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Two prominent daily fantasy sports (DFS) operators have altered their Alabama DFS offerings after a request from the Attorney General’s Office, including Underdog Fantasy Alabama.
Underdog Sports and PrizePicks can no longer offer over/under type selections with individual athletes to customers. Both Underdog and PrizePicks are limited to offering Alabama customers their “combo” selections, which must include two or more athletes.
Customers in Alabama select between two to six of these “combo” boxes and play against the house, not other individuals like more traditional DFS operators.
Both are licensed to operate in the state.
Alabama changes most recent for DFS operators
A spokesperson for the Alabama Attorney General’s Office declined to comment for the story. The attorney general regulates DFS in Alabama.
Nicholas Green, general counsel for Underdog Fantasy, thanked the Attorney General for working with Underdog to make the adjustments and for allowing both peer-to-peer and pick’em single-player fantasy contests in the state. You can read more about Underdog Fantasy promo code and their huge best ball tournaments.
“We were glad to work with the Alabama Attorney General, who decisively interpreted the state’s daily fantasy sports law as allowing both peer-to-peer and our pick’em single-player fantasy contests. We’ve always maintained a fantasy sports license in the state, which the state has renewed multiple times. We’re continuing to offer pick’em with the Attorney General’s approval, with only relatively minor adjustments. We look forward to continuing to make our pick’em game and future game formats available to Alabamans,” he said.
A PrizePicks representative also confirmed the request.
“We are appreciative to the officials at the Alabama Attorney General’s Office who have been incredibly collaborative in ensuring that fantasy enthusiasts in the state of Alabama can access our popular skills-based fantasy contests. We now have an updated product offering in Alabama that has become extremely popular over the past month and look forward to innovating additional entertaining game types in the future,” the PrizePicks rep said.
Changes not as severe in Alabama
The Alabama changes were not as severe for the DFS operators compared with other state requests.
The Wyoming Gaming Commission recently sent both PrizePicks and Underdog Sports a cease-and-desist letter for offering what they believe to be illegal sports betting in the state.
In a recent New York State Register update, New York regulators rejected a request from a commenter to alter the state’s proposed DFS rules to allow for such contests offered by PrizePicks and Underdog Sports.
“A commenter objected to proposed Rule 5602.1(a)(4), which would make explicit that contests shall not be based on proposition betting or contests that have the effect of mimicking proposition betting. The Commission believes that a contest offering that is essentially sports betting, which is authorized for licensees and regulated pursuant to Racing Law Article 13 (not Article 14), cannot properly be characterized as IFS simply because an operator labels it as such.”
Jeremy Levine, Underdog Founder and Co-CEO, recently published his thoughts on the challenges to DFS.
“They can’t tell policymakers and others they don’t like competition, so FanDuel and DraftKings have constructed a disingenuous narrative that our fantasy sports contests are illegal. The arguments are ironic, ignoring the letter of the law for the same flimsy ‘feels like sports betting’ line that critics have always lobbed at their paid fantasy sports contests. That’s why, despite more than a year of effort and tons of lobbying dollars, FanDuel and DraftKings are losing the fight with regulators,” he wrote.
Levine said fantasy sports contests must be, at their core, a game based on skill, use predictions on two or more athletes from different teams, and have outcomes based upon those athletes’ accumulates statistics in real-world contests.
“Every single one of our contests meets that simple definition. Fantasy sports is not limited to only FanDuel and DraftKings’ salary cap contests. The laws they wrote say fantasy sports is far broader than just salary cap.”
Other fantasy platforms such as Sleeper are also available for Alabama residents. You can get the best Sleeper promo code here.
Robert is an expert on sports betting in the United States, specifically the legalization process and regulation surrounding the industry.
