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Senate Committee Bets On Bill Regulating Fantasy Sports

Harrison Wagner
/
Indiana Public Broadcasting

A Senate panel Wednesday unanimously approved legislation legalizing and regulating daily fantasy sports, such as the websites Fan Duel and DraftKings. 

The proposed bill would impose some insider information protections, barring daily fantasy employees and their families from playing. 

It also bars professional athletes and officials from playing. 

The measure says game operators must ensure their players are at least 18 years of age and must charge an entry fee to play. 

Fan Duel attorney Scott Ward says fantasy sports is the new national pastime with more than one million Hoosiers participating.  And he argues daily fantasy isn’t gambling, as some charge.

“Chance plays a very small part in fantasy sports because the game is designed to be determined by skill – skill in picking the statistically best eight or nine players,” Ward says.

But Indiana Council on Problem Gambling executive director Jerry Long disagrees.

“We can call it 'not gambling' but it really is gambling,” Long says.

Long says the state needs to ensure it provides enough resources to help those struggling with gambling addiction.  Those funds are largely provided by gaming taxes – which the bill does not impose on daily fantasy sports.

Brandon Smith is excited to be working for public radio in Indiana. He has previously worked in public radio as a reporter and anchor in mid-Missouri for KBIA Radio out of Columbia. Prior to that, he worked for WSPY Radio in Plano, Illinois as a show host, reporter, producer and anchor. His first job in radio was in another state capitol, in Jefferson City, Missouri, as a reporter for three radio stations around Missouri. Brandon graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Bachelor of Journalism in 2010, with minors in political science and history. He was born and raised in Chicago.