DFS Addiction?
8 years ago
26 Nov
The beleaguered Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) industry is facing a new discussion about its possible negative effects on 18-21 year olds, after Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey proposed a ‘playing ban’ on the age group.
“Teenagers to young adults in their mid-20s can be very susceptible to this kind of addiction,” said Healey in an interview. “The last thing we need to do is give young people another way to get into debt.”
The industry is currently undergoing intense scrutiny. Recently both DraftKings and FanDuel have been in court after New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, sent ‘cease-and-desist’ letters to the Daily Fantasy Sports giants last week, stating that their products “violated anti-gambling laws in the state.”
Healey’s recommendation does not mirror those of her New York counterpart, but instead raises a new issue which will hit DFS sites hard should it ever become a reality. College-aged students are a large part of the DFS demographic, with Eilers Research putting the figure at around 13% of DFS players being under the age of 24.
The current lower age limit set by DFS sites is 18, although many other gambling formats require players to be at least 21 years old to participate. Although neither DraftKings nor Fanduel have yet commented on Healey’s age restriction proposal, they have both agreed that stricter measures are required to verify players’ ages, and implemented tighter procedures.
The issue of gambling addiction is a thorny subject within the DFS and wider gambling industry, and although no research has yet been done on the specifics of DFS, the general opinion among experts is that the demographic Healey has outlined is one which is more susceptible to almost ALL forms of addiction.
R. Andrew Chambers, an Indiana University gambling expert from their Department of Psychiatry, stated:
At that age, brain circuits are more sensitive to the kind of excitement that the drugs or gambling might evoke,” adding, “This could be a potentially potent form of gambling for the 18-year-old male because it is tied in with sports, with gaming, it’s internet-based, there’s immediate gratification.”
The co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program, Timothy Fong, said:
It’s going to be a risky behavior for kids who have this risk factor. Is this risk worse than other forms of gambling? Is it worse than Grand Theft Auto? No one really knows.”
FanDuel Chief Executive Nigel Eccles, however, found the idea of raising the age limit “paternalistic”, and before the Healey announcement he was on record as saying:
When you can go to war, for someone to say, ‘You can’t play a game.’ For everything else beyond alcohol, the age is 18. It’s strange to have a higher age limit.”
The Massachusetts Attorney General has also proposed that DFS sites be disallowed from advertising their games on college campuses or in high schools and R. Andrew Chambers posed the question:
“Whether this is a particularly potent or insidious medium in young men, and can it lead to a bigger disaster? Do we want to wait five years until somebody puts out some grants so we can study what we already observe, that people are getting messed up on this stuff?”
The DFS giants are already contesting the New York legal measures and will surely look to fight any further encroachment on their industry workings.
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