Fantasy Football Gambling to Save Montana Horse Tracks
While some states have used the development of racinos and the introduction of slots at tracks as a method to subsidize and save the horse racing industry, Montana has come up with an intriguing alternative. The state legislature has passed a plan to create a statewide fantasy football league, which would pay funds to horse tracks.
If the plan takes hold as the state foresees, future fantasy games featuring baseball, Nascar, and other sports may become included. The Montana Lottery and the Montana Board of Horse Racing are jointly in charge of the project.
A clause in the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act allows for fantasy sports to be considered an exception to the online gaming the Act forbids, and gives the states power to define restrictions and freedoms relative to fantasy games.
Billings, Great Falls, and Miles City are currently the only Montana cities with operating tracks; Missoula and Kalispell recently dropped the sport due to rising costs and diminishing returns.
The Montana law that allows fantasy gambling specifies that the game be run by a parimutuel location licensed by the racing board. Payouts are prescribed at 74% for participants, with the remainder divided 15 % to the fantasy operator, 24% to the facility, and 61% into a reserve fund.
Glenn Colton, a legal expert on fantasy sports law, was quoted by KFFL, a fantasy site, as saying, "The law in this area continues to evolve and appears to be evolving in the direction that fantasy sports does not represent illegal gambling.”
It is good that some forms of gambling are recognized as embedded in the culture of everyday life, and that attempts to legislate against such gambling outlets as fantasy sports will just create a nation of scofflaws. Hopefully, federal lawmakers will soon realize that this concept applies to gambling in general.
