Real Money Daily Fantasy Sports Slots Are Coming, Because Of Course They Are
I write about version 2.0 of the daily fantasy sports industry a lot, mostly because there’s a lot of news, I lived and breathed version 1.0, and it needs a critical voice. If it’s not your cup of tea or you disagree with my takes, I am sorry, but I am at least trying not to write about it every week!
This was a particularly interesting week on the legal front, with New York and Michigan moving to stop player prop parlay apps from serving their states. That came on the heels of Florida sending cease-and-desist letters to some DFS operators. Both NY and Michigan also have sports betting industries where you can place the same bets as wagers instead of “DFS entries.” In states with sports betting laws on the books, it makes little sense to have the same product (parlays on player props) regulated in two different ways.
In any event, that’s not what I am writing about today. I’ve been saying for a while that someone would push the envelope on what can be defined as a “DFS game of skill” beyond what we have today. And that day appears to be close at hand.
Here’s a press release about an acquisition involving two small operators in the fantasy sports space. Most of the time, I would shrug and move on with my life, but this one is pretty interesting. The acquisition of BettorFantasy by FantasySpin indicates we’re likely moving into a new era of envelope-pushing.
To be clear, this is not daily fantasy against the house (at least not yet), but FantasySpin markets its game as “combining the skill of daily fantasy sports with the excitement of slot machines.” And with this acquisition, it’s clear a version of a “DFS slot machine” is coming as a real-money product to some states in the near future.
FantasySpin right now is free to play with virtual currency in 49 states (the omission is Washington state, where it’s dicey to allow almost anything that smells like online gambling). And you can’t deposit, and you can only win non-cash prizes. Here’s how it works:
You “spin” to create your lineup (the animation emulates a slot machine) to enter a contest against other users. Depending on the contest, you can “spin” your lineup anywhere from 1 to 10 times (by using virtual currency), and the mail “skill” is in being able to lock in players (again by spending virtual currency) before you spin again. Of note: there are contests with just one spin and no ability to change your lineup.
Here’s a screenshot of a contest based just on Thursday night’s NFL game:
Here’s a video of the gameplay mechanic; I have to say, the product itself is actually pretty good:
This mechanic had already been introduced for real money by fantasy site/app Owners Box, but here you can “spin” your lineups as many times as you like, so FantasySpin is taking it a step further:
As we sit here, it’s unclear what the real-money version of this will look like at FantasySpin; it could certainly change before a relaunch. Is there skill in playing FantasySpin as currently offered and if the same product is offered for real money? Sure, but there’s also some amount of skill involved in almost any type of gambling.
The moral of the story is this: If you squint hard enough, you can merge the ideas of DFS (using the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act as cover at the federal level) and game of skill laws at the state level to go down this rabbit hole as far as you want.
What’s stopping anyone from offering an iteration of FantasySpin as a game against the house in various states? Why can’t I make a slot machine using athletes where the skill involved is when I press a button to stop the reels? (OK, maybe that last one is an exaggeration, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is trying to figure that product out.)
I’ll be fascinated to see what the real-money version of FantasySpin looks like and find out exactly how far we’re pushing the envelope.
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