Maybe Hawaii Will Get Fantasy Sports After All

Just two days ago, Hawaii’s attorney general issued an opinion stating that daily fantasy sports contests in Hawaii run afoul of state gambling laws. I noted in this post that it was not a big surprise to see Hawaii take this position. After all, the state has some of the strictest anti-gambling laws in the entire United States.

Well, we got a nice surprise the very next day. Yesterday, news stories started popping up all over the place; Hawaiian lawmakers have introduced a bill in both the House and Senate to legalize, regulate and tax daily fantasy sports operators such as FanDuel and DraftKings. The pro-fantasy bills were part of a batch of more than 2,000 bills that Hawaiian lawmakers have introduced so far in the 2016 legislative session prior to a legislative deadline.

HB 1838 introduced by representatives Joseph Souki, John Mizuno, James Tokioka and Kyle Yamashita borrows language from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (2006) that exempts fantasy sports from federal anti-gambling measures as long as they meet the following criteria:

  • The value of all prizes and awards offered to winning participants is established and made known to the participants in advance of the contest;
  • All winning outcomes reflect the relative knowledge and skill of the participants and are determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of the performance of individuals, including athletes in the case of sporting events; and
  • No winning outcome is based on the score, point spread, or any performance or performances of any single actual team or combination of teams or solely on any single performance of an individual athlete or player in any single actual event.

The types of contests offered by today’s major fantasy sites already meet that definition, so there would be no need to make any changes to their core business. HB 1838 would also require fantasy sports operators to register with the Department of the Attorney General and pay a $25,000 registration fee.

The bill includes a section dedicated to player protection that consists of regulations that would apply to operators. These include measures against employees and associates of employees from participating in real money contests or sharing inside information to gain an advantage, setting a minimum participation age of 18, require operators to offer self-exclusion programs and segregate player funds from operational funds. Finally, fantasy sites would be required to submit to an annual audit to ensure compliance.

This bill closely resembles others we’ve talked about in recent days here at BettingUSA.com. It’s starting to look like lawmakers are either taking cues from bills introduced in other states or that fantasy sports lobbyists are starting to gain traction with legislators. The bills proposed in Hawaii make for quick reading as they are short, to the point and clearly written.

It’s hard telling what the likelihood of either fantasy sports bill making significant progress, but it doesn’t seem like such a longshot when we also consider that lawmakers in the Aloha State have also been mulling over the possibility of legalizing a lottery and other forms of gambling. For example, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Hawaiian attitudes toward gambling are changing. A 2012 poll found that most people support a state lottery and cruise ship gambling.

Any progress is good in Hawaii. The state has traditionally been opposed to all forms of gambling. Hawaii and Utah are the only two states in the US with no legal gambling whatsoever. If fantasy sports can gain a foothold in Hawaii, they can make progress anywhere.

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