WSOP Distances Itself From DraftKings

Interest in Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) betting has been booming in the US over the past 12 months, but a recent scandal that has rocked the game now threatens to bring a level of legal scrutiny upon the industry not witnessed since the Department of Justice investigated the country’s unregulated online poker market prior to Black Friday. As a result, many of the business relationships which DFS operators had busily been cultivating are now beginning to dry up, with significant repercussions for the poker industry.
One such partnership now on the rocks is that between the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and DraftKings, who had been the main sponsor at this year’s prestigious tournament series in Las Vegas, but has now come to a premature end. The situation was compounded further after the state of Nevada ruled that DFS betting should be considered gambling, thus requiring operators such as DraftKings and FanDuel to cease offering their products to local residents, or else seek official state gaming licenses. As a result, DraftKings will no longer be represented when the WSOP Main Event resumes on November 6th, and commenting on the issue WSOP Vice President Seth Palansky explains:
“In light of last week’s news in Nevada, DraftKings asked us to cease any sponsorship activities around the remaining few WSOP events of the year, and we complied.”
In addition, the WSOP.com’s Twitch channel has removed DraftKings advertising from its site, suggesting other DFS sponsored poker deals could soon also be in jeopardy, such as DraftKings’ sponsorship deal with Twitch sensation Jason Somerville. Nevertheless, the sudden reversal of fortune for the DFS industry should come as no great surprise for the many poker players who experienced Black Friday. As Calvin Ayre reporter Bill Beatty previously stated:
“The similarities between the rise of online poker and the daily fantasy sports industry is eerie. Both are clearly gambling; both are touted as games of skill rather than luck and both piss off the powers that be who would rather have a say on how allegedly free Americans can spend their entertainment dollars.”