One Nation, Under God

If only the State of Montana would allow me to win millions each day

I’d like to discuss one of my pet peeves today. This column will not include the bugbears that are horror movies, circuses or long-winded speakers (but someday it might.) No, the pet peeve I want to talk about is when I am told I can’t do something but given no reason why.

If you have watched a single stitch of any sports broadcast in the last six months then you have seen advertisements for Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) websites such as FanDuel and DraftKings. Going 10-minutes during any televised sporting event without seeing one of these commercials would be like seeing one of the Kardashian sisters at Library. It doesn’t happen.

The DFS sites allow you to pick a starting roster of pro athletes, make a small monetary deposit with the site and the allure being that for your piddly $20 entry fee you will more than likely to win several million dollars per day.

Sure you will. If you believe this boast, might I interest you in these magic beans?

While I would never throw my hard-earned loot at one of these illusions, I recently discovered, because I live in Montana, that I can’t participate even if that wild-hair should arise. Come to find out that the Treasure State is one of the five in the U.S. that prohibits playing in these DFS sites. So, I now know that I can’t, but how come?

After nearly 60 minutes of searching the web, I finally broke down and called some people at the State level (low and behold, I finally found someone in their office that wasn’t away from their desk for the next five days.) The gentleman from the Montana Gambling Control Division explained that the State Constitution, written in 1889, made all forms of gambling illegal. While there has been amendments to the document – keno and poker machines were legalized in 1976 – gambling in Montana is still illegal. The caveat to the online DFS sites is they require deposits to be made with credit/debit cards and the State of Montana says this type of gambling is still illegal (my guess is that, unlike the state lottery or keno machines, online gambling generates nary a single tax dollar and thus keeps online gambling illegal, but I digress.)

It seems as if, for the most part, the State of Montana is lenient as far as letting their citizens live their lives on their own terms. In the regulation of DFS gambling, the state might be correct in not allowing us to plunk down our mullah.

Just this week, a man in Manhattan, Kan., filed a class action lawsuit against DraftKings claiming the company allows their employees to participate in the action – these employees are privy to analytics and data that gives them an unfair advantage over Average Joe – and the sites are accused of negligence, fraud and false advertising.

I got the answer to my question and can now go about my daily business. If you, per chance, thought these websites were anything other than frauds, I will have those magic beans for sale, at a discount, until I have sold them all. Give me a call.

 

Reader Comments(0)