ESPN Provides Details on Eligibility
In the wake of the prize T-shirt that led to a failed House bill in Louisiana, FSB.com checked in with ESPN on its treatment of players from states with laws against fantasy payouts.
First of all, David Winkler won his uncollected T-shirt in a pay game, which is why ESPN said it couldn’t deliver the prize. Under Louisiana law, gambling occurs when a participant “risks the loss of anything of value in order to realize a profit” — or, you know, an extra day in the laundry cycle.
In addition to Louisiana, residents of Washington (state), Arizona, Maryland, Tennessee, Iowa, Vermont, Montana and North Dakota are ineligible to receive prizes from participating in pay games at ESPN.com. On top of being able to find these restrictions in the game rules — which most folks probably don’t read unless they’re suffering insomnia — ESPN users are presented the screen at the bottom of this story before purchasing their team, according to Kristie Chong of ESPN Communications.
One would have to be fairly unconcerned about where his $30 is going to skip the light reading on that page.
These restrictions, however, do not apply to games with no entry fee.
“If there is no cost to participate, then anyone can win — as long as they meet our other eligibility rules,” Chong told FSB.com. Presumably, the same should be true for any free-to-play game, though fantasy-game operators should seek legal advice before publicizing their eligibility rules.
This doesn’t, of course, speak to the strangeness of nearly a fifth of the states in our union keeping residents from collecting fantasy prizes. At the least, however, the Winkler case can serve as a warning to any resident of the nine states mentioned above to carefully check eligibility rules before putting your money down.
Tags: espn, fantasy football, fantasy sports, fantasy sports business, fantasy sports industry, louisiana, state law
