You Can be the Next Fantasy Millionaire!

You know the commercials. You saw them at the beginning of the football season, ten at a time. You saw how Joe Schmoe was able to turn $2 into $2,000,000 and how easy it would be for you to be the next to do that. You heard the promises about how you would get a 100% deposit bonus up to $500 for joining using a specific promo code. You heard all these things. Until, all of a sudden, they stopped.

To say that these commercials annoyed the daylights out of the viewer is putting it mildly. Critics bashed the companies for running commercials that frequently. The public understands that a business needs to advertise to expand, but this strategy seemed to just infuriate. Unfortunately for these organizations, they gained the ire of the one group they didn’t want to: legislators.

Politicians from all over flocked at their chance to flog daily fantasy sites, such as FanDuel and DraftKings. The accusations came in a variety of forms, from misleading the public to undertaking an illegal gambling activity. Within a few months, several states put legislation on the table to discuss the legality. Gambling haven Nevada even went as far as to ban play on these sites by residents, calling it gambling adjacent.

There has been one publicly traded organization during this time that has been leading the cause to clear the name of daily fantasy. Amaya [AYA] made waves in the industry by preemptively removing access for players in all states where it had not yet been regulated to be legal. This reduced their potential client base by a significant amount, eliminating states with high volumes of players such as New York, Texas and Ohio. Thus, only a limited amount of players can use their product StarsDraft.

Amaya has a distinct advantage and another dog in this fight as well. In addition to owning StarsDraft, they also own both PokerStars and FullTilt, major names in the online poker business. When purchasing these companies, Amaya made nice with the US government by paying the amounts owed to patrons who had their money stolen from them by previous owners. They know this will only help them with their quest in both daily fantasy and online poker.

Amaya currently is the only fantasy organization within the US to be offered in the public market. To date, FanDuel and DraftKings have only done Series E funding. If fair regulation was put into place that fully legitimized the daily fantasy sports industry, Amaya could have an advantage on their competition. It doesn’t hurt them that they are listed on the market and have a strong relationship with governing bodies.

What will the future hold for daily fantasy? It is tough to say, but all signs are pointing up. That usually isn’t the case when legislation is being sought, but early indications have been favorable to the daily fantasy industry. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to any positive or negative information about the industry.