NC Education Lottery Commission Looking to Get Rid of PrizePicks, Innovation in State?

North Carolina could soon be the next state Daily Fantasy Sports leader PrizePicks is forced to exit.

North State Journal's Bartlet Cleland reported on why the sudden change of stance as North Carolina had previously supported the Daily Fantasy Sports sector.

"Since the passage of the Gambling Enforcement Act nearly thirty states have also made clear that fantasy sports are not part of gambling, that games of skill are in fact something different, by updating and aligning their laws. The North Carolina legislature decided in June to join the crowd and make a similar differentiation in an effort to demonstrate, again, the state’s commitment to promoting innovation, competition, and consumer protection.

"When the lawmakers legalized mobile sports betting in the state this summer they decided to hand regulation of gambling to the North Carolina Education Lottery Commission. Almost immediately the Commission decided to try to expand its authority by rewriting the intent of the legislature.

"The Commission has issued draft rules that ignore the plain language letter of the law and has proposed greater restrictions single player fantasy sports, including vastly narrowing what fantasy sports even means. The state legislators could not have been clearer in protecting and defining fantasy sports..."

PrizePicks CEO Adam Wexler says the Journal does a good job of explaining what transpired.

"Along with other pro-innovation operators, PrizePicks helped craft model gaming legislation in North Carolina earlier this year. It's unfortunate that the rule making process didn't follow the wishes of the bill authors thus far -- hope to see things change appropriately soon enough."

A handful of states now want PrizePicks and similar DFS sites to stop offering a pick'em model that too closely resembles player prop bet parlays.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com