New York Again Rules Fantasy Sports Betting Unconstitutional

While a good portion of the United States is reaping the benefits of legalized sports gambling, New York continues to play the role of the fun police. On Thursday, a New York appellate court ruled that online fantasy sports betting is, in fact, illegal.
This upholds a ruling that stating a 2016 law allowing fantasy sports is now something that goes against the state’s constitution.
“We recognize that the legislature was sympathetic to and supportive of IFS (interactive fantasy services) participants,” as stated by the appellate panel. “Nevertheless, we have rejected the legislature’s explicitly stated basis for the removal of IFS from the Penal Law definitions of gambling.”
Also, according to the appellate decision:
“Because public policy continues to disfavor gambling, exceptions to the constitutional prohibition on gambling must be strictly construed to ensure that they do not consume the rule itself. As Supreme Court aptly observed, allowing the Legislature unfettered discretion to determine what is not gambling would render meaningless the constitutional prohibition on “lottery or the sale of lottery tickets, poolselling, book-making, or any other kind of gambling” because this area would devolve to being governed by statutory law and not by the constitutional provision. Thus, IFS contests are not excluded from the constitutional meaning of “gambling” merely because the Legislature now says that it is so.”
New York does allow sports betting, but only at a few casinos in the upstate portion.
Opponents Of Gambling
As the level of hypocrisy reaches new levels, the lawsuit on New York’s constitution came from the Stop Predatory Gambling group, on behalf of four plaintiffs who had a rough go of it with gambling.
“The reason New York state has a constitutional prohibition on commercialized gambling promoted by the state is because it’s a form of financial fraud,” said Les Bernal, national director of Stop Predatory Gambling. “This isn’t about people having a Super Bowl office pool. This is about state government cheating and exploiting people, contributing to the huge debt culture in our state.”
If there was ever any doubt about New York bowing to the feet of outside influence, there shouldn’t be any longer. If daily fantasy sports are such a harp on New York’s society, surely it would have no problem getting rid of horse racing, lottery games, and scratch-off tickets – right?
Not to mention, DraftKings has a sponsorship right on the court at Madison Square Garden!
While all of this is incredibly tedious, New York still does have a decent chance to get daily fantasy sports back in place. Officials in Albany will ask the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, to hear this case as soon as possible.
As of now, it appears as DFS contests can continue through an appeal. However, the future of these contests is what’s really in question.
New York is not the only state that doesn’t offer DFS contests – Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon are the others not to.