftKings have insisted that playing daily fantasy sports is a “game of skill” and is “not gambling.”

In an interview with Metro in October 2014, then-DraftKings VP of communications Femi Wasserman told Metro that the company does not view the exclusion of fantasy sports in the much-discussed 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act as a “loophole.”

“That’s a matter of debate, a subjective argument,” Wasserman said. “We don’t stay up at night worrying about regulators eventually ‘catching up.’ We’re planning on being here. We view ourselves as a start-up and we’re on a typical start-up curve. We believe that what we do is legal and we believe that our customers love fantasy sports, first and foremost.”

A war between traditional sports books in Las Vegas and the daily fantasy industry has also been brewing since daily fantasy soared in popularity last year.

“If you randomly picked against the [point spread] you would be close to 50/50 almost every time,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins told ESPN last year, attempting to explain how daily fantasy is a game of skill. “If you randomly picked a fantasy lineup and played against someone who put thought into it, they would beat you nine times out of 10, if not more. So we are pretty different, I think, from sports books where even though there is some advantage that can be had, the edges are so minimal that it is primarily chance-based.”